After conversion, part of being Christian is the growing understanding of exactly what the Christian's place and role in the narrative of Messiah Jesus and His Church and the place of other religions, spiritualities, and ideologies in relation to that narrative. At the center of the Christian narrative is the claim that Messiah Jesus is unique, and that all of history turns upon the life, death, and resurrection of that same Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life.
"The Bible sets forth a story of the world, from its beginning to its ending. It is the only true story of the world, all other stories being at best partial renditions of the world story disclosed in the Bible. Consequently, all other stories must be inscribed into the biblical story, rather than the biblical story into any one of them. Insofar as we allow the biblical story to become our story, it overcomes our reality. We no longer view the world as we once did; we view it from the point of view of a character in the Bible's story." Gerard Loughlin, Telling God's Story: Bible, Church, and Narrative Theology (p. Cambridge University Press: New York, 1996), 37.
For a long time i thought Christianity was based upon allegiance too a set of propositional truth statements, theological, doctrinal, or creedal. It was nice intellectually, but it left my relational life in shards and didn't inspire motivation for a changed lifestyle. Plus, it was an out-and-out accommodation to Rationalism, although i didn't know it at the time. It was a major realignment for me to begin to understand my faith in a narrative, to see my life as a role in the drama of not only personal but universal redemption. I don't know what caused this shift within my perspective; perhaps it was something primal, hardwired inside deep. It began with beginning to study Reformation theology, especially Luther, and deepened when i began to read the Church fathers. I prefer narrative theology to systematic theology these days.
Christianity is an exciting and hard path to walk along, especially in relationship with American pop culture. Don't get me wrong, there are also many things in the culture around me that are similar, especially the American love for a great story. However, try to say that Jesus Messiah and His narrative is the only true story and then watch the shit hit the fan. In this pluralistic society, the one absolute is the belief is that there are no absolutes, and not to be "pluralistic" or "inclusive" is to dare the wrath of almost everyone.
The Kingdom of God that i am a subject in, has no need of either secular power or influence. The Church, whether Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican or Protestant, is it's own political entity, its own culture and society. The problem, of course, is that throughout history Christians who have not understood this, or those who were never converted in the first place, have compromised the Gospel or sold their soul for secular power or for cultural influence. Unfortunately, except in extraordinary times, those that day to day walk the orthodox way doesn't exactly get the press. For every Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Bishop Spong, and Jesus Seminar there are hundreds, thousands of Christians who simply live their lives as ambassadors from another land, and who are people who search for reconciliation with God.
Today is Friday and the end of the work week for many people; although not for me because i have to work tomorrow. Fridays and Saturdays are relatively slow days here, as most people have lives and few want to be caught in the Library on a weekend. This will give me time to catch up on my next project. I have to finish an incomplete grade from a couple of semesters ago in order to complete my student teaching requirement. The incomplete is my Methods class -- one of only two education classes i have taken that were not almost entirely worthless. However, altho this class was better than most education classes i've taken, it still didn't have an awful lot to do with the day to day work of a teacher, at least not at the school i did my pre-practicum. I pretty much was mocked and laughed at by the teachers for all the hoops the Education Department was putting me thru -- it seems the University cares more about accreditation than they do about equipping people to excel at what they will actually have to do as a teacher on the ground to survive in a public school. I need to prepare a ten lesson unit on the Civil War and a slide show presentation introducing the unit. Hopefully i can be done in two or three weeks...
Thinking about all the hoops i have to jump thru to obtain a couple scraps of paper made me think about politics. Now there are two kinds of politics, although they tend to overlap and intermingle with each other. One is Politics with a big "P" and has to do with our traditional concept of institutional intrigue and ideology. The other has to do with power as well, although in a different sphere, that of interpersonal relationships. Looked at this way, i guess someone could say that everything is politics, altho not everything has to do with ideology.
Teachers have to deal with both. The Administration in any school represents institutional power, as does the presence of a union. This is politics with a capital 'P." They also have to take into account their relationship with other teachers, with their students, and with their student's parents. There is a lot of politics happening there, albeit with a small "p." All i want to do is to be left alone enough to teach history to High School kids for a reasonable block of time each day. I have no agenda, no ideology, no plans of indoctrination. I passionately believe that the role of a teacher is two-fold: to impart a certain body of knowledge and to teach kids how to make up their own minds about what to do with that knowledge. I don't care if a kid is a Republican or a Democrat, a Christian or an atheist; all i care is that they have carefully thought out their decisions based on some kind of historical knowledge as to why they believe and act the way they do. I want these kids to do their own thinking.
