My ultimate goal is to discuss the sequence of temptations Satan presents ot Christ in the gospel of Luke but in order to fully explain the significance of Luke's account and the power of its narrative I believe it is necessary to consider the whole of the scriptures on this subject and take a broader survey of the temptation of Christ in the synoptic tradition and also tie it firmly to the Old Testament narrative so as to demonstrate more fully the significance of Luke's syntax of temptations from the accuser. Each of the temptation narratives offer a combined insight into the temptation of Christ that Christians must not ignore, not least because Christ proved victorious where we so often prove ourselves weak.
I will presume at this point that you have read both Matthew and Luke's accounts of the temptation of Christ by Satan in the wilderness. I will also assume at least some working knowledge of both Exodus and Deutoronomy. I will not assume you know about psalms as prayers of exorcism, however. I mention Mark in passing so as to note the Spirit impelled him to go into the wilderness. In Luke we are told that Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, went into the wilderness and there was tempted. Mark shows us a more disturbing portrait that suggests Jesus was compelled to go into a place of temptation.
We are told that God never tempts and yet there is an ambiguity in the word commonly translated "tempt". The word can also mean "test". In this light God tests people all the time but may not test them in the form of inciting them to evil but by driving them into circumstances in which they will face the possibility of temptation. This, I admit, is the sort of paradoxical approach that someone like Satin Cog of old school Midrash and Babblerash would have a field day with.
What I want to examine is the unique order in which Luke presents his temptation compared to Matthew and what this may mean in each respective narrative. The community receiving the gospel has some bearing on this approach to interpretation. Now here I don't mean to propose that I know about the recipients of the synoptic gospels beyond what is traditionally ascribed to them. Matthew was geared toward a predominantly Jewish audience and Luke toward a more Hellenistic audience that probably had at least some awareness of Jewish thought but not much. Mark, as is often said, is pitched toward Roman society. In that respect I want to keep those audiences in mind as I proceed.
In Matthew the sequence of temptation implies that there were various forms of temptation throughout the time in which Jesus was fasting and was hungry. There were doubtless more than these but these may be considered the three exemplars of temptation--turning stones to bread, throwing himself from a high place, and worshipping Satan in exchange for all the kingdoms of the world. At the first Satan says "If you are the son of God ... " Where with Adam the serpent made an indirect temptation to Adam through Eve and tempted Eve while also making his sales pitch to Adam, the serpent directly questions Jesus' nature. He then proceeds to cite scripture in tempting Jesus to throw himself from the pinnacle of the temple, and finally offers to give the kingdoms of the world in exchange for worship.
Christ rejects each of this temptations by citing scripture. Intriguingly the pinnacle temptation includes a citation from scripture, which Jesus reproves with another scripture. I will get to the significance of this shortly but since it is not the ultimate temptation from the Tempter in Matthew's gospel I will refrain from explaining a few things about the significance of this until later. For now it will be enough to point out that the passage is a psalm that speaks of how those who dwell in the secret place of the most High will be safe from harm.
In Matthew the sequence of temptation is compelling because Jesus has come to fulfill the mission of Israel. To understand the nature of the temptation we must consider why it would even be a temptation. I have heard it said that Satan isn't in control of anything so Jesus could not be a ransom paid to the devil. Never mind that Paul says Satan is the prince of the power of the air and the god of this age, then. No, to make that argument seems viable but it presents us with the problem of a Jesus who was not really tempted since He already was in possession of all things. There was no need for him to learn obedience through what he suffered (Hebrews) or to tell us that He saw Satan fall like lightning from the heavens.
The temptation for a Jewish annointed one called to deliver his people from bondage to the nations is that Satan's offer is an offer to destroy the nations, to be the Jewish messiah who defeats and subjugates the nations and all at the expense of giving worship to Satan. If we only dismiss Satan's temptation as just being a lie (which, of course, it ultimately was) we have to appreciate WHY the offer could have been a temptation to Jesus the man. For Israelites weary of subjugation to Gentile empires the ultimate hope was that the one chosen by Yahweh to destroy the nations and demonstrate God's justice and vindication of His people was the thing to look forward to. Satan's last temptation in Matthew is a temptation because it offers a shortcut to that, a shortcut Jesus refuses because it was, ultimately, the shortcut that Israel took to its own downfall. They worshipped other gods for centuries and took refuge in them, failing to remember that these refuges would become not merely snares but coffins. Jesus refused to accept the offer and so was the second Adam and the true Israel.
Now in Luke the sequence is different and that difference is compelling. The temptation of the pinnacle comes last and Satan says that it is written "He will gives his angels charge over you. On their hands you will be lifted up. They will guard you so that you do not dash your foot against a stone." Jesus replies that the scriptures say to not put the Lord to the test. In fact anotheer way of rendering the text is, "You shall not tempt the Lord your God."
Now here is where I come to the central observation. Satan's ultimate temptation of Christ in Luke reveals him quoting scripture. When he tempted Eve he questioned the accuracy and legitimacy of the word of God but when confronting the Word Satan tempts the Word with the word of God itself. "It is written" Satan observes and invokes that as the reason Jesus should throw himself off the pinnacle.
The passage Satan quotes is Psalm 91. Read Psalm 91 in its entirety and it speaks of how God will preserve His chosen one, the one who is hid in the secret place of the Almighty. Satan's temptation is pernicious because it quotes scripture, quotes it accurately, and even quotes it in context but to a terrible end! What is more there is a strange and terrible yet darkly amusing irony to Satan using this psalm as a means to tempt Christ.
Dead Sea Scrolls research has revealed that in the Qumran community the Psalms had not yet been codified in the order we now have in our Bibles. The canonization process was not yet complete, if memory serves. Jamnia had not yet taken place. Now in Qumran Psalm 91 was part of a small collection of prayers of exorcism (it is utterly fascinating that one of the prayers of exorcism is attributed to Solomon but I'm going to write that post later if I feel inspired enough to write about that, though I'd prefer Scotteriology to maybe tacklethe ironies of a psalm of exorcism attributed to Solomon given Solomon's spectacular apostasy). Psalm 91 happens to be the fourth and last psalm listed as a prayer of exorcism in the scroll.
Do I really need to spell out how ironic it is that the passage Satan quotes to Jesus when he says "for it is written" was not just any psalm but a psalm used as a prayer of exorcism? To put it in more modern parlance, Satan was using one of the landmark texts on spiritual warfare used at the time. He was quoting statements straight from a widely accepted spiritual warfare text, from a prayer that would be used to pray against demonic attack! He was using this text to tempt Jesus and tell him he shoud throw himself off the pinnacle of the temple! Satan is not only willing to tell the truth, he can quote scripture accurately, quote it in context, and use it in his sales pitch.
