(Ir)religiosity

Not sure what to make of this.

He found me!

Reading through Jean-François Lyotard‘s The Postmodern Condition yesterday I was immediately struck by this quote.

The relationship of the suppliers and users of knowledge to the knowledge they supply and use is now tending, and will increasingly tend, to assume the form already taken by the relationship of commodity producers and consumers to the commodities the produce and consume — that is, the form of value.  Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production:  in both cases, the goal is exchange.  Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its “use-value.” (p. 4-5)

This is exactly the temptation of social media, I think.  If used with restraint and discretion social media outlets can be very useful tools to share knowledge and information.  But we must recognize the danger of changing the nature of knowledge by commodifying into something to be consumed rather than something to be internalized or reflected upon.  Then the act of consuming itself becomes the goal and not the use of knowledge or the information.

For example, I find myself following more people on Twitter or subscribing to more blogs not because I believe they are useful and enriching but because I need “more.”  The goal is not quality, but quantity.  More followers, more RSS feeds, more Facebook friends, etc.  I even catch myself doing it the bookstore, it’s not the book itself that I need or want but the act of buying and consuming more.  It is as if there is some sort of jouissance to be found in the act of consuming information and the abstraction of mere quantity.

So I think social media can be a useful and important tool in transmitting and sharing knowledge, but its potential won’t matter much if we allow the very nature of knowledge and information to be destroyed so we can consume more and actually “know” less.

Thoughts?

I’ll be honest, I was a little disappointed with the book.  That’s not to say it is not without merit, it does several things very well and I’ll get to those in a minute.  But as an avowed Howard Zinn fan I thought the book failed to deliver.  That’s probably the fault of my own expectation combined with the way the book was marketed; however,  Diana Butler Bass points out in the introduction that she hopes to do with Christian history what Zinn did with American history.  Given the size of the book she all but sets herself up for failure.  Again, that is not to say the book itself is not noteworthy.  I just think it might be better served with the Zinn comparisons and with a different title.

But what it is about anyway?

For DBB there are basically two kinds of Christianity:  there is “Big-C Christianity,” which is the story we are all familiar with.  It’s trajectory runs thus: Christ, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin, Christian America.  If you’ve ever taken a church history class, odds are that is the way the story has run.  It’s a story of power, militant coercion and victory.  Counter to that is another type of Christianity, what DBB calls “generative Christianity” or “Great Command Christianity.”  This version of the story is one that is always guided by Jesus’s axiom of loving God and neighbor — contrary to the other story, this is the true essence of Christianity.   While the Big-C story may be dominant and pervasive in church history textbooks, DBB makes the convincing case that the story of generative Christianity has always been around carrying forward the true Christian legacy.  Her intention in the book is to tell that version of the story and eschew the Big-C story. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been doing a lot of Moltmann reading in preparation for the Moltmann Conversation in Chicago next month.  Today I read Religion, Revolution, and the Future, an early collection essays and lectures.  I ran across a passage in the last article, “Hope and History,” that is very poignant given John Piper’s latest snafu.

The cosmological proofs for the existence of God, in which the divinity of God and his presence were brought into an analogical relationship to the experience of the world accessible to everyone, have lost their persuasive power, since modern man no longer understands himself as a part of the cosmos, but has placed the world as material of his scientific and technical possibilities over against himself. He no longer lives in the house of ordered being but in the open history of a technical transformation of the world. The old cosmological-theistic world view which spoke of God in relationship to the cosmos of the natural world is antiquated and is experienced as mythical by man who has become the master of his environment. But it is naive pathos of the enlightenment to discard the fundamental question which was to be answered by the old world view. Behind the cosmological-theistic world views lies the real misery of man which expressed itself in the manifold forms of the theodicy question: Si deus, unde malum? (If God exists, whence evil?). The old world view answered this fundamental question in the vision of the orderly and wisely steered cosmos and used the image of the divine cosmos in order to do battle against chaos threatening everywhere. Even though this answer no longer persuades today, since we experience reality as history and no longer as cosmos, the fundamental theodicy question is still with us and is more pressing than before.