Really, i am sick beyond death of people who do not have the intellectual chops, the humility, and the courage to question their own assumptions across the spectrum and come to their own conclusions. If a student at this University had an original thought his/her head would probably explode, whether that thought had to do with Politics or politics. Around here it is people like Howard and Noam who do the political thinking for almost everyone; Rush, George (Will) and Sean think pretty much for the rest Politically. on the other hand, people are very anxious to mimic the attitudes and beliefs of who ever is a) in charge enough to have the ability to control the direction of their work environment or career, or b) are very charismatic and popular. In both instances, it is amazing to see how fast people turn into parrots for the sake of politics...
Oh well, life is what it is, at least we have music to take the edge off things occasionally. I thought you's all enjoy some Cash, so here's Johnny.
I have been having trouble adjusting to normality, mostly because i seem to be allergic to responsibility. For so long i was in crisis mode, and my behavior was strictly defined by the role i played. Played hell, i knew exactly who i was and what i was supposed to do -- the love of Messiah Jesus compelled me. The cool thing about being down and out is the lack of options one has to choose from -- you can improvise your life because really, you are powerless and have no choice except to go with what direction the current is going in order to find out what chance will pop up in a predetermined river course. Forrest was right when he thought that perhaps Lt. Dan's destiny theory and his Mom's random and arbitrary chance theory were pretty much happening at the same time (loved Forrest Gump -- every time i watch i weep for all the Jennys when she and Forrest kneel in the field to recite Psalm 55). I may not have known what was coming, but it was something that God has allowed, whatever it is that is coming my way.
I'm a poor man's Milton -- i really cannot justify or explain God's ways to men. I just know now that crisis mode is done for me and that there are some definite and completely different expectations upon me from the same my gang but also from a new bunch of people, expectations i am very familiar with being unable to meet as i almost assume the disappointment i will be to whoever is stupid enough to depend upon me. Seriously? I walk around all day with this weird knot of stress balled up in my stomach, flinching and hunched because somewhere & somehow the other shoe that isn't mine is about to drop to signal my descent into some kinda new and unexpected cluster fuck that will be, of course, my fault.
I'm a semi-intelligent guy, and i know the drill. (There is a calmness underlying this emotion that i am describing, an underlying knowledge that i call faith. Perspective wise, what can really happen to me that hasn't already happened -- what do i have to fear, as nothing can separate me from the love of God? Although things can ALWAYS be worse, I have seen some pretty serious shit so it takes a lot for me to get concerned. I am aware of the platitude crouched in Christianese most believers would offer me at this point...)
I already intuitively know that i am the way that i am due partly to temperament, partly due to nurture. My Mother was a complex women, and none of the male gender in my family could have ever met any of the expectations she had for any of us -- me especially as it turns out that i was the great white hope outta my brothers and sisters. On top of everything else, when anyone opens the dictionary for the definition of "Passive/Aggressive," my picture and e-mail address is there instead.
I do know something, tho. I know where i've been, and i don't wanna ever go there again. Tonight i'm gonna retire this tune by Springsteen because this was my theme song for so long, my emotional address. It isn't anymore... I am also going to do my Evening prayers from the Book of Common prayer, as i have been struggling to be consistent in prayer.
I firmly believe that people try their best to derive meaning in their lives and their world around them from stories, whether written or put on film or sung. I really don't think people are all that different from pre-modern people this way, regardless of the fact the Enlightenment happened. Don't get me wrong, i am a real fan of many of the things that modern science has provided while being a huge critic of the ideology of Rationalism.
I liked the Potter series because she didn't soft peddle life to a group of people that are no where near as innocent and clueless as most adults think they are. Injustice, death, abandonment, anger, joy, failed expectations, acceptance, friendship, betrayal and loyalty are an integral part of a child's life. I also think, because Rowlings was educated as a Classicist, that Potter was so popular because she tapped into some deep, deep myths and legends from western culture. The whole thing was just so familiar... It has been said that if you have read Milton, the Bible, and Shakespeare that you have read most of western literature, and this is especially true of the Potter series along with JRR Tolkein's Ring trilogy and CS Lewis's Narnia series. Frankly, i am very surprised the Potter series was as popular as it was because of this -- we live in a time when Orwell was wrong and Huxley was right and its more like A Brave New World than Animal Farm. I would think that an obvious attack on Lewis's and Tolkien's works, like the His Dark Materials trilogy(some very nasty stuff), the movies Blade Runner or The Matrix, would be more to the cultural zeitgeist than Rowling's stuff. But go figure, huh?
