Taking Off and Landing
The Future
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Faithful, Occasional Readers,
Upon consulting with my board of advisors, I’ve decided to grant this blog a stay of execution. I’m getting married in less than a month, so this is way down my list of things to keep up with. But, post-wedding, I’ve decided to give this little blog one more chance at life.
Stay tuned, and thanks for reading. In the meantime, I need ten suggestions for blog topics in the future.
Go.
Yes, I Voted for the Prez; No, I’m Not Cancelling Class
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I’ve been talking for a while now about my ambivalence regarding voting, political involvement, and the like. And let me say again: it’s not that going to a neighborhood meeting or pulling a lever or being a councilman is morally wrong. None of these things are bad in and of themselves. The trouble comes when these things put themselves in the position of saying that the religious life or the lif e of discipleship becomes conflated with these things. In other words, I worry about the line of reasoning that as a Christian, the political life (participation in government change) is the final goal, the apex, the summum bonum of Christian existence.
Case in point: I teach an introduction to Christian Heritage class on Tuesday-Thursday at 8 a.m. I’ve had a student ask if, in light of the inauguration, we can cancel class. My response was, “No, we’re going to have class. If you choose to watch the inauguration, that is your preroggative.” I know of other colleagues who are cancelling class for the inauguration, and that too, is their preroggative. But to that, I offer the following caveat:
Obama is not the Messiah.
Yes, I cast my vote for President-Elect Obama; yes, I think that his policies had more promise than McCain’s vis-a-vis war, energy, job creation, and host of other issues, but do I think that he’s going to be able to do all he promised? Not a chance. I think he’ll do a good job; I hope he’ll do a good job. But if the two come into conflict, I hope that Christians everywhere would have the courage to say that the church offers something that Obama does not, namely Christ, the one who establishes true polity and union, and who renders all other political life provisional at best.
There’s a ton of ways to slice up religion and politics:
–You can see the church and state cooperating toward a single common good.
–You can see the church as the conscience within the larger public sphere.
–You can see the state as the telos towards any good religious teaching, that all religion is ethics.
–You can see the state as guiding people toward the church.
These are of course, just four options. My own take is somewhere near #1, with the following provision: what the state defines as goods and what the church defines as goods are not the same. When the state promises ‘freedom’ or ‘equity’, this is a purely pragmatic definition, a detente between warring parties; one only has to look at the way that Rick Warren and Gene Robinson are both part of the festivities to see that Obama is part of this as well. But when Christianity speaks of ‘freedom’ or ‘equity’, this is an entirely radical thing, speaking of the Christ who cuts across geographic boundaries and who relativizes incomes and offers a singular vision of God. These two are not the same.
So, no, I’m not cancelling class on Tuesday, because I believe that what theology offers is not the same as politics, and that as much promise as Obama offers, what he offers is ultimately a difference of degree, rather than type, in politics. The radical Christian vision is one that can be called a number of things, but to call it quietist or sectarian because it refuses to honor civil events is to misunderstand the relationship: that politics is ultimately provisional, and can lead to Christ, but only if politics understands itself as not the ultimate end of the religious life. Aristotle, as Laura reminded me, said that ethical reflection leads to political life; my counter to that, however, is that what Aristotle has in mind here vis-a-vis ethics is only partly encapsulated by Christian teaching: there comes a point at which–as Aquinas saw–Aristotle can be a guide to Christian faith, but ultimately finds himself grasping at the meaning of life apart from the guidance of faith.
Let the church be the church.
Life Updates
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I could resolve to make this blog more than it really is, to give it a sense of what it used to be; I could swear up and down that once again, I’ll post witty paragraphs comparing coffee to the workings of divine grace, but that’d be a lie. These days, I do well to get the writing done that I have to do, much less do the writing I’d like to be doing.
Let me back up: I do writing that I enjoy. But there’s a lot of writing that is done, in part, to pad a little thing called the “ciriculum vitae”. Mine’s looking better than it used to, and not as good as it will, but at the moment, it’s littered with a number of things that I’m doing just to have something on these sheets of paper. In February 2010, this changes, with the publication of a book that alter the landscape of how people read John Howard Yoder. At least that’s the hope.For the last two weeks, I’ve been sitting with two other guys in a very small room, for several hours a day, lightly editing a series of lectures Yoder did in the 1980s in Warsaw, which we’re titling simply Nonviolence–A Brief History. Watch for it via Baylor University Press.
But enough about the writing life, as it’s one thing, but hardly the most important. More significant is that this bachelor is, against all odds, becoming a married man in June. Sarah Marie Martin, Michigander, social worker extrordinaire, lover of Cheez-its, wearer of pink, hoper for the hopeless–I’m way out of my league. She loves Jesus and Elvis and high school football and yours truly. So, right now is wedding plans and moving out of my curent locale into a temporary–and free–living arrangement to prepare for the impending seismic shift.