It should go without saying that each temptation by Satan was a temptation for Jesus to be the kind of Mesiah Israel WANTED but not the kind of messiah Israel NEEDED. I'll go further and say that Satan's temptation of Jesus was tempting him to be the kind of Savior WE want and not the kind of savior we need. No one illustrates this gap between the savior we want and the savior we need better than the bitterly ironic and relentless "The Grand Inquisitor" from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. That is, for the time being, going to be some other blog entry because while I adore Dostoevsky's work this is a blog about Christ, about his temptation presented to us in the scriptures, and ways in which we can learn about the nature of his temptation as a reflection on temptations we may face that he faced on our behalf. Christ has been victorious where we have failed, are failing, and will continue to fail.
Jesus' response is to quote Deutoronomy 6 where it says "Do not put your Lord to the test." It can also be read, "Do not tempt the Lord your God." The fuller passage is important. Deutoronomy 6 warns that we should not worship other gods but revere only Yahweh. The fuller text Jesus quotes says "Do not test the Lord as you did at Massah." Moses named the place Massah and Meribah, words meaning "Proof" and "Contention" respectively because it was there that the people of Israel contended with him and demanded water. They blamed Moses for leading them out in the wilderness to die. Moses replied, "Why do you find fault with me? Why do you put the Lord to proof?"
When the Lord says "Do not test me as you did at Massah" the story refers to Israel grumbling, proposing that ultimately God has had Moses lead them out into the middle of nowhere so that they, their children, and livestock will all die of thirst in the wilderness. They had no water to drink. Asking for water itself was not necessarily the problem. This is the Lord who knows we need water and knows we need food and shelter. They questioned the goodness of God and the character of God asking, "Is the Lord really with us or not?"
We can begin to see, now, how ingenious the Tempter is in his full frontal assault on the Lord's person and character. We can see his cunning in disputing with Yahweh in Job, "Does Job fear God for nothing? Have you not put a hedge around him and everything he owns?" Yahweh even tells Satan that he has inspired Him to ruin Job's life without cause (there is a cause in the end but Job never learns of the cosmic bet between Yahweh and Satan or what its purpose ultimately is within the book). Satan is even more cunning in his temptation of Christ than we saw him be in Job. Luke reveals this in ways that invite hours of reflection when we consider not only Deutoronomy but also the incident in Exodus to which a fuller reference to Deutoronomy refers.
By way of yet another diversion, in ancient writing it is customary to allude to a point and leave that as a completed, implied argument. This is not a form of argument or reasoning that we may find acceptable in blogging. Obviously it is not my own preferred way of handling things. I prefer to tackle every single point as it occurs to me, which makes for sloppy blogging and sloppy writing. When you live in a culture where paper is expensive and writing is especially labor-intensive one of the ways you, as it were, economize your literary space, is to saturate your narrative with allusions which, once given, complete the narrative or argumentative thrust by implication. Luke's Gospel is full of this and these allusions within allusions are necessary to know in order to fully appreciate what the Tempter presents to Christ.
Here we come to what makes Luke's narrative of the temptation of Christ unique. We see in Luke that the ultimate temptation from the Tempter is to take the scriptures, take them in context, take them accurately, and use them to promote an action that is approved of by the father of lies. To Eve the serpent asks, "Did God really say ... ?" But to Christ Himself the serpent says, "If you are the Son of God then do this ... for it is written." The serpent uses the scriptures themselves to imply that God Himself through Christ is wanting, is not who He truly is. Satan questions whether Jesus is really the Christ, whether Jesus is Immanuel, the prince of peace. Jesus' reply is that we are not to put the Lord to the test and it is here that we should remember the rest of the allusion, we are not to put the Lord to the test as Israel did at Massah and Meribah, asking "Is the Lord truly with us or not." Satan's final temptation to Jesus goes beyond saying "turn these stones into bread"; beyond giving Jesus the kingdoms of the world in exchange for some worship; the Tempter presumes to find the Son of God wanting by the very scriptures that anticipated His coming.
Jesus would go on in Luke to say that a wicked and unbelieving generation asks for a sign. Had He not seen Israel asking for signs at Massah? He promised that there would be no sign but the sign of Jonah. Israel would once again receive a sign but unlike at Massah this time the sign would not be what they asked for but what Yahweh brought forth Himself.
Now as for us, we see that Jesus prevailed against the Tempter and the Lord prevailed where we have failed, fail, and continue to fail. Let us consider how the Tempter may tempt us, or how in our hearts we entertain the doubts that are our own. After all, Israel doubted the presence and goodness of God at Massah and Meribah and we are warned to not be that sort of grumbler. When Paul wrote that we should do everything without grumbling the ethic advised was not a "shut up and do as your told" ethic but a warning that if we assume that God ultimately does not have our best interest at heart then we will go through life ostensibly obeying God but having a heart inclined toward disobedience.
Satan's ability and willingness to take scripture and manipulate it toward his end should give us pause, and should make us very sober in assessing our own motives for employing scripture to attack the integrity and character of others. I think that among Christians we are perilously culpable for using the scriptures as ways to accuse and impugn each other for things that are not of primary importance. We can be little satans to each other and to the world, accusers, adversaries who doubt the provenance of how God may speak to others while unshakably thinking that our missives from the Almighty are beyond dispute. The coming of Christ into the world has revealed that the signs we expect from Yahweh in each age are not necessarily ever the signs He chooses to give us.
If the devil can quote scripture to tell Jesus "You should do this if you are REALLY God's child" then how much more can we, even among Christians, make the same mistake? A person can cite all the scriptures, have them in a row, have them in context, and still ultimately play a satanic role in accusing someone. This is something that I look back on with regret because I believe I have made this mistake and have been in Christian settings where this mistake was made. Jesus' words for the Pharisees were harsh, "You are of your father the devil." What John refers to somewhat cryptically and through Jesus' fiery rhetoric is fleshed out here in Luke's narrative. Luke shows us how Satan can take the scriptures themselves and put them to utterly satanic ends.
Yet Christ confronts the pinnacle of satanic abuses with a proper use of the scriptures. The Spirit who drove him into the wilderness and was with him gave him power and through the scriptures Jesus rebuked Satan's tests of Yahweh and of himself (also Yahweh, of course). Christ properly expounds and lives out the scriptures that we distort and manipulate for our own ends. Christ corrects the abuses of the scriptures encouraged by Satan and by the religious leaders of his time during his ministry. Christ resisted the temptations by Satan and men to be the kind of messiah he was expected to be (if he was, really, the messiah). Christ ultimately reveals that He could conquer the abuse of the word of God through the ages because He Himself is the Word. Despite generations of false prophets who invoked the name of Yahweh for the blessing of lies and crimes Jesus' life and teaching ultimately puts to flight Satan's use of even the scriptures to accuse and condemn Him and those He came to save. The Word will at length make all things new, all those things corrupted by the power of sin and death.
In closing I might as well make a full bibliographic index of materials I have read that have helped me get to a point where I felt inclined to write this blog entry. Susan Garrett's books The Demise of the Devil in the writings of Luke and The Temptation of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark are both valuable references. I found The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, edited by Martin Abegg Jr, Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich to be useful, too, as it corroborates Garrett's observation about Psalm 91 as a prayer of exorcism. Jeffrey Burton Russell's entire book series on the history of Christian and Jewish thought about the devil is immensely valuable.
