(Ir)religiosity

That’s the claim that Tony Jones makes in The New Christians.  I first read the book last year when it came out (read my short review here), but I’m re-reading it now for a class I’m taking on the Emergent/ing church at ANTS (Oh, and Tony is actually teaching it.  So that’s cool) and that quote really jumped out at my this time.

“The Bible is propaganda.”  Pretty provocative.  But it makes more sense when you think about it.  Tony explains further:

Propaganda has a point and a purpose.  It doesn’t claim to be objective.  It’s trying to convince someone of something.  It’s trying to get people to join a cause, join a movement.  Isn’t that exactly what the Bible is? . . .It is a living, breathing document that makes a claim on its readers’ lives.  It’s like the pamphlets surreptitiously printed by Paul Revere and his compatriots in 1776 — propaganda in that sense.  It’s God’s manifesto, Jesus’ Little Red Book.

I think Tony is right.  The bible is propaganda.  Maybe if we actually owned up to the fact that we have an agenda — of realizing God’s kingdom, of pursuing justice, promoting peace, and participating in cosmic restoration and renewal — we might be more effective in bearing witness to the hope that lies within us.

What think ye?

I was watching this video of the 2004 Emergent Conversation the other day and I was immediately struck by a quote from Walter Brueggemann about the violence attributed to God in the Hebrew bible.

“God is a recovering practitioner of violence.”

If you watch the video, the quote comes at about 29:00.  For some of the context behind what he is saying and the question he is responding to start at about 25:00.  Or watch the whole thing.  It’s definitely worth it.  There’s also a part two here.

But I want to return to that quote.  The problem of God and violence, be it in the Hebrew Bible or in the atonement, is not new.  And I am by no means have the answer, or an answer at all really.

I have to admit that I was put off by that quote when I first heard.  But I’ve been thinking about it since then and it has grown on me.  This of course questions the traditional view that God is static and completely unchanged.  I know that.  To be honest,  I don’t really have much vested interest in defending that claim that God is wholly static.  But I want to set that and any knee-jerk reactions we might of God being disrespected aside here if we can.

The main rebuttal of any suggestion that God might be participating in violence is that an text that attributes violence to God is simply the projection of human desire onto God.  So, the x group of people wants to kill and dominate y group of people.  So x group imagines that God commands them to kill y group.  That may make sense, but I don’t know that I am satisfied with that answer.  Neither is Brueggemann.  He thinks, and I tend to agree with him, that such an argument is a very slippery slope.  So, at what point do actions/virtues attributed to God in scripture cease to be human projections?  Or, are all attributes to God projected?  That may very well be true.  But we still have to deal with the violent projections.  What makes a projection of love better than a projection of violence?  The answer to that seems obvious, but it must be dealt with.

Things start to get really hairy really quick.

What do you think of Brueggemann’s quote?  Do you think that God might be “a recovering practitioner of violence?”  Is there any truth to that?  If so, what does what are the ramifications?  If not, why not?

Recently I had to write a short “spiritual autobiography” for one of my seminary classes that described a significant event in my faith journey thus far.  Below is what I wrote, a brief snapshot of my narrative.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

During high school and my early college years I spent a few weeks of the summer leading worship for United Methodist district camp.  Music and guitar playing are two of my deepest passions.  I grew in the church and have always looked back on my experience at camp fondly so I could think of no better way to spend my time and to use my talents than to help kids in their own faith journeys.

I have many great memories of those years, but one, the most recent in fact, remains especially salient.  And really, it doesn’t have a whole lot to do with camp at all, only what transpired in the days following.

One of the young girls that week (I’ll call her Jenny) she couldn’t have been more than 14 or 15 years old at the time, came forward during one of the worship services toward the latter part of the week to give her ‘testimony.’