Two things are true here: 1) I love this woman more than I know how to, and 2) I’m in way over my head.
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Other than that, dissertation is coming along slowly, pastor search is still ongoing, and friends are gracious and good. There’s the run of the mill garbage that comes with people being toolbags and institutions being foolish, but what else can I say? Teaching’s a blast; my students either love me or think I’m the anti-Christ; I had four students shake my hand and thank me on the way out of their final. I’m grateful all the way around.
Busy, exhausted, stressed, but at the bottom, utterly thankful and amazed.
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What’s to become of this blog in the future? We’ll see. For the time being, I suggest you check this out, or see which of the blogs on the left-hand side are still live ones: it’s been a bad year for the blogs that I used to frequent with a high number of casualties. My sense is that this cluster of ones and zeroes on the Internet will become an outpost for musings more personal than professional, more episodic than sustained.
See you soon.
As If You’ve Never Wanted to Bust Kurt Russell
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I currently live in a house, until the first of year, with a couple who love television. I mean, LOVE: when they moved in, they brought with them their complete package of digital cable-expanded package-premium channels, and continue to pay an extra share for it to continue to be a reality in the house. I’ve never been much of a TV-watcher, but with literally 500 channels to choose from, it’s hard not to find myself sitting on the couch with Die Hard going in the background while I mindlessly grade papers.
Die Hard post forthcoming. Don’t think I won’t post on that Christmas-time gem.
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Tonight, as I sit down to crank out some notes from the evening pastor search committee, I see Kurt Russell driving a car like hell through a deserted backroad, with Rosario Dawson in close pursuit. Obviously, I am intrigued. It’s a meeting of Overboard and Rent: what’s not to hate about this trainwreck already?
A quick look at the information on the cable reveals that this is indeed Quentin Tarrantino’s Grindhouse. For the next 30 minutes, I watch Russell drive with a bullet in his shoulder, pursued by three violent–yet mildly attractive–women until they run Russell off the road. And stomp on Russell’s face with a stilleto.
There might have been a time when I liked the Tarrantino films. I still admire portions of Pulp Fiction, mostly because it’s a highlight for both Samuel L and John Travolta, gems in an otherwise lackluster decade of films for both actors. I love the pontifications of Pulp Fiction; I enjoy the snazz of watching Uma Thurman kick ass; I really get tired of the gratuitous violence. A stilleto? To the face? Really?
One and a half Dodge Chargers out of five. Quentin, I am losing my patience.
On Voting or Not
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The national fervor over voting (which I participated in) has become a national diet supplement for actual political involvement. In being so excited about voting about those who will vote and deciding about those who will decide, America has said two things: 1) the epitome of being political is to abandon one’s ability to be political, and 2) “America” is a legislative idea, not an actual one. Let me explain:
1) By being so excited about voting for the voters and deciding for the deciders, what we have effectively said is that being political is an agency which not only has to be channelled through certain filters (bureaucracies, legislative houses, etc.), but that these legislative bodies are the eptiome of being political. In other words, what you or I might do on a local level is less-than-political. In being so excited about electing electors, we have forgotten that people are meant to be political, i.e. self-organizing. There are better or worse ways of doing this, but the point is that by being so excited about having someone who will decide things for us, we have said that to be TRULY political, one has to give up one’s own ability and hand it to another. In other words, we should wait on the government to fix schools, or on the government to help people get jobs, or on the government to do X.
Seriously? Tutoring a kid or taking someone to a job interview is a political act! It’s acknowledging that the federal level is ultimately unable to live up to its claim to take care of things on a broad level, and doing the work anyway. To look to the act of electing as the height of political involvement is to abandon any sense of change that doesn’t happen outside the bounds of legislative act.
2) By being so excited about voting and electing, “America” has become a legislative ideal, not an actual one. “America” now means a body of laws and lawmakers, not the people themselves. Forgetting that the laws are ultimately things we’ve put on over against ourselves, we treat the law as the thing we cannot live up to, and the thing which ultimately defines what Americans are. People are more than their laws, and more than their legislators (hopefully). They are pluriform and multitude, uncontainable by legislation. Legislation helps provide some bounds, but if these are so necessary, why do they keep shifting in response to the people? Because the people are the ones running the show.
All this is to say that when we vote today, let us realize that what we’re doing is ONE MORE WAY of being political, not the ultimate way. Voting is us speaking our minds on a national level, but does NOT take the place of BEING political. Don’t wait on elected officials to do the work that people are always meant to do: feed one another, teach one another, and take care of each other. Tutor a child, cook a meal for your neighbor, help a teenage mom beat the tax system.