I have Gurnall's The Christian in Full Armour but it is, I must admit, not relevant to this particular reflection as what I have undertaken here is to examine the synoptic gospel accounts of the devil's activities and words toward Christ; Gurnall's book is so focused on Ephesians his work was not immediately applicable with reference to this blog entry, which is not to say I have no appreciation for the work since I did quote a section of it in this blog a while back. It's also spectacularly long and I have not read enough of it for it to be particularly relevant here, just in case someone ever wonders why I haven't cited it here.
Last but not least I am also grateful to heard John Haralson's sermons on Exodus 17 and Phillipians as background material for this blog entry. There was a recent sermon by Mark Driscoll on Luke 4 that I didn't actually listen to but hearing some people comment about it got me thinking about how much material a teacher or simple Christian could consider that is worth sharing (I am not here proposing to be a teacher in some spiritual sense of the word as I'm not a pastor and have no inclination to be one).
Thursday, January 14, 2010
http://realmealministries.org/WordPress/?p=1544
The primary determinant for the meaning of a text is its context. Lawson Stone, my first OT teacher, used to say coyly: “Any interpretation must be able to survive at least one close reading of the text
The primary determinant for the meaning of a text is its context. Lawson Stone, my first OT teacher, used to say coyly: “Any interpretation must be able to survive at least one close reading of the text
Scotteriology vents about Pat Robertson
http://scotteriology.wordpress.com/2010/01/14/satan-is-pat-robertsons-theological-mentor/
If this seems too extreme and "uncharitable" and "unChristian" let's consider the eytmology of Satan. sa'tan means "the accuser" and what Robertson has just done is make the accusation that an entire culture was guilty of making a pact with the devil generations ago that now, it seems, warrants God continually providentially punishing them for that disobedience. What happens to be hyperbole from Scotteriology can be biblically defended. Robertson has taken the role of the accuser regarding Haiti. The question at hand is whether or not Robertson can legitimately claim a basis for making such a claim publicly and connecting it to what has recently happened.
Now if a person were to defend Robertson by saying he is speaking with a prophetic voice how about this?:
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2010/01/a-message-from-step-seminary-president-jean-dorlus-in-haiti/
If God has judged Haiti for a pact with the devil made years ago why does that include decimating a seminary that helps evangelistic work and teaching down there? If it be suggested that God is finally punishing the Haitians for their pact why do Christians bear the brunt of the blow, too? Some Christians I have known would say that when God warns people God warns them that the punishment will be so great that not even the righteous will be spared, which is usually then construed as a sign that you need to get out of Dodge and go where ever the person speaking advises you to. This is cooking the argument well in advance.
Apply this in personal terms and it helps you to see what a satanic role Robertson has truly come to play, probably at his age and with his intellectual acumen he may not be aware how he's coming across now: let's say that someone close to you dies in a car accident and the other person was driving while intoxicated. Pat Robertson's case amounts to claiming that your great-grandfather made a deal with Satan to marry your great-grandmother and ever since your family has been under a curse to be struck with disasters in each generation until that action is renounced. Until then your family is cursed with financial foolishness and health disasters until you break those bonds, cut the soul ties, and all that stuff from Rebecca Brown M.D.
In legal parlance there are things called slander and libel. One of my favorite moments in the first Spiderman movie J.J.J makes a remark about Spiderman and Peter Parker objects, "That's slander." J.J.J retorts, "You insult me, son. Slander is spoken. In PRINT it's LIBEL." The law is more generous regarding libel and slander toward public figures because as public figures their responsibilities are greater and the burden of proof of irreparable damage to reputation becomes more stringent. You, dear reader, do not have to make as compelling a case about slander or libel as Bill Clinton, George Bush 1 or 2, Barack Obama, or Woody Allen have to make regarding the defamation of their character (Allen would have to have an unusually cogent case since he's defamed himself ever since the "Mia and I aren't married so this woman is not technically my daughter" argument)
As with individuals, so with nations, I guess. Robertson can make a sweeping claim about an entire nation and some Christians will defend it as legitimately within the realm of biblical discussion. To be sure Robertson is also as likely to say that 9/11/2001 happened because of the leniency Americans have displayed toward homosexuals and abortionists so Robertson is certainly being internally consistent in claiming the right to pronounce God's judgment as though he were a prophet.
Finally, there are reasons to doubt the veracity of Robertson's "true story".
http://www.orthocuban.com/2010/01/father-orthoduck-apologizes-for-pat-robertson/
How can Robertson even establish that his story about a secret meeting of Haitian rebels making a pact with Satan to defeat Napoleon the third and whatever occurred? Wartime propaganda being what it is, Orthoduck notes that French Christian soldiers might find the voodo/Satan theory plausible because if black insurgents actually defeated white combatants they couldn't have done it without satanic assistance.
I suppose at some point someone will say that everything Robertson says is well researched and perhaps he is God's appointed voice. People will always say stuff like that even if false predictions come up. Selling what-if prophetic end-times warnings has been a career for Jack van Impe and "oh Jack" Rexella. Before you say something like "Robertson could be right" ask yourself how you would respond to someone telling you that your wife or husband or child or parent died of diabetes as God's punishment for a pact with the devil your grandma made that means you, too, will die of diabetes unless you do the Rebecca Brown M.D. thing.
If you find the prospect of "me" telling you that your suffering is God punishing you and your whole family for the sins of your grandfathers offensive, well then, congratulations, you've actually read Ezekiel and have some understanding why saying stuff like that is wildly inaccurate ... and you should avoid jumping to Robertson's defense. I hate that it has to be said but old pastors who say unconsidered things should get reprimanded whether we're talking about Pat Robertson or Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or Dave Wilkerson or John Piper. Yeah, I threw in Piper because his bridge comments and tsunami comments were unfortunate. He didn't go there with 9/11/2001 that I can recall, but he went there easily enough for other things.
Well, I've said enough about those things. Consider giving money to charitable organizations that are helping with relief work in Haiti. It will display the love of Christ more readily than defending Pat Robertson saying that they made a pact with the devil. As I have blogged elsewhere, we Christians do not realize how often satanic a role we play in the lives of others.
If this seems too extreme and "uncharitable" and "unChristian" let's consider the eytmology of Satan. sa'tan means "the accuser" and what Robertson has just done is make the accusation that an entire culture was guilty of making a pact with the devil generations ago that now, it seems, warrants God continually providentially punishing them for that disobedience. What happens to be hyperbole from Scotteriology can be biblically defended. Robertson has taken the role of the accuser regarding Haiti. The question at hand is whether or not Robertson can legitimately claim a basis for making such a claim publicly and connecting it to what has recently happened.