Fighting back the tears, she spoke of how she was born in a prison to a substance-abusive mother and a physically-abusive father.  As a toddler and a young child she was passed between foster parents and her biological parents like a piece of property. She was traumatized and abused both emotionally and physically.  She was told that she was worthless and would amount to nothing.

Eventually, she was adopted into a loving, Christian family.  She finally had a good father figure, a man who was, in her words “the daddy she had always needed.”  She was introduced into a community of reconciliation and healing.  She became a disciple of Jesus Christ.  In fact, she and her best friend were to be baptized on the same day.  Her life was changed.  And then, just like that, her life was turned upside down. Read the rest of this entry »

. . .the magic began.

(ht)

After two weeks of interweb percolation, Kevin Watson has posted the results of the UM Social Media experiment.

There were 759 views of the YouTube video promoting Reclaiming the Wesleyan Tradition: John Wesley’s Sermons for Today There were 44 hits to the video when I discovered it and posted it on the Methodist blogosphere. At the end of the first week there were 619 views. This means that the momentum slowed down significantly after the first week as there were 140 views in the second week. (On the other hand, that is still more than three times as many views as the video had in its first six months of existence.)

About a week ago I posted a comment on Kevin’s update of the traffic.  Maybe it’s because I had really low expectations going in, but I was surprised at the results.  I still am to some extent, especially with the increase of views in the first week.  A mere twenty-five blogs generated almost 600 unique hits.  I think that is pretty good.

Others have expressed some disappointment with the results.  That’s understandable.  The video itself  has been criticized; both the production and what it was plugging were lifted up as possible reasons behind why more persons didn’t participate and why the traffic dropped off after about a week.  The production/content problem looks to be true and the traffic issue may have more to do with the dynamics of viral marketing than anything else (though, this was not at all a true viral phenomenon) I think. A small number of initial participants necessarily limits the spread, especially after the initial peak in traffic.

Which lead me to my main disappointment of the whole thing.  Only 25 bloggers participated.  Just glancing over the MethoBlog I can see more than 25 links.  So why such a small number?  Is the actual number of active Methobloggers much lower than what has been compiled at the MethoBlog?  Or did most Methobloggers think the vido simply wasn’t good enough to be promoted on their blog? Or, are Methobloggers simply not effectively networked with one another?

I’m not sure.  Of all those questions, I think the third is really worth reflecting upon.  Especially since connectionalism one of our tradition’s most heralded hallmarks.  How does that translate into the online, social media-oriented world?  Are we really capitalizing on those resources?

What are you thoughts?  How can Methobloggers be more effectively connected and networked with one another?

Yesterday was indeed a day of tremendous rejoicing.  Barack Hussein Obama — a man whose father was a poor immigrant from Kenya, a man who not long ago wouldn’t have been able to sit across the table from a white man in a restaurant, and a man who only 4 years ago many Americans, upon seeing his name in writing might label as a ‘terrorist’ — took the oath of office and was inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States of America.  Truly a historic moment and a historic day.

I look forward to someday in the future telling my children and grandchildren where I was on the day that we the people chose to officially ratify the words written on that document so long ago, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” For many these ’self-evident truths’ became a very visceral reality on January 20, 2009, the dawn of a new era in the American story.  That day will live on in the pages of history as a moment when America set aside its partisanship and differences and embraced the hope and inspiration that lies within us all.

But that was yesterday.  And today is, well, today is the beginning of tomorrow.  The beginning of the continued tomorrow that is the world after Obama’s inauguration.  A world where Guantanamo Bay still exists as an aberration of human rights; a world where the United States is still fighting two wars and occupying at least one country; a world where the violence and turmoil in the Middle East — whichever ’side’ you may choose — are almost unbearable; a world where the global economy and world markets are tanking and taking the poorest among us as their first victims; a world were the twin monsters of classism and yes, racism still very much exist; and a world where the choices of past and present are undeniably threatening the existence of the future.  This is the world in which Obama, and all of us, live, move, and have our being.