The cultural battleground more and more revolves around the question of which narrative will people live their lives by here in the wild, wild west. Every "ism," every religion or spirituality, has a narrative that explains to people why things are the way they are, and how they can navigate the world to their advantage. It is an interesting question, is it not? What narrative do you derive your assumptions and presuppositions from? Each one are vying for people's loyalty, and it is going to get worse before it gets better as Americans are very fond of taking a little of that and a little of that to customize what they will believe.
I spent the better part of two hours in a McDonald's two days ago explaining the Christian narrative to a pal i see sometimes at work and sometimes around who probably, more than anything else, is a Buddhist. What gets me is how much i first had to repair just how badly the Christian narrative has been told and represented before we could really move into what a life lived in the drama of God's redemptive story might look like. Sigh...
I live in a post-Harry Potter world now, just like i live in a post-Christian culture...
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, The Wife and I are doing well, and life, although not exactly rosy, doesn't exactly suck either. I am getting closer to getting my Student Teaching set up (THANKS CHRIS) and work has settled into quite the routine. Tomorrow or the next day i will get more into the narrative that is my day instead of all this abstract stuff, if i can actually get on Vox to blog, so peace all.
"They [the Alliance] will swing back to the belief that they can make people better. I don't hold with that." Capt. Mal, Serenity
It has occurred to me that most of the ills inflicted upon people in this life has been done in the name of good. Many a crime against humanity has been done in the name of religion or progress. Or, as the falsely accused lead character in The Green Mile said, this world uses people's love to kill them (as the real killer used the love the two sisters had for each other in order to make them be quiet when he abducted them in order to rape and murder them). It is theology Sunday Wednesday ;o), and today's subject is Original Sin.
Classic orthodox theology has always taught that God created this world and everything in it, visible and invisible, and that He pronounced that creation, including mankind, as "good." This would be why Christians called the very first rebellion against God as a fall from grace and not an improvement (as the later gnostics would claim), and why Christians have never believed in a dualism between the material and the spirit. The fall of mankind may be likened to a priceless Ming Dynasty vase toppling and smashing onto the marble floor of the museum, after which the curator tries to put it back together with glue. Although the repaired vase can be identified as a vase, its integrity and wholeness has been shattered, and it is no longer the priceless vase it was. Man was made in the image of God, but that image has been shattered, and everyone is trying to repair themselves with Elmer's Glue.
The fall, the rebellion of man against God, was and is about power, about control. Genesis has Satan tempting the pair with the promise that they would be like God, knowing good and evil, that they would be equal to the Uncreated Himself -- they no longer would have to depend on God for their life and provision. Satan lied, of course, and instead of being equals with God we were cut lose as enemies, separated and alienated from He who is love, from He who made us. We have become our own god, and we will do whatever is necessary in order to insure our own survival and security -- for our own good.
We are all born this way, with this will to power hardwired into our human constitution, beyond DNA or RNA. We are the authors of our own misery, the victims of our delusions of grandeur. In the new Harry potter, as in TLOR, the two wizards are be tempted by power, and would be corrupted by that power in seeking to do good. Gandalf would use the Ring for Good, and end up being worse than Saurman; Dumbledore would dominate the Muggles with Grindelwald "for their own good.. for the greater good," and become much worse a tyrant than Voldemort.
I believe the new tyranny will come in the here and now are from those who seek to control/manipulate for the greater good, for the Public's safety. This is a very efficient way to tag and eventually bag everyone. Here in Massachusetts, everyone now has to have health insurance under threat of penalty, and no one can smoke anyplace public because the Democrats are so concerned about the health & wellbeing of each and every one of us. The Republicans would wage unending conflict in the Middle East for the security of the US and for every American's "way of life." I don't know about you, but i don't sleep better at night knowing that they are concerned about how i live my life. Sam Harris, Dawkins, and Hichens all want to ban religion from the world for the good of humanity, regardless of the concept of the freedom of religion written in the US Constitution or the fact that they are a sliver of a minority in the world. But let us not spare those "Christians" and members of other religions that want to impose their own morality on pretty much everyone else. Lord, please spare me the attention of all these people so concerned about my own good...