Now if a person were to defend Robertson by saying he is speaking with a prophetic voice how about this?:
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2010/01/a-message-from-step-seminary-president-jean-dorlus-in-haiti/
If God has judged Haiti for a pact with the devil made years ago why does that include decimating a seminary that helps evangelistic work and teaching down there? If it be suggested that God is finally punishing the Haitians for their pact why do Christians bear the brunt of the blow, too? Some Christians I have known would say that when God warns people God warns them that the punishment will be so great that not even the righteous will be spared, which is usually then construed as a sign that you need to get out of Dodge and go where ever the person speaking advises you to. This is cooking the argument well in advance.
Apply this in personal terms and it helps you to see what a satanic role Robertson has truly come to play, probably at his age and with his intellectual acumen he may not be aware how he's coming across now: let's say that someone close to you dies in a car accident and the other person was driving while intoxicated. Pat Robertson's case amounts to claiming that your great-grandfather made a deal with Satan to marry your great-grandmother and ever since your family has been under a curse to be struck with disasters in each generation until that action is renounced. Until then your family is cursed with financial foolishness and health disasters until you break those bonds, cut the soul ties, and all that stuff from Rebecca Brown M.D.
In legal parlance there are things called slander and libel. One of my favorite moments in the first Spiderman movie J.J.J makes a remark about Spiderman and Peter Parker objects, "That's slander." J.J.J retorts, "You insult me, son. Slander is spoken. In PRINT it's LIBEL." The law is more generous regarding libel and slander toward public figures because as public figures their responsibilities are greater and the burden of proof of irreparable damage to reputation becomes more stringent. You, dear reader, do not have to make as compelling a case about slander or libel as Bill Clinton, George Bush 1 or 2, Barack Obama, or Woody Allen have to make regarding the defamation of their character (Allen would have to have an unusually cogent case since he's defamed himself ever since the "Mia and I aren't married so this woman is not technically my daughter" argument)
As with individuals, so with nations, I guess. Robertson can make a sweeping claim about an entire nation and some Christians will defend it as legitimately within the realm of biblical discussion. To be sure Robertson is also as likely to say that 9/11/2001 happened because of the leniency Americans have displayed toward homosexuals and abortionists so Robertson is certainly being internally consistent in claiming the right to pronounce God's judgment as though he were a prophet.
Finally, there are reasons to doubt the veracity of Robertson's "true story".
http://www.orthocuban.com/2010/01/father-orthoduck-apologizes-for-pat-robertson/
How can Robertson even establish that his story about a secret meeting of Haitian rebels making a pact with Satan to defeat Napoleon the third and whatever occurred? Wartime propaganda being what it is, Orthoduck notes that French Christian soldiers might find the voodo/Satan theory plausible because if black insurgents actually defeated white combatants they couldn't have done it without satanic assistance.
I suppose at some point someone will say that everything Robertson says is well researched and perhaps he is God's appointed voice. People will always say stuff like that even if false predictions come up. Selling what-if prophetic end-times warnings has been a career for Jack van Impe and "oh Jack" Rexella. Before you say something like "Robertson could be right" ask yourself how you would respond to someone telling you that your wife or husband or child or parent died of diabetes as God's punishment for a pact with the devil your grandma made that means you, too, will die of diabetes unless you do the Rebecca Brown M.D. thing.
If you find the prospect of "me" telling you that your suffering is God punishing you and your whole family for the sins of your grandfathers offensive, well then, congratulations, you've actually read Ezekiel and have some understanding why saying stuff like that is wildly inaccurate ... and you should avoid jumping to Robertson's defense. I hate that it has to be said but old pastors who say unconsidered things should get reprimanded whether we're talking about Pat Robertson or Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton or Dave Wilkerson or John Piper. Yeah, I threw in Piper because his bridge comments and tsunami comments were unfortunate. He didn't go there with 9/11/2001 that I can recall, but he went there easily enough for other things.
Well, I've said enough about those things. Consider giving money to charitable organizations that are helping with relief work in Haiti. It will display the love of Christ more readily than defending Pat Robertson saying that they made a pact with the devil. As I have blogged elsewhere, we Christians do not realize how often satanic a role we play in the lives of others.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
everything old is new again and everything new is old again
I recently finished arranging the Kyrie from William Byrd's Mass for Five Voices for solo guitar. It was a lot of fun! Of course the guitar having the very unbending limitations that it has I had to cut out two of any given five voices in the musical texture but after years of choral singing in college and high school and being a composer I pretty well worked out what lines to keep and what lines to omit.
Actually, speaking as a guitarist and a fellow who has sung in a couple of choirs the guitar and the choir resemble each other in having some not-very-pliable limitations. In a way it's not that difficult to consider the limits of the choir and the limits of the guitar as moving within overlapping spheres. The lowest notes of the guitar are as low as baritones can handle and the highest notes on the guitar reach up above what sopranos can handle on good days. Of course the guitar has absolutely no sustain! Conversely, the guitar never has to breathe the same way a choir will. Each weakness can be a corresponding strength just as each strength brings with it corresponding weakness. It is the nature of both life and art to plumb the depths of these things.
I have had a fondness for Byrd's music for about half of my life. I sang the wonderful motet Haec dies quam fecit dominus in high school (yeah, somehow despite separation of church and state stuff the choir teacher decided that if he just went with stuff in Latin (which no one teaches these days) he could bombard people with sacred choral music without them being offended by it and he could conduct music he actually liked)). I know a couple of friends who don't like Byrd and prefer Palestrina. My old college choir director used to say that Byd's writing isn't as perfect as Palestrina's ... but that a lot of Palestrina DOES start sounding the same after a while.
Actually, you listen to seven discs of Byrd's complete keyboard music and you notice that HIS music starts all blending together ... sort of like everyone else's music does. You see, it's not just punk and blues songs that all get to sounding like the same chords over and over again. If you listen to all sorts of music you begin to realize how much repetition and the same chords and hooks keep getting used again.
Instead of seeing the repetition and endless variation of things that have come again you can look at how even if it is not new in the grand scheme of things it can still be new for you. In Revelation we are told "Behold, I am making all things new". In the age to come the three chords that make up so much of Western music may still be those same three chords but they won't be the same. They will mean something new. The same will be true about all the microtonal music from other cultures. The kings of the world will bring their glories to the king of kings. Who knows but that in the age to come the Lord is gracious enough to include all sorts of music many Christians wouldn't even consider music. God may surprise some folks by enjoying the music of Messiaen and Penderecki when the new Jerusalem meets the earth.
Actually, speaking as a guitarist and a fellow who has sung in a couple of choirs the guitar and the choir resemble each other in having some not-very-pliable limitations. In a way it's not that difficult to consider the limits of the choir and the limits of the guitar as moving within overlapping spheres. The lowest notes of the guitar are as low as baritones can handle and the highest notes on the guitar reach up above what sopranos can handle on good days. Of course the guitar has absolutely no sustain! Conversely, the guitar never has to breathe the same way a choir will. Each weakness can be a corresponding strength just as each strength brings with it corresponding weakness. It is the nature of both life and art to plumb the depths of these things.