My relationship with President Obama has changed. Because of his position and responsibility as President, and because of my position and responsibility as a citizen, I must raise my voice in either dissent and criticism as the time arises; I must maintain prophetic distance, not because I dislike President Obama, but because he is now the representative and leader of the American empire, the largest, most powerful nation on earth — and he, like those before him, must be held to account.  It is my responsibility as one on the margins to aid in ensuring that that happens.  For what it’s worth, I think it may be happening a lot less these next four years than in recent memory, but it must happen.  And when the time arises to criticize, those of us with that vocation must not fail to speak out.

Watching him during the inaugural ceremonies yesterday, I get the very real sense that President Obama truly feels the gravity of his office — especially now — and the very real urgency of our situation.  I have a sense of hope — not messianic hope mind you! — in his presidency that I have never felt for a political leader.  I have faith that this feeling of hope will deliver.  And I am willing to place my trust in President Obama for a while.  We will see what happens.  If he holds true to his word and remains transparent and honest, then we may very well be in for a ride.  In a good way.

So yesterday I celebrated, I raised my glass to President Obama and the history that his inauguration symbolizes.  But today. . .today I begin the work of the continued tomorrow, not because I don’t like President Obama I really do, but because I have committed myself to always remain on the side of justice.  And that commitment will at times place me against President Obama simply by virtue of his office.

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That’s the title of one of Martin Luther King Jr.’s most underrated and least well known speeches.  A speech that he gave in 1967 opposing the war in Vietnam and voicing dissent toward American tolerance of economic injustice.  I hope very much that we will remember, especially as we enter the age of Obama, that the egregious realities of classism and racism still exist today.  Simply electing a black man president is no magic bullet to change the status quo nor does it warrant the convenient dismissal of our dark history.  It is grounds for exuberant rejoicing, yes, but let us continue to remain vigilant in our pursuit justice and truth.

In honor of King’s full dream and legacy, here are a few exerpts of that speech we have sadly forgotten.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. n the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. … A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The “tide in the affairs of men” does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: “Too late.” There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. “The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…” We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

I love it.

(ht)

“Waterboarding is torture.”

– Attorney General-designate Eric Holder

Social media is changing things.  You could even say social media is changing everything and it would probably be true.  I’m about halfway through Tom Friedman’s book The World is Flat right now.  Though it was originally published only three years ago, it’s already becoming a little dated as far as the half-life of web 2.0 related things these days goes — which demonstrates perfectly exactly how things are changing.

Friedman’s overall thesis is that the world is becoming increasingly “flat” as we continue to explore what appears to be the endless limits of the information age.  Anyone who has access to a computer can search for and locate just about anything they want which undermines our traditional, hierarchical systems of transmitting information.  Things are becoming more and more open and less restricted.

I ran across this site yesterday (via Andrew Sullivan)  that illustrates this point perfectly.  It is basically a simple mash-up of Google Maps and the all the Prop 8 donors.  So you can actually see where in California, or the United States, individuals or groups that contributed to the pro-Prop 8 effort.  But that’s not all.  You can actually see their names and the exact amount they gave.

This presents all sorts of new possibilities (or problems depending on how you see it).  Now, to be fair, all this information can be accessed elsewhere and has been made public by the state of California; donors were presumably aware of this when then gave.  EightMaps simply makes it all more visual and accessible.

This is fascinating.  We normally think of “donating” to something as primarily a private action.  That isn’t really true, but that’s how we think about it.

This portrayal undermines that assumption.  It makes things very public.  I’m sure many people don’t like that.  But I don’t think it’s such a bad idea.

I wonder how, if at all,  our private actions might change if we assumed that everything was public. That’s not a false assumption by the way.  Our so-called private decision to “donate” to a certain cause may have very public consequences for someone else.

Just ask the gay population in California.

What would happen if we were actually walking advertisements for the causes/ballot measures/you-fill-in-the-blank that we fervently supported in private?

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