I'm with CS Lewis -- half the reason i think Christianity, the Christianity faithful handed down from the Apostles anyway, is true is because it is so counter intuitive to the will to power. Messiah Jesus says blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, blessed are the ethically and religiously bankrupt, those who realize their condition to be catastrophic, who realize their total inability to heal or repair their inherited lack, or to impress God with their good works. If you would gain your life, says Jesus, you must first lose your life. This humiliation is such a contradiction to modern ears! All that we have schemed and constructed and achieved for our security must be renounced; we must fling ourselves into God's hands and depend on Him to supply our needs instead of ourselves -- this is not music to our ears.
I'll be honest -- i think most of the people everyone else considers spokespeople for the "Christian Right" are just men or women who have hijacked religion for political purposes, to use to justify their will to power. Usually it isn't politics that need protection from religion, it is vise versa. I think of extremists "Muslims," militant atheists, ideology driven politicians from the Right and the Left and i don't think they represent what they claim they represent. We live in interesting days, eh?
Yup, you guessed it, today is literary Thursday and as promised today is the Harry Potter edition.
Its been Harry Potter all day all the time since the movie came out a week ago Wednesday, much to my personal annoyance. Although i enjoy a good book as much as the next person, i have to admit that i rarely believe them to be the keys to a happy and satisfied life, nor do i identify with a fictional to the extent that i am confused as to who is who when i am reading. Much of this HP mania is exactly that, a mania, an unhealthy obsession -- finetuned and brought to you by the media in all its forms.
On the other hand, a well written work of fiction can engage your imagination and transport you to a completely different level of reality for as long as your reading. Some of my fondest memories are Indian Summer afternoons in the Bayard public library reading John Carter: Warlord of Mars, or a Sackett western by Louis L'moure, or going though all the Peanuts books the library had, which meant they were all mostly from when Schultz was at his best in the 60s. They influenced me, to be sure; however, their influence was balanced by the healthy dose of reality i faced everyday - i was sick, unpopular, ignored by any adult authority anywhere else outside of my house or a classroom, and a moving target for anyone stronger than me who had a bad day. The library and the little worlds i called books were a sanctuary, not illusions i mistook for real life.
I am looking forward to reading the last book because there are so many loose ends to tie up! This issue i'm gonna try my hand at being the prognosticator of prognosticators, Amherst Martin. I will, of course, look extremely stupid on Saturday morning.
1. Will Harry survive? Yes indeed. His "passing" would upset the children, and what about the children, dammit?
2. What about Ron and Hermione? Ron buys the farm, Hermione survives. I'd bet she has a shot at Minister of Magic later in life after a stint as headmistress of Hogwarts after McGonnagal.
3. What other major character dies? Lupin is very vulnerable (sorry Tonks), Percy (bastard deserves it), Bellatrix LeStrange (who should be hung, cursed, jinked, drug behind a broomstick and then killed), and Draco (whoops, didn't do what he was supposed to do, now did he?) all go on to their eternal reward, whatever that might be. Of course, He-who must-not-be-named buys it too and has a new address in the inner ring of hell, frozen in the same block of ice Satan is in.
4. Is Harry a Horicrux? No. This was and is a dumb idea.
5. Is Sirius dead? No. Wherever he went, odds are he'll be back.
6. What about Snape? He survives and is acknowledged as a hero who helped stop the Dark Lord. (I think Snape is the most interesting character Rowlings has written)
7. What about Neville? He kills Bellatrix and goes on to teach herbology at Hogwarts.
8. Will Hogwarts be open? Yes. Probably will be the stage of battle, maybe even the final battle (altho the cover of the book suggests Gingotts or the Ministry).
9. What about Ginny? She lives and continues a relationship with Harry. She looks like Lilly -- they will have the life James and Lilly should have had.
10. What about Dumbledore? Dead but still very present, both by his will and by his picture in the headmaster's office and elsewhere. His brother may be a new player in the saga.
I'm pretty sure of only one thing -- i will very much enjoy the book after i buy it!