I have had a fondness for Byrd's music for about half of my life. I sang the wonderful motet Haec dies quam fecit dominus in high school (yeah, somehow despite separation of church and state stuff the choir teacher decided that if he just went with stuff in Latin (which no one teaches these days) he could bombard people with sacred choral music without them being offended by it and he could conduct music he actually liked)). I know a couple of friends who don't like Byrd and prefer Palestrina. My old college choir director used to say that Byd's writing isn't as perfect as Palestrina's ... but that a lot of Palestrina DOES start sounding the same after a while.
Actually, you listen to seven discs of Byrd's complete keyboard music and you notice that HIS music starts all blending together ... sort of like everyone else's music does. You see, it's not just punk and blues songs that all get to sounding like the same chords over and over again. If you listen to all sorts of music you begin to realize how much repetition and the same chords and hooks keep getting used again.
Instead of seeing the repetition and endless variation of things that have come again you can look at how even if it is not new in the grand scheme of things it can still be new for you. In Revelation we are told "Behold, I am making all things new". In the age to come the three chords that make up so much of Western music may still be those same three chords but they won't be the same. They will mean something new. The same will be true about all the microtonal music from other cultures. The kings of the world will bring their glories to the king of kings. Who knows but that in the age to come the Lord is gracious enough to include all sorts of music many Christians wouldn't even consider music. God may surprise some folks by enjoying the music of Messiaen and Penderecki when the new Jerusalem meets the earth.
Avatar and the shoot `em up genre
Debra Dean Murphy recently blogged about what she considered the failure of James Cameron's imagination in devising a narrative in which violence on the part of the Na'vi was not the only and ultimate response. The simplistic polarization of most of humanity as greedy and evil and the Na'vi as peace-loving warriors who respect the All-Mother couldn't be more obvious. That's normal and Cameron is never going to be a philosopher, nor should we expect him to be some intellectual giant. He makes spectacles (and, like Michael Bay's work, there is a place for that, really).
But what Avatar highlights about a convention in action cinema is that the peaceful warrior (and let's be even more blunt, the magic super-white-boy chosen-one (or white-girl, if we're talking about Joss Whedon plot-device girls)) ultimately kicks ass. A fellow I know once said that he didn't object to gratuitous violence in film as much as gratuitous morality--the badass who kicks ass isn't as offensive as the badass who smugly considers his own violence to be morally praiseworthy more than the violence of the people he harms.
The crux of redemption for the hero of the shoot `em up is not to give up the sword but to turn the sword on the right people. The hero of the shoot `em up film is redeemed not by repenting of a life of killing but by killing the right people. This is why the philosophy and moralism of Avatar ultimately rings hollow quickly. I wouldn't expect James Cameron to be, say, John Woo. John Woo's The Killer is maudlin, absurd, even downright embarrassing in a lot of places but what Woo did in that action movie was present a charming, sympathetic, likable protagonist who still dies in the end because what he cannot do, no matter how noble he aspires to be, is to lay down the sword. John Woo said he wanted to create an action film in which the man who lived by the sword died by the sword because action filmmakers have NOT told that sort of story.
Actually, when I was at Mars Hill I attended the screening of the film for film & theology and one attender said he didn't see where the redemption was in Woo's film. Woo's film is not about redemption because it is about demonstrating the ultimate end of a man who does not repent. Christians can too quickly and easily want their redemptive story arc without considering if repentence is involved. We TELL ourselves that we want repentence but the action genre is frequently proof that we want that repentence to take the form of repenting about WHO we will kill, not whether or not we will kill at all. Don't misunderstand me, I do own a few of John Woo's films and there is a lot of killing in the scriptures.
My critique of James Cameron is not to say there is never a time when killing to save lives is necessary. What I am getting at is that for a film-maker like Cameron his narrative trope is more hypocritical in that the peacable Na'vi are ultimately more bad-ass killing creatures than even the humans because they can pull it off, supposedly, without resorting as much to technology. In a way it's like George Lucas imagining that a bunch of Ewoks can take down a technologically superior culture which, so he claims, he learned from observing the Vietnam conflict. Lucas should have stopped rolling doobies or whatever it was he was doing besides seriously study of military history and inferring spectacularly dubious lessons about armed conflict. By extension, James Cameron's peacable Na'vi would be more plausibly peacable if they were not ultimately and obviously going to fight. But, again, Avatar is an enjoyable enough popcorn movie that I wouldn't say "don't go see it".
This sort of narrative inconsistency in art or life isn't purely the domain of James Cameron, it's a struggle we all have continually as we go through life (to some degree or another, perhaps not all at equal levels). Like Carrie Prejean speaking against gay marriage while not exactly living up to the ostensibly evangelically endorsed lifestyle herself, James Cameron (and perhaps all of us) is stuck in a world and a life where the gap between who we know we "should" be and who we are never seems to be bridged. It's not that gap that I think is itself an unusual problem, it's that in Avatar the selling point of the Na'vi is that they ostensibly don't "have" that gap even though they demonstrate it. Avatar becomes an allegory about the escapism combined with moral superiority inherent in its critique of those very things. The redeemed killer (Sully is an ex-Marine, after all) is redeemed by killing the right people for a change.
As I wrote earlier, an actually serious pantheist like Hayao Miyazaki concluded that what his kill-capable hero Ashitaka most needed to do was not to redeem his killing but to lay down his arms and find a way forward that involved not killing. Of course Miyazaki and Cameron are very different sorts of story-tellers. I simply hold forth Miyazaki as having already told the kind of story Cameron has given us in Avatar but with a more nuanced and alert reading of the moral quandaries and opportunity costs of the issues at stake.
That said, enjoy your burger. It is a well-made burger.
But what Avatar highlights about a convention in action cinema is that the peaceful warrior (and let's be even more blunt, the magic super-white-boy chosen-one (or white-girl, if we're talking about Joss Whedon plot-device girls)) ultimately kicks ass. A fellow I know once said that he didn't object to gratuitous violence in film as much as gratuitous morality--the badass who kicks ass isn't as offensive as the badass who smugly considers his own violence to be morally praiseworthy more than the violence of the people he harms.
The crux of redemption for the hero of the shoot `em up is not to give up the sword but to turn the sword on the right people. The hero of the shoot `em up film is redeemed not by repenting of a life of killing but by killing the right people. This is why the philosophy and moralism of Avatar ultimately rings hollow quickly. I wouldn't expect James Cameron to be, say, John Woo. John Woo's The Killer is maudlin, absurd, even downright embarrassing in a lot of places but what Woo did in that action movie was present a charming, sympathetic, likable protagonist who still dies in the end because what he cannot do, no matter how noble he aspires to be, is to lay down the sword. John Woo said he wanted to create an action film in which the man who lived by the sword died by the sword because action filmmakers have NOT told that sort of story.