The core problem with Piper’s view — aside from the outdated cosmology — is theological determinism.  Such a view makes things very simple to understand:  X happened because God caused it and thought it should happen, there is a moral reason for everything that happens in the cosmos so we shouldn’t worry too much, it will all work out in the end.  It is an easy way to make sense of tragedy but I must effectively excuse myself from wrestling with the moral ambiguities of reality.  Not to mention that must ascribe to a premodern cosmology and assume that God is, at best, amoral.

The point of theology (and philosophy), in my view, is not to offer simple answers — which always posits certainty — but to continually wrestle with the questions and to learn to live with the inherent ambiguities of reality.  Piper, in suggesting that the tornado was a “firm but gentle warning,” not only singles an entire group of people for blame and judgment or supposes a vengeful and angry God beholden to an antiquated cosmology, but also claims to be certain about the nature of reality.  It is an easy answer to a complicated problem and, as I and others have pointed out, it presents disturbing problems of its own.

So, according to Moltmann, Piper’s answer for why the tornado happened is no longer persuasive; however, the core issue is still just as pressing as it ever was.  My question is this: how do we respond?  For those of us who do not ascribe to theological determinism or a premodern cosmology, what is our alternative, our “answer?”  Or, better yet, how do we wrestle with the question?

UPDATE: Drew has published a great post discussing Barth’s answer to this very question.  And at almost the exact same time I published mine!

Today was supposed to be for another Diana Butler Bass post.

But then the gays had to go and cause a tornado in Minnesota.

Like a lot of people yesterday I read John Piper’s outrageous post claiming that God caused a tornado in Minneapolis to send a message to the ELCA:  God doesn’t like gays and doesn’t want them in His (yes, His) church.  And like a lot of people I was angered.

I left this comment on Piper’s post:

It is deeply disappointing to see such a prominent Christian leader yet again contributing to the narrative of fear. You’re peddling a poisonous and toxic theology Mr. Piper. And you join the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson in doing so. Yours is a Christianity that betrays the heart of the gospel. I highly doubt you will, but I pray that you retract your words.

I was in a hurry so here’s a few more thoughts.  (My hope is that more people (people who, unlike me, have voice and influence) will call Piper out on this because the last thing we need is another excuse for people to write off Christians has gay-bashing, fanatical, wing nuts.)

The theology is ridiculous. I’m hesitant to even call this theology because Piper’s cutting and pasting of scripture tells me that he is more interested in justifying his own ideology with religious authority than he is in serious reflection.¹  It is very destructive and obviously raises some disturbing issues when it comes to theodicy and the nature of God.  The burden of proof is on Piper to explain every other natural disaster.  Who is being punished in all the other tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricanes?  And what kind of God dishes out punishment of that magnitude?  What of grace?  If God is in the business of unleashing holy hell on those God pleases then why does God only seems to care about who is having consensual sex with whom and who is marrying whom?   Aren’t there other issues that might seem at least a bit more pressing, like say, war or starvation or economic exploitation or disease?  If this is God’s way of dealing with things the why hasn’t the United States been wiped off the map for failing to care for its own as the wealthiest nation in the world or for starting bogus wars abroad in order to secure its “interests?”  What kind of hierarchy of sins is this that sex is at the top and other problems that directly affect persons livelihood don’t even seem to register?  Why doesn’t God give a damn about those?

When you push the thought to its inevitable conclusion, Piper’s God begins to look more in more like the mean kid killing insects with a magnifying glass.  God is a sadist who enjoys inflicting cosmic pain on others.  If that is true then I have no interest in God.  And if religion consists of me running scared for the rest of my life hoping that God isn’t out to get me then I’m out on that too.

Christianity is not a religion of fear.  From beginning to end, it’s narrative is one full of hope for the redemption and restoration of all things.  Piper, in his post, is more interested in a narrative of fear that dehumanizes the other, casting God as a cosmic antagonist, the ultimate mob boss who will kill you on a whim if you look at him the wrong way.  This is not the gospel, indeed it betrays the very heart of the gospel by opting for fear and hate instead of hope and love.  “Perfect love casts out fear.” Jesus modeled that perfect love and brought the narrative of hope to its apex.  He had a ton of opportunities to go postal on someone who didn’t get it or deserved to be punished, but he didn’t.  In fact, in the third act of the story Jesus shows us just how absurd the whole system of punishment and fear really is.  Is that not the clearest and most unambiguous embodiment of the very nature of God?