Yes, I voted; you can if you want, but I’ll say that it’s ONE way among others of living out the political life.
Give Me A Song
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So, one of the things I do with my class is I try to start every class, while they’re filing in at 7.50 or so, with a song that quasi-relates to the theme of the day. For example, today, we’re talking about “Authority in the Church”, what it’s comprised of, where it comes from, etc. Today’s song, thus, is one of the best songs about questioning religious authority there is: “Rock the Casbah” by The Clash. For the rise of early Christianity, since it has to do with Jesus being the fulfillment of pagan philosophical systems, I’m playing “Chocolate Jesus” by Tom Waits.
I’ve offered bonus points to the class to help me come up with songs for future classes, but so far, very few takers. And so, I turn to the world-wide-web for help. I’ve posted the syllabus here; any suggestions for upcoming class dates are welcome.
Teaching the Faith
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At Kevin’s suggestion, one of the first things I did for class was have my students tell me a little bit about where they’re coming from with regards to the Christian faith. To give them an easy ten points, I had them do a page or so telling me about where they and Christianity stand. At a religiously-affilliated university, this is nothing less of a loaded question. Or is it?
When I was in undergrad, the assumption was that everyone was not only Christian, but Baptist; not only Baptist, but evangelical. The weekly Praise and Worship event became a fairly politicized event, in that it became a rallying point around which this vision of the campus could be communicated. I’m not saying that this was entirely detrimental, but like any political event, it tends towards creating one version of the campus that implicitly marginalize other versions. If you were liturgical or Catholic or traditional, P&W was not going to be your place. And by proxy, I wonder now if OBU could even have been their university.
Accordingly, I love being at Baylor, where there is a milder sense of confessionalism. By that, I mean that the university is confessionally Christian, building the faith into the university’s goals, or rather, building the university in such a way that it fleshes out Christian faith. This is a very Protestant way of thinking about the question, (that faith is something which needs a concrete form–but this is a very long rabbit trail) but I appreciate the intentionality of it. Due to size, or the Baptist belief in soul competency, or maybe because Baylor is part of the Big 12–home of UT, Texas A&M and other bastions of Keystone Light–it tends to draw tons of folks that are neither Baptist nor Christian in any strong sense. Some days I miss the coherency of a small Arkansas Baptist school, where all things point in one direction, but most days, I love the diversity of where I am more.
The assignments came back staggeringly different than I had anticipated. Only two students in my intro class identified as Baptist. The rest: Catholic, non-denominational, Methodist, agnostic, Pentecostal, Jehovan’s Witness, National of Islam, and not that interested. At the world’s most prestigious Baptist institution, there are hardly any Baptists in my little cross-section of the campus. For teaching purposes, of course, this really complicates pretty much every lecture I will give. No longer can I give simply a Protestant approach to these things, but teaching requires a new sense of generosity and plurality. I can’t assume that when I say something like “sacrament” that students have any idea what I’m talking about. I can’t assume that when I say something like “The Apostles’ Creed” that my kids have any familiarity with it, or that they’ll be able to recognize it as something worth saying.
In one way, it brings a great sadness on me that these things which I find as the richest source of life are those things completely foreign to my students. But then, did I have any knowledge of them at 20? Did I know the riches of the Tradition or was I more concerned with making sure the f-stop was right on my camera? Not that the two are mutually exclusive, but then, one had nothing to do with the other. These days, one can’t help but inform the other.
It’s a complicated task, teaching the heritage of the Christian faith to a group that either is immersed in it and doesn’t know it, or feels no need to learn it. All I can do is present the internal logic of the faith the best way that I can, and hope for the best. My job is not to go for conversion, but to present the twists and ugly turnpikes of the Christian history in a way that shows why thinking and practices are hand in glove, and that the only Christianity that is is one which is arguing with itself along the road to life.
Telling the Story
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So, in the Fall, i.e., in about 17 days, I’ll be teaching a course called “Introduction to Christian Heritage”, which is effectively all of Christian history and theology in one semester, fifty minutes a shot. After looking over several syllabi, I’m quickly realizing that this is an impossible task, an exercise in utter futility. I’m reminded of the Ani Difranco song where she describes having to flee a burning building, but only having arms enough to carry one of your children at a time. What do you leave behind? What do you let go?