Actually, when I was at Mars Hill I attended the screening of the film for film & theology and one attender said he didn't see where the redemption was in Woo's film. Woo's film is not about redemption because it is about demonstrating the ultimate end of a man who does not repent. Christians can too quickly and easily want their redemptive story arc without considering if repentence is involved. We TELL ourselves that we want repentence but the action genre is frequently proof that we want that repentence to take the form of repenting about WHO we will kill, not whether or not we will kill at all. Don't misunderstand me, I do own a few of John Woo's films and there is a lot of killing in the scriptures.
My critique of James Cameron is not to say there is never a time when killing to save lives is necessary. What I am getting at is that for a film-maker like Cameron his narrative trope is more hypocritical in that the peacable Na'vi are ultimately more bad-ass killing creatures than even the humans because they can pull it off, supposedly, without resorting as much to technology. In a way it's like George Lucas imagining that a bunch of Ewoks can take down a technologically superior culture which, so he claims, he learned from observing the Vietnam conflict. Lucas should have stopped rolling doobies or whatever it was he was doing besides seriously study of military history and inferring spectacularly dubious lessons about armed conflict. By extension, James Cameron's peacable Na'vi would be more plausibly peacable if they were not ultimately and obviously going to fight. But, again, Avatar is an enjoyable enough popcorn movie that I wouldn't say "don't go see it".
This sort of narrative inconsistency in art or life isn't purely the domain of James Cameron, it's a struggle we all have continually as we go through life (to some degree or another, perhaps not all at equal levels). Like Carrie Prejean speaking against gay marriage while not exactly living up to the ostensibly evangelically endorsed lifestyle herself, James Cameron (and perhaps all of us) is stuck in a world and a life where the gap between who we know we "should" be and who we are never seems to be bridged. It's not that gap that I think is itself an unusual problem, it's that in Avatar the selling point of the Na'vi is that they ostensibly don't "have" that gap even though they demonstrate it. Avatar becomes an allegory about the escapism combined with moral superiority inherent in its critique of those very things. The redeemed killer (Sully is an ex-Marine, after all) is redeemed by killing the right people for a change.
As I wrote earlier, an actually serious pantheist like Hayao Miyazaki concluded that what his kill-capable hero Ashitaka most needed to do was not to redeem his killing but to lay down his arms and find a way forward that involved not killing. Of course Miyazaki and Cameron are very different sorts of story-tellers. I simply hold forth Miyazaki as having already told the kind of story Cameron has given us in Avatar but with a more nuanced and alert reading of the moral quandaries and opportunity costs of the issues at stake.
That said, enjoy your burger. It is a well-made burger.
Uh, this isn't REALLY the scandal Mark Noll was talking about
http://www.9marks.org/CC/ejournal/2010v7-1/article_trueman.htm
Years ago, Mark Noll wrote a book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, in which he argued that the scandal was that there was no such thing. When it comes to evangelical scholars and scholarship, I disagree: the scandal is not that there is no mind; it is that these days there is precious little evangel.
That's the scandal of every age of evangelicalism and how evangelicalism as a historical movement began. Noll wasn't talking about theological scholarship, as I mentioned earlier and as others are mentioning. The scandal Noll was talking about is that evangelicals ONLY care about theology and certain types of political activism.
If evangelicalism sees the scandal of itself as not being evangelical enough then there's no point in thinking that continuing discussion will accomplish much. Didn't Luther argue that all vocations were equally holy if done in service to the Lord and love for neighbor? Since Noll wasn't even prmarily addressing evangelical scholars and scholarship as theological discourse (and The Civil War as a Theological Crisis shows that Noll has paid attention to how evangelicals have and have not grappled effectively with political and moral philosophy at a societal level in more than one epoch) Trueman is demonstrating he's part of the problem.
If evangelicalism yields more influence for good in society it will not "just" be because people teach and teach and teach some more. That is necessary, that is the role of the people who serve in leadership in the Church. But being the salt of the earth is more than just seasoning the salt shakers. If I were to take a guess at which Christian has done more to influence a wide public with stories and themes that embrace the teachings of Christ should I suppose that the biggest person influencing people's lives is someone approved by Reformed Baptists? Most people, really, don't know or care who John Piper is or John Macarthur or Cornelius Van Til or Dietrich Bonhoeffer are. Most people also don't know or care who Mark Driscoll or Brian McLaren or Rob Bell or John Shelby Spong are. Most people don't know or care who Andrew Stanton is ... but they have probably taken their kids to see WALL-E.
As I get older and observe how evangelicals basically don't want evangelicalism to be about things other than articulating the evangel in Powerpoint bullet points the more I wonder if I'm just a bad member of the team. I'm an evangelical Protestant but I don't feel obliged to read Christian fiction or see uniquely "Christian" movies. I have also found it frustrating to see that most of the work being done in the arts is either not done by Christians at all or not by Christians who seem to take their faith particularly seriously, at least among Protestants. Of course being into classical music this becomes more pronounced.
I don't think the explanation is that Protestants have no sense of history. That's a canard that Catholics find tempting yet Bach's music is more widely known than a lot of Catholic music. Besides, the argument that people have forsaken the real church with innovations of personal interpreation is what the Eastern Orthodox can say about the Catholics as much as the Catholics say that about Protestants (not that I'm interested in switching teams here, I'm just pointing out something). I think that the obsession to immerse in church history without considering the history of other disciplines "may" be the problem.
In other words, Mark Driscoll isn't going to shape culture the way Andrew Stanton has and neither man is supposed to have the same role. But after ten years of hearing people at Mars Hill talk about shaping culture, redeeming culture, engaging culture, getting "upstream" where "culture-making" happens it seems to me that evangelicals are happier talking about how they should be doing that or how they wish they could do it rather than actually doing it. The peopel who actually ARE shaping culture seem to mostly have better things to do with their time than talk about how we "should" be doing that. It seems as though Andrew Stanton is busy being a professional and a family man rather than preaching about how Christians need to get more evangel in their presentation. Whatever happened to "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks"?
If Jesus came to teach today evangelicals, particularly of the Reformed Baptist variety, seem like the would get on Jesus' case for not discussing propositional truth plainly enough. Now I'm being snarky here and I'm probably ovedoing it and for that I apologize. It just strikes me that Baptists can get too easily into a mode where they would say to Jesus, "Tell us plainly, who do you think you are?" But I should concede I'm being unfair, I'm pretty much more Presbyterian than Baptist these days.
Years ago, Mark Noll wrote a book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, in which he argued that the scandal was that there was no such thing. When it comes to evangelical scholars and scholarship, I disagree: the scandal is not that there is no mind; it is that these days there is precious little evangel.
That's the scandal of every age of evangelicalism and how evangelicalism as a historical movement began. Noll wasn't talking about theological scholarship, as I mentioned earlier and as others are mentioning. The scandal Noll was talking about is that evangelicals ONLY care about theology and certain types of political activism.