God does not create tornadoes to “send messages.”

God sent the best message God could 2000 years ago and the message is this: love, not hate wins; hope, not fear, has the final say.

You, John Piper, are on the wrong side of history.  Homosexuals pose no threat to the church nor does God hate, despise, or want to punish them.  We should be welcoming them with open arms to join us in participating in the restoration and renewal of all things.  Justice demands it.

1. To be sure, we’re all guilty of this to some extent, but there are good interpretations and bad interpretations. [↩]

Two things up front: 1.) I believe quality health care is a fundamental right that should be afforded to all persons regardless of _________, 2.) I believe governments have a moral responsibility to ensure that said care is provided to its citizens.  For me, these are non-negotiable.  Period.

Our country is the closest it has ever been to ensuring the most of its citizens have access to quality health care.  I will be outraged, not to mention deeply disappointed, if we fail to push it through.  At this point we’re our own worst enemy.  As Jon Stewart pointed out in a recent episode of The Daily Show, it wouldn’t be all the surprising if President Obama’s approval rating of the American people has plummeted over the last month or so.  The lack of civility and reasonableness in our public discourse on this issue would be disappointing if it weren’t so pathetic.

I’m continually perplexed at the various ways in which people either hear or see what they want to or intentionally caricature what is said by resorting to scare tactics (I’m looking at you Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck).  Most people simply aren’t working with the facts and if they are the choose to sideline them in favor of something that sounds controversial and may gain some shock value or media attention.¹

Health care is too important of an issue for us to play games.  I’m afraid if we keep screwing around we’re going to miss our chance.  Then we will be responsible for the lack of care and ensuring that the uninsured remain uninsured.  There won’t be any passing the buck.  The blame will rest squarely on our shoulders.

Yesterday President Obama published an op-ed in the New York Times that clearly and carefully articulates his position yet again.  You should stop right now and read the whole thing.  Here’s what I think is the nucleus.

This is what reform is about. If you don’t have health insurance, you will finally have quality, affordable options once we pass reform. If you have health insurance, we will make sure that no insurance company or government bureaucrat gets between you and the care you need. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan. You will not be waiting in any lines. This is not about putting the government in charge of your health insurance. I don’t believe anyone should be in charge of your health care decisions but you and your doctor — not government bureaucrats, not insurance companies.

But let’s make sure that we talk with one another, and not over one another. We are bound to disagree, but let’s disagree over issues that are real, and not wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that anyone has actually proposed. This is a complicated and critical issue, and it deserves a serious debate.

I read that and I simply don’t understand what the great end-of-the-world, apocalypse inaugurating problem is that I keep hearing about.  What is so wrong with providing a public option for those who can’t afford it?  Please tell me.  Or better yet, let’s tell those who currently can’t afford care why it is that they were just dealt the wrong hand and don’t have the right to the same quality care that the rest of us enjoy.

It is deeply disturbing, I think, when this idea is met with such anger and hate by people (mostly white people who can afford health care, by the way) at town hall meetings and not accepted with a sense of great urgency.  Perhaps the health care debate is what racism and classism looks like in the 21st century.  It looks more and more like Gordon Marino was right when he wrote that “the fact that a significant number of Americans do not feel any urgency to revamp a system that leaves millions of our sick without care is symptomatic of the fact that we must be suffering from a hardening of more than our arteries.”  Indeed, our irrational and childish behavior is demonstrative not only our compassion deficiency but our collective moral bankruptcy.

Perhaps the recent recession extends to more than our economy.

1. One of the best places to keep up with what is fact and what is fiction is http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/ [↩]

Tony Jones hits the nail on the head in this video.

If you follow his blog then you’re aware that Tony has been blogging about homosexuality lately and called for an open and honest discussion without reference to the six clobber verses that are all too often taken out of context.