Do I teach Irenaeus or Tertullian? Calvin or Luther? How can I not talk about the mystics? How can I leave out St. Francis? Very quickly, the bus fills up, and there are too many folks left at the stop, carrying their sack lunches, trying to get back to the monastery. I slam the door, pull my driver’s cap down, and speed through the yellow light. Immediately, I regret having picked up Schleiermacher, with Catherine of Siena still on the corner looking so frail and waif-like. Schleiermacher is forever kicking the back of my seat, while Catherine would always sit politely, scribbling in her notebook.
In two weeks, I’ve got to figure this out. I’ve got to have made my decisions as to how this story goes, the story of the church and the world, the tale of the pilgrim people of God in the dark. Is it a comedy? A tragedy? A thriller? At times, a slasher flick, and at times, a dramedy. The plot keeps changing, the cast of characters keep shifting–just as soon as you like one character, they wander off screen to be replaced by another lookalike who doesn’t seem to know that they’re supposed to imitate the ticks of the previous one–it makes the plot easier to follow.
But the characters keep changing things up and losing their lines and improvising brilliantly, and so this is a really hard story to tell. But it’s a good story, and one I’ll enjoy figuring out how to tell. In the Spring, I’ll tell it again, for a different group who haven’t heard this one before. It never gets old, and I imagine, I’ll never stop crapping my pants at the thought of telling it wrong.
The Ending of Summer Approaches on an Overstuffed Pillow: A Haiku
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August One: never a friend.
It speaks of deadlines, and nights
Measured in worry, not love.
HOW TO TALK PAST EVIL IN THREE STEPS or WHY THE BAD GUYS IN FILM GO FREE
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In this post, I’m going to attempt to do two things: 1) discuss two seemingly dissimilar movies (No Country for Old Men and The Dark Knight, and 2) offer up a theory of why in both of these movies, the bad guys keep getting away. Here’s a hint: it has nothing to do with the bad guys being really slippery or the good guys being inept.
The Dark Knight, by the way, was freaking awesome, and I’ll try to talk about the movie without actually talking about it, for the sake of the three readers of this blog who still haven’t seen it.
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In No Country, you have the story of Anton Chigur, an unstoppable force of evil who takes delight in being the purveyor of death, as evidenced by the near-orgasmic look on his face in his first kill. It’s no small stretch to see Heath Ledger’s take on the Joker in a similar vein; he gleefully describes the difference between using knives and guns, noting that the knives are just more exquisite. Two films, two villans who have looked over the edge of the abyss and found only their only reflection looking back. Both villans are described as living by their own internal code of right and wrong, and as such, find absolute joy in living out that chaos and destruction.
This is the genius of these characters: it’s not that they have chosen to live out the ‘bad’ end of society’s spectrums, embracing the illegal end of the law; for both Joker and Anton Chigur, there is no law. All that is left, having broken past the bounds of right and wrong, lawful and unlawful, is sheer aesthetics: the delicious and exquisite embrace of pleasure for its own sake. At one point, the Joker remarks to Batman that he could never kill him. Why?
“You’re just too much fun.”
The problem that both Batman and the sheriff of No Country suffer from is the same: they operate within a framework of good and evil that their villans simply do not recognize. Seeing it in the chaos wrought by the Joker is easy: Batman’s heroics are characterized as stretching the limits of what constitutes pursuing the ‘good’. As he taps citizens cell phones and risks the lives of the innocent, Batman strains the limits of being a good guy, doing what he does for the sake of the city; the Joker’s crimes, however, have no logic of right and wrong and so for all Batman’s straining the limits of moral behavior, the Joker moves along unphased. In No Country, we see the same behavior, as the sheriff and his crew struggle to make sense of why Chigur is chasing after the money; in the closing monologue, the sheriff describes a dream of his father, and how in it, he loses money, but experiences no real remorse over this loss: for him, the money central to the narrative of No Country bears no meaning for the sheriff, a man of the land and of family.
And so, two heroes, and two complete lacks of understanding. In both cases, it is not that the hero tries to overcome evil and lacks the will to do it; evil is simply playing a game that good knows nothing about, and so, the good guys come off looking befuddled and helpless, grasping at straws, making heroic gestures that completely miss the point. Because for Chigur and the Joker, the hero’s willingness to go beyond the normalcy of good is not what is required; for either to be stopped, good and evil have to be discarded altogether, and they must be defeated by being more beautiful than their opponent, by performing an act so altogether haunting that their opponent respects them, not as a moral superior, but as a true artist.
It does no good extending our own definitions of good to match the excesses of evil, for evil plays by a logic that has no respect for the rules; it goes up chutes and turns over ladders, examining lines on the board as no more solid than light beams streaming through the dust. And so, approaches to evil must not seek to match their excesses, but stand in their core strength, and in doing so, bear the scourges of evil in order to overcome it–not by force, but by suffering.