If evangelicalism sees the scandal of itself as not being evangelical enough then there's no point in thinking that continuing discussion will accomplish much. Didn't Luther argue that all vocations were equally holy if done in service to the Lord and love for neighbor? Since Noll wasn't even prmarily addressing evangelical scholars and scholarship as theological discourse (and The Civil War as a Theological Crisis shows that Noll has paid attention to how evangelicals have and have not grappled effectively with political and moral philosophy at a societal level in more than one epoch) Trueman is demonstrating he's part of the problem.
If evangelicalism yields more influence for good in society it will not "just" be because people teach and teach and teach some more. That is necessary, that is the role of the people who serve in leadership in the Church. But being the salt of the earth is more than just seasoning the salt shakers. If I were to take a guess at which Christian has done more to influence a wide public with stories and themes that embrace the teachings of Christ should I suppose that the biggest person influencing people's lives is someone approved by Reformed Baptists? Most people, really, don't know or care who John Piper is or John Macarthur or Cornelius Van Til or Dietrich Bonhoeffer are. Most people also don't know or care who Mark Driscoll or Brian McLaren or Rob Bell or John Shelby Spong are. Most people don't know or care who Andrew Stanton is ... but they have probably taken their kids to see WALL-E.
As I get older and observe how evangelicals basically don't want evangelicalism to be about things other than articulating the evangel in Powerpoint bullet points the more I wonder if I'm just a bad member of the team. I'm an evangelical Protestant but I don't feel obliged to read Christian fiction or see uniquely "Christian" movies. I have also found it frustrating to see that most of the work being done in the arts is either not done by Christians at all or not by Christians who seem to take their faith particularly seriously, at least among Protestants. Of course being into classical music this becomes more pronounced.
I don't think the explanation is that Protestants have no sense of history. That's a canard that Catholics find tempting yet Bach's music is more widely known than a lot of Catholic music. Besides, the argument that people have forsaken the real church with innovations of personal interpreation is what the Eastern Orthodox can say about the Catholics as much as the Catholics say that about Protestants (not that I'm interested in switching teams here, I'm just pointing out something). I think that the obsession to immerse in church history without considering the history of other disciplines "may" be the problem.
In other words, Mark Driscoll isn't going to shape culture the way Andrew Stanton has and neither man is supposed to have the same role. But after ten years of hearing people at Mars Hill talk about shaping culture, redeeming culture, engaging culture, getting "upstream" where "culture-making" happens it seems to me that evangelicals are happier talking about how they should be doing that or how they wish they could do it rather than actually doing it. The peopel who actually ARE shaping culture seem to mostly have better things to do with their time than talk about how we "should" be doing that. It seems as though Andrew Stanton is busy being a professional and a family man rather than preaching about how Christians need to get more evangel in their presentation. Whatever happened to "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks"?
If Jesus came to teach today evangelicals, particularly of the Reformed Baptist variety, seem like the would get on Jesus' case for not discussing propositional truth plainly enough. Now I'm being snarky here and I'm probably ovedoing it and for that I apologize. It just strikes me that Baptists can get too easily into a mode where they would say to Jesus, "Tell us plainly, who do you think you are?" But I should concede I'm being unfair, I'm pretty much more Presbyterian than Baptist these days.
a little resource for classical guitarists who like chamber music, Sheer Pluck's search engine
http://www.sheerpluck.de/
If you want an unusual, even obscure instrumental combination of chamber music for classical guitar you can't really do better than this website. I would encourage all fans of chamber music for classical guitar to use this resource if you're in a quandary looking for existing repertoire for say, double bass and guitar; or if you're looking for a trio that includes a mezzo-soprano, a guitar, and a viola (really, there's Charles Argersinger's Geography of Weather!) As yet there are no works for guitar and tuba and I plan to remedy that situation one day.
If you want an unusual, even obscure instrumental combination of chamber music for classical guitar you can't really do better than this website. I would encourage all fans of chamber music for classical guitar to use this resource if you're in a quandary looking for existing repertoire for say, double bass and guitar; or if you're looking for a trio that includes a mezzo-soprano, a guitar, and a viola (really, there's Charles Argersinger's Geography of Weather!) As yet there are no works for guitar and tuba and I plan to remedy that situation one day.
Friday, January 08, 2010
Reclaiming the Mind looks back at The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind 16 years later
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2010/01/the-scandal-of-the-evangelical-mind-sixteen-years-later/
Perhaps the remedy is to continue to teach, teach, and teach but to recognize that "transforming the culture for Jesus" is not something that will have immediate dividends, not something that will even remotely "pay off" in your lifetime. I don't think it is without cause that Matt Chandler said in a relatively recent sermon that many people go to seminary to become pastors because they preached a sermon or two and a little old lady told that person "You could be the next Billy Graham". That is, however, another topic. I don't feel like going off at length about my agreement with Matthew Lee Anderson that evangelicals would rather talk about making culture than actually go make some.
Noll's observation that there hasn't been much of an evangelical mind so many years ago probably meets with bewilderment from a number of evangelical Christians. One I met a few years ago said it seemed the evangelical mind was alive and well and he talked about John Piper and Grudem and others. He was certain that things were not as bad as Noll described.
The thing that was missing from that observation with respect to Noll is that Noll was addressing the near total failure of evangelicals to engage the arts and the sciences. Theology has been the obsession of evangelicals since the dawn of evangelicalism. The scandal of the evangelical mind is that all it seems to be devoted to is a particular range of piety and social action. Evangelicals by definition see their mission as saving souls and having their lives transformed by Jesus and "engaging culture" is engaged in such pragmatic ways as to further that mission. Actually contributing to the intellectual and cultural heritage of a society is considered secondary to "transforming the culture for Jesus". Notice I'm not saying I don't want the cultures transformed by the teaching of Christ, just that this is generally a side effect rather than the GOAL of Christian thinking and service.
Let me put things this way, when the Lord called Abraham the promise would be that through him the nations would be blessed. Over time the people descended from Abraham that became Israel understood God had made promises to His people. Eventually they proved faithless to the covenant God made with them and sought after other gods (quickly, actually, from the beginning, and persistently). It is a commonplace to say that the story is not ours but the Lord's yet it can be easy to forget that. When the Lord instructed His people through the prophet to seek the welfare of the city so that they could live peacably that meant seeking the welfare of the city. Love your neighbor, not just for your own sake but for your neighbor's.
I have often felt over the last three or four years that when some Christians talk about loving the city loving the city is merely a means to the end of establishing one's own legacy and credentials as someone who can then influence the city for one's own goals. Sounds overly cynical and I admit it is but that's where I'm at. People look after their own interests and this I understand.
Yet it seems that we are not as altruistic as we think we are.