I have been having trouble lately with my attitude. As i grow older it would seem that i become more and more self-centered and am motivated more and more by
For instance, my attitude at work sucks live a Hoover vacuum cleaner in a snow drift basically because people bother me. I have perhaps the most meaningless jobs in the entire United States -- i serve food and drink at a University library. My point is this: for over 20 years there has been no food or drink allowed in the library, and it has become necessary at this present time how? The school wanted, mostly, to protect there physical plant and to protect there books. They also had this rule because they had a role in disciplining young scholars. Seriously, think about it--- when you're eating, can you really study? No. Your either doing one or the other. But kids, being typically American, had started to use the net in their rooms to basically plagerize their papers. So they revamped the library, put in about a thousand new computers in the basement, and put in a snack bar. The kids are back at the library -- mostly to check on their Myspace pages and to fuck off with their friends. I rarely see students, even during midterms or finals, in the stacks.
What i am doing in my Library kiosk is a reflection of the total cultural victory of the consumer culture. It has been said that people are most impatient with other people's attributes and behaviors on account of the fact that these are things they don't like about themselves. I often, especially on really nice summer days, contemptuously ask students if they had lost a bet with God to be inside a library on such a beauty of a day. Summers here bring out the freaks, geeks, graduate students, Asians, and townspeople, and i actually am in awe of such a lack that would cause a normal and healthy human being to plop themselves down in front of a computer screen on a summer's day. I love to read, and i still wouldn't be here 90% of the time unless i was being paid. So i start to look at these people like losers, to be pitied or condescended too because they so obviously lack a life. It is their problem, you see...
Unfortunately, this is not true. I get angry with people because they bother me when i am reading or blogging or simply sitting still and resting/thinking. I don't want to have to get up and get them their caffeine or sugar, to pour them hot water or grab them a pastry. I might have some semi-accurate observations in the above paragraphs about the library patrons; however, the truth of the matter is that i just don't like being disturbed or bothered. I hate to admit this, but i'm the one who has the problem. Dammit!
Christian orthodoxy and praxis insists that with faith and God's acceptance come an infilling of God's Spirit into each believer. Jesus said to a people used to farm life that people would be by the fruit they produced. Apple trees produce apples, olive trees olives, etc. The Spirit God sends into the lives of every believer produces specific fruit, like kindness and gentleness and faithfulness and goodness and love and peace and joy and patience and self control. It isn't all that hard to see that i am being a total prick. I am glad that the Christian devotional life has ample opportunity from reflection and repentance...
In other news: My best bud Mike and his wife Denise and kids were here for a couple of days. Hanging with Mike always restores some semblance of sanity for me. The Wife will be performing tonight at the top of the campus center tonight for Jazz in July, and i am certainly looking forward to that. I am also in the middle of the last Harry Potter book in preparation for the Deathly Hallows release coming up on Friday. I was just reading on the net where some guy took pictures of the new book and downloaded them onto the web... I am fortunate that i am such a clueless wonder on the computer, there is no way i could figure out where to find this stuff let alone figure out how to down load it into my computer. I'll just have to wait till Friday with the rest of the world and hope i am never in the position of being able to ever visit that extra special place created just for the guy in hell.
On a lighter note i just bought South Park Season One on DVD and pretty much have been rolling on the floor laughing for the last couple of nights. Anyone get a chance to read South Park and Philosophy?
"Too many of us in the Christian community have forgotten that we stand in a tradition of careful thinking and articulation, that there are intellectual demands that come in confessing Christ, rules of speech and reasoning. At its best, theology has a way of slowing down language, interrupting easy formulas, unsettling partisan confidences, and disciplining thought. Can anyone doubt that the churches in the United States could use a little more theology and a lot less religious talk?" Charles Marsh, Wayward Christian Soldiers, pp. 98, 99.
It may be hard to remember that theology, literally the study of God, really does matter. In a lot of churches the ministers and lay people will not engage their critical thinking skills, claiming that many will miss heaven by eight inches, the distance between one's heart and head. For them, Christianity is all about the existential emotion of relationship and openly disdains the intellect. On the other hand, there are those churches and groups that have turned the faith into one huge systematic theology, a rationalistic syllogism in support of propositional truth statements. Their stoic Christianity eschews emotional display as sentimentalism.