The problem, of course, isn’t that Tony wants to abandon scripture and rigorous exegesis as he and others are accused of suggesting. The problem is that too many of us are limiting our hermeneutic to a handful of verses, the immediate context of which is either replete with other off the wall stipulations that we have long since abandoned, as in the Hebrew bible, or uses vocabulary which is ambiguous at best and more than likely refers to sexual behavior that is hardly analogous to those in long-term monogamous homosexual relationships in today’s context, as in the case of Paul’s letters. The problem is that we are guilty of a dangerous selective literalism that not only creates a highly myopic and repressive ‘canon-within-the-canon,’ (we are all guilty of our varying emphases) but that it blatantly ignores, as Tony points out, the overall trajectory of scripture — a trajectory of liberation, redemption, and restoration in which God’s interaction within humankind and all of creation is steeped with grace tempered with justice.

There is a meaningful, constructive debate to be had here. But until we find a way to mend this gap it seems that communication is at a standstill. We’ll just keep going around in circles rehashing the same old points and probably yelling louder and getting more emotional in the process. Most of the comments on Tony’s blog are a case point.

So, as far as I can tell (and I’ve read most of the comments) Tony’s question is still an open and unanswered one:

If you are one who thinks that homosexual sex is sinful, can you please explain to me WHY a gay or lesbian person who is in a long-term, monogamous relationship would not be able to wholeheartedly follow Christ?

My only stipulation is this: You may not quote one of the six verses in scripture that mentions homosexuality. Instead, you must use theological and/or philosophical arguments to attempt to convince me that when you have genital contact with someone of your own gender, it somehow inhibits your relationship with Christ.

While I was away last week I received a copy of Diana Butler Bass’s new book, A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story. I about a third of the way of the way through it now and I’m enjoying it so far. This is my first Butler Bass book and without going into a lot of detail (I’m hoping to write several posts pertaining to the content) I’ll just say that I really like that fact that this book is written for a popular audience. Unfortunately, many church history books just aren’t written at that level and probably aren’t enticing to anyone outside the academy. So I applaud that. I’m also really interested in the idea of writing a church history in the style of Howard Zinn (one of my favorite historians and activists), which is what she aims to do given the title.

About her Zinnian method Butler Bass writes:

Eschewing historical orthodoxy, [Zinn] confessed, “I had no illusions about ‘objectivity,’ if that meant avoiding a point of view. I knew that a historian was forced to choose, out of an infinite number of facts, what to present, what to omit.” This book has much the same purpose from a Christian point of view. [...] Like Zinn, I sidestep issues of orthodoxy and instead focus on moments when Christian people really acted like Christians, when they took seriously the call of Jesus to love God and love their neighbors as themselves. (page 14)

I like it. Because all history, like all reading, is always an interpretation. There is no objective, neutral, unbiased or untainted account of “the way things really were.” There just isn’t. Too many histories are written in such a way. I’m glad that Butler Bass admits that up front and I’m excited that she is attempting to tell a side of the story that jettisons the hegemony of historical “orthodoxy” and opts for the story of those on the underbelly of power.

Over the next week or so I will post more of my thoughts on the book. In the meantime, below is a video interview with Diana and Spencer Burke from TheOoze.tv.

Below is a map of our Boundary Waters trip. I’ve never really messed with Google’s custom maps so it’s the best I could do in a short amount of time. Anyway, the first blue place-marker was our entry and exit point. The red line represents the entry and exit routes and the second blue marker is the campsite. We made the entry trip in about 3-4 hours. It probably would’ve been a little quicker but we had to wait on some other campers at a few of the portage points. The exit trip was much quicker, we made it in about 2 hours or so.

We spent most the week fishing around the campsite, off some of islands (the smaller ones don’t show up on Google maps) and in a few of the coves. Fishing was pretty slow as the weather beforehand threw off the normal cycle. The weather while we were there was very nice, a few showers in the evenings but nice. We did catch some though (mostly Pike, Walleye, and a few Smallmouth Bass) and ate fresh fish almost every evening.

The green line on the maps represent a trip a few of us took one day in about 4-5 hours. We went up through some of the other lakes and looped back around to our campsite via a marshy stream. It was a nice little day trip and the scenery was absolutely breathtaking.
View Boundary Waters Trip in a larger map

It was a great trip and my time away from technology was wonderful. It helped put things in perspective. As I mentioned before I’m going to be cutting down on my media intake and plan to reorganize things this week. More on that to come.