Perhaps the remedy is to continue to teach, teach, and teach but to recognize that "transforming the culture for Jesus" is not something that will have immediate dividends, not something that will even remotely "pay off" in your lifetime. I don't think it is without cause that Matt Chandler said in a relatively recent sermon that many people go to seminary to become pastors because they preached a sermon or two and a little old lady told that person "You could be the next Billy Graham". That is, however, another topic. I don't feel like going off at length about my agreement with Matthew Lee Anderson that evangelicals would rather talk about making culture than actually go make some.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
HT to Inhabitatio Dei--And ye shall know he is righteous by how many theology books he owns and has read
http://signonthewindow.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/book-collections-virtue-or-vice/
We’d also never considered book ownership to be a form of gluttony. Because it feels like there are some things that are okay to own in excess, music may be another. Books and music are the cool gluttony, the kind of thing you talk about on your blog, unlike, say, food gluttony or Fabrage egg gluttony.
Lusts can come in many forms. Christians can certainly be aware of the dangers of avarice, we are also aware of the dangers of lust of the sexual variety or a lust for food or a lust for power. A lust for books, however, is likely to be considered not only good but a sign of righteousness. Whether the Reformed or the charismatic or what-have-you the potential problems of the who collects books on spiritual topics the idea that collecting books for the sake of collecting books might ever indicate a spiritual problem rarely comes up. No one to date has ever said in my hearing, "You know I think your theological library is too big to be healthy."
For a good chunk of my life I basically didn't buy books or CDs. There was no money left over for them and I lived in college towns where the libraries were pretty good. I made a point in my teens of checking out CDs and books from libraries. I would not buy a CD unless I heard it and liked all the tracks on it. I would not buy a book unless I had already read it and liked it enough to read it again. It was not until my later twenties that I began to buy books I had not read before or bought CDs of music I had not ALREADY heard.
As Ecclesiastes puts it of the writing of books there is no end and much study wearies the body. Yet some of us keep studying, keep reading books, keep doing things that do not really help us even though we persuade ourselves otherwise. Since I'm job hunting I am already not really going out of my way to collect books. I had enough books about a year ago that getting more isn't interesting to me. In fact I would probably want a moratorium on books as gifts until I have time to read the stuff I actually have. I have considered it a better goal to have read all the books I own than to own a lot of books. As the Spanish proverb puts it as with books, so with friends, few but good. The size of your library does not make you a better person and the avarice to collect books may ultimately be no better a lust than other lusts that are more popular for Christians to talk about.
Still, the reason this is, if at all relevant, peculiar is because overweening desires are our problem. I was listening to a Tim Keller sermon a while back in which he explained that the desires Paul was warning against are not necessarily bad desires categorically but consuming desires. A lust for spiritual books can be seen for what it is, a lust. :) Not that I'm advocating some literary equivalent of being a Luddite. I think reading is immensely valuable. I can understand why people like to buy things. Once you buy it then it's yours and the idea of borrowing or lending can be unpallatable if you have trouble remembering to turn in your library check out materials or have lent things to see them never returned.
Of course the original post begs the question about what excess is. People who have eaten too much honey themselves can be inspired to tell other people to not eat so much of it. Have you found honey? Eat only what you need otherwise you will vomit it up after getting sick. There is a time and season for everything. I have had a time and season for theological reading and lately I am more in a time and season of looking for a job.
We’d also never considered book ownership to be a form of gluttony. Because it feels like there are some things that are okay to own in excess, music may be another. Books and music are the cool gluttony, the kind of thing you talk about on your blog, unlike, say, food gluttony or Fabrage egg gluttony.
Lusts can come in many forms. Christians can certainly be aware of the dangers of avarice, we are also aware of the dangers of lust of the sexual variety or a lust for food or a lust for power. A lust for books, however, is likely to be considered not only good but a sign of righteousness. Whether the Reformed or the charismatic or what-have-you the potential problems of the who collects books on spiritual topics the idea that collecting books for the sake of collecting books might ever indicate a spiritual problem rarely comes up. No one to date has ever said in my hearing, "You know I think your theological library is too big to be healthy."
For a good chunk of my life I basically didn't buy books or CDs. There was no money left over for them and I lived in college towns where the libraries were pretty good. I made a point in my teens of checking out CDs and books from libraries. I would not buy a CD unless I heard it and liked all the tracks on it. I would not buy a book unless I had already read it and liked it enough to read it again. It was not until my later twenties that I began to buy books I had not read before or bought CDs of music I had not ALREADY heard.
As Ecclesiastes puts it of the writing of books there is no end and much study wearies the body. Yet some of us keep studying, keep reading books, keep doing things that do not really help us even though we persuade ourselves otherwise. Since I'm job hunting I am already not really going out of my way to collect books. I had enough books about a year ago that getting more isn't interesting to me. In fact I would probably want a moratorium on books as gifts until I have time to read the stuff I actually have. I have considered it a better goal to have read all the books I own than to own a lot of books. As the Spanish proverb puts it as with books, so with friends, few but good. The size of your library does not make you a better person and the avarice to collect books may ultimately be no better a lust than other lusts that are more popular for Christians to talk about.
Still, the reason this is, if at all relevant, peculiar is because overweening desires are our problem. I was listening to a Tim Keller sermon a while back in which he explained that the desires Paul was warning against are not necessarily bad desires categorically but consuming desires. A lust for spiritual books can be seen for what it is, a lust. :) Not that I'm advocating some literary equivalent of being a Luddite. I think reading is immensely valuable. I can understand why people like to buy things. Once you buy it then it's yours and the idea of borrowing or lending can be unpallatable if you have trouble remembering to turn in your library check out materials or have lent things to see them never returned.
Of course the original post begs the question about what excess is. People who have eaten too much honey themselves can be inspired to tell other people to not eat so much of it. Have you found honey? Eat only what you need otherwise you will vomit it up after getting sick. There is a time and season for everything. I have had a time and season for theological reading and lately I am more in a time and season of looking for a job.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
In which I link to one of my older, better poems
http://wenatcheethehatchet.blogspot.com/2006/09/villanelle.html
That sonnett about paying bills was middling at best. It made me feel like linking back to an older, better poem I wrote years ago. I haven't written anywhere near as decent a villanelle since. Poetry isn't easy. Then again, as they say, nothing worth doing well ever is easy.
That sonnett about paying bills was middling at best. It made me feel like linking back to an older, better poem I wrote years ago. I haven't written anywhere near as decent a villanelle since. Poetry isn't easy. Then again, as they say, nothing worth doing well ever is easy.
"On Paying Bills" (a sonnett)
I have bills to pay the old-fashioned way
(bills do not creep up on you unawares).
Paying them will take up most of my day.
A bill you receive is one for your cares.
You can't tell yourself, "I will care for less."
You can't help but be in some other's debt
And you can't stop caring, that is your mess.
You can't help living a life with regret.
You can't help but pay for others' mistakes
(As both life and death are just what they are)
As well as your own, and that is what makes
The death of a man the life of a star--
Both distant, certain, and yet indistinct.
Not even after life are bills extinct.
It isn't great but it's improvised. Improvised sonnetts tend to be lacking in quality. I trust there is no need to expound upon the inspiration for such a piece of doggerel as this. My villanelle a few years ago was better.
(bills do not creep up on you unawares).
Paying them