(Ir)religiosity

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.

Tim Burton is one of my favorite film directors.  He’s got some upcoming projects that look to be pretty good (and one in the not so distant future that has the potential to be stellar).  I watched the trailer for 9 a few weeks ago and it looks to be pretty good, but I’m mostly stoked about his adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.  The first teaser trailer was released yesterday at Comic-Con (for real this time) and it looks delightful.  Interestingly, it looks like the Mad Hatter will be the main character.  I’m okay with that.  I guess I wasn’t paying attention before but it looks like Stephen Fry will be the voice of Cheshire Cat and Crispin Glover the Knave of Hearts.  Nice.

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Hilarious.

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I love this song. It’s so demonstrative of our human condition, I think.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor,
Go ahead and cheat a friend.
Do it in the name of Heaven,
You can justify it in the end.
There won’t be any trumpets blowing
Come the judgement day,
On the bloody morning after….
One tin soldier rides away.

I think I’ve been living under a rock.

I have no idea why I waited until now to start reading Kurt Vonnegut.  I really think my thought life and my overall intellectual disposition would be much more robust and rich had I introduced myself to his vivid imagery and masterful storytelling.  For me, what Howard Zinn has done in terms of decentralizing the dominant narrative of American history, Vonnegut does with literature and fiction beckoning us to own our past while looking to the future with hope that we can retain, however small or insignificant, the better qualities of our human nature.  

I started Galapagos a few days ago along with a few of his essays I was able to find online — they’re rocking my world.  As soon as I can I plan to plow through Slaughterhouse Five and Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons.    

I love this quote from his Bennington College Address in 1970:

“I thought scientists were going to find out exactly how everything worked, and then make it work better. I fully expected that by the time I was twenty-one, some scientist, maybe my brother, would have taken a color photograph of God Almighty — and sold it to Popular Mechanics magazine.  Scientific truth was going to make us so happy and comfortable. What actually happened when I was twenty-one was that we dropped scientific truth on Hiroshima.”

Here is an interview he gave a while ago reflecting on his experience as a POW in WWII.  It gets really good at the end (the last three minute or so) when he talks about war and cycles of revenge.  

Kurt Vonnegut Interview

So do yourself a favor if you haven’t already:  go get a Vonnegut book and start reading it immediately.  I think you will find it to be very enriching.

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…but some things are worth breaking the silence for.

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I know. Provocative title. Disappointing video post. I just had to. I’ve been looking forward to this movie ever since I saw the original trailer last summer. And now it opens on Friday. I can’t wait…

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The Germans versus the Greeks.  Brilliant!

Dr. Philip Clayton thinks we have:

“It’s not that hard. If you go [to scripture] with new eyes, it’s a living and vibrant text about a living and vibrant God. [...] We have fallen into the heresy of orthodoxy.”

His larger point is of course that we have allowed our tacit theological assumptions determine how we approach the text and how we think about God. I don’t think we can ever completely free ourselves from our interpretive biases, try as we might. But we can free ourselves from the old, tired theologies of the past (which were really important and revolutionary in their time) and allow the text to marinate in our culture and our context. Then we can better understand what it might mean to be Christian here and now.

I think he may be on to something.

Thoughts?

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