The problem here is that neither is an orthodox expression of Christianity. Whatever happened to those Christians who served God with all their hearts AND minds? The early Church saw the ferver of their confession in their willingness to become martyrs for their faith while creating the creeds that were philosophical masterpieces of antiquity. Why is it that most Christians seem to be in the either/or category? I read Wilken's book on the history of early Christian thought, and i wished i could have seen something like he described.
I was a youth pastor in the Assembly of God, a Pentecostal denomination, for over ten years. They fell very clearly into the existential anti-intellectual camp and i was always suspect because i taught "liturgical" stuff like the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's prayer. Last Christmas my Dad went to an AG Church in Springfield MO where they had Advent candles, and bemoaned to anyone around him just what his own father, a Pentecostal preacher from the 30s and 40s, would have thought of THAT. That was the strange thing about being AG -- they said they held to a theology that was pre-modern in advocating spiritual gifts, supernatural healing, and ecstatic utterances (and to be patterned after an extremely liturgical 1st century Church) while actually in practice they were totally modern, organized around modern managerial philosophies and business models and taking advantage of any new communication technology. Everything about the AG has to do with pragmatism, and there isn't anything as modern as that concept. Isn't that ironic?
I often find myself in the same position in trying to defend Christianity as a place of rational belief as i was when the Twins won the World Series and i had to try to explain that there was a God to a good friend who happened to be an atheist. Traditional Christianity has always had both a healthy respect for the intellect and for mystery, and we need to return to this quickly. I think this would stand out very starkly against the backdrop of secular fidelity to ideology and religious fidelity to existential pragmatism. For my devotional reading i plan to begin a new book by Chris Hall Learning Theology with the Church Fathers. I am more convinced than ever that Christians are trying to reinvent the wheel when we ignore 2000 years of orthodoxy and praxis... Perhaps it might be a good night to begin the tradition of Theology Sunday?
I case anyone has been reading my blog and hasn't figured this out yet, i have no computer skills at all. Frankly, i'm surprised i can figure out how to turn my laptop on each morning... I also have no intuitive knowledge about how to navigate web pages or understand internet etiquette -- i only just figured out that people can have more than five neighbors here on Vox. Thus i am adding people whose blogs i have always read with interest but didn't add because i'm basically clueless. If anyone reading this has added me to their neighborhoods but i haven't added them, feel free to comment and i will add you post haste! All i can say in my defense is that when i was a kid all we had was a rotary phone, three TV networks and PBS, and all the cameras had film in them... also, i have to admit that i am relationally impaired.
When The Wife and i traveled to Atlanta last August in a last ditch attempt to salvage what was left of our marriage we both had to, as part of the counseling, do a kind of family genealogy/relational chart. It was in discussing this with my wife and with the group of couples we were in that it began to dawn on me that i did not have the great childhood and family dynamics that i had always assumed. In fact, it was beginning to look like that i had been pretty much left to raise myself in some very important areas.
Now i am not saying that my parents did an awful job raising me, On the contrary, my Mom and Dad made in abundantly clear they loved me. They were around, and my Dad was always available if i needed to talk. They also disciplined me and had expectations for me in which the end of the world as i knew it was a possibility if i did not meet those expectations. However, i was not intimate with anyone in my family (and thankfully i do not mean sexual intimacy, just the emotional variety) -- no one welcomed anyone else into where we might be able to get to know one another, and i'm the oldest of five kids. I have no idea what the hopes and dreams were of my parents, especially my mother, or of my brothers and sisters. MY was a very dignified and reserved person with a sense of humor as dry as the desert and i didn't hang with my brothers and sisters.Although i was older, i honestly can't tell you why i didn't get close with them. We all might touch base at home, but i remember spending entire days completely by myself.
This might not have been all that devastating if it hadn't been for a thyroid problem in Jr. High. I suddenly lost way more weight than i should have, my grades plummeted because i couldn't seem to concentrate, and i was an entire rural school's punching bag without anyone in authority batting an eye. Anyone who has watched Animal Planet and the documentary of jackals or hyenas stalking and killing their prey should have a very good grasp on just exactly how my days were spent in the 7th -10th grades. Thus i was isolated not only from my family but from everyone around me except my pal Danny, who is alone responsible for me not being an imbittered post office employee and lone gunman profiled on the nightly news. I hate to admit it, but i have never really fully recovered, even though it was so long ago. I really still do not know how to relate to people all that well, although i try to treat people with respect as everyone, regardless of what they have chosen to do with it, was created in the image of God.
I don't understand small talk -- i figure folks should say what they think and mean what they say. I don't understand politics because i am relationally impaired. There is no way i could keep a record of my network of friends and favors owed on a Rolodex over the years like i read Bill Clinton did in one biography. When i was in college i played varsity basketball and had amazing grades and knew everyone and i still only received one vote to be the class rep. Even now I am closer to my friend Mike than i am to my own flesh and blood brothers, and i am still confused about what my relationship was with my parents, especially after my Mom died a couple of years ago. I am beginning to understand that, while my wife had a lot of issues and responsibility for the sate of our relationship, that i had my own fair share of issues that contributed to the train wreck of our marriage. It cannot be easy to live with someone as massively passive/aggressive and emotionally distant as myself. I cannot face strong emotion in the movies with other people around, let alone in real life. I think my only saving grace was in the actual saving grace and mercy of Messiah Jesus, in the temperament i was born with, and the western Nebraska norms and mores which surrounded me culturally.
I said all this to say that i have had many people invite me into their neighborhoods here, comment on my blogs, and general invite me into a dialog while i pretty much did what i always have done -- read and watch and then go on. I want to be more engaged with the people around me, whether they are physically near me or here on Vox. I understand that i must examine my intuitive detachment and pray that i might be able to disciple myself before someone else has too.... it is always better to be in tune with the Spirit rather than kicking against the goads.
So -- welcome to my neighborhood.
Today is, of course, Literary Thursday, and in honor of the occasion i would like to recommend the book Wayward Christian Soldiers: Freeing the Gospel from political Captivity by Charles Marsh. (Marsh, Charles. Wayward Christian Soldiers: Freeing the Gospel from Political Captivity. (Oxford University Press: New York), 2007.
This book was somewhat of a surprise, to say the least. I found it yesterday on the new arrivals shelf here at the UMass library. At first i just figured it to be another book by marginalized mainline theological liberals or a secularist screaming some asinine warning about the establishment of an American theocracy. I just don't get the strange bedfellows produced by political ideology: These guys are worried about an American theocracy while wholeheartedly supporting Muslim nations and people groups who practice sharia, an actual theocracy.
Anyway, imagine my surprise when i read the intro and found i was reading the book i would have written. I haven't even heard of this guy, but good lord, is he spot on about the American Evangelicals accamodation to modern American right wing politics. I whole heartedly agree that for the most part, American Evangelicals have pretty much sold out the Gospel for access to political influence and power.
"Forgetting the difference between discipleship and partisanship, the God we have come to trust in these late days is a simulacrum of the holy and righteous God, a domestication of the Christ who comes to humanity from the far away country of the Trinity. happily, and, it would appear, with complete indifference to the wisdom and insights of the Christian tradition, we have recast the faith according to our cultural preferences and baptized our prejudice, along with our will to power, in the shallow waters of civic piety. American patriotism has become a cult of self-worship consecrated by court prophets in pin-striped suits. We have too often the language of faith and made it captive to our partisan agendas -- and done so with contempt for Scripture, tradition, and the global, ecumenical church." p. 1, 2
Although he is brutally honest and downright cutting in thundering against this modern American compromise, he also suggests orthodox avenues for correction. Any one of the three chapters that i think are the heart of the book, "Whatever Happened to the Peculiar People," "Theology Matters: Including a Brief History of Modern Christianity in Which the Reader Learns Why the Christian Right Are Theological Liberals," and "Keepers of the Mystery: the Christian Tradition Speaks (Carefully)" alone are worth the price of the book; hell, just the story of Will Campbell is worth the price of the book. I'm heading for B&N on payday to buy this book. If you knew me well this would come as a shock, i don't buy hardbacks at full price ever. But for this book i will, as it proves the wisdom of Luther's saying that the Church should always be reforming..
I just finished reading Kennedy's book about the American people in Depression and war that i recommended last Thursday -- it deserved the Pulitzer that it received... I still am very much anticipating the new Harry Potter novel coming out next Friday. The next Literary Thursday will be the Harry Potter edition, and i'm gonna add my two cent's worth on who dies, who survives and if Harry lives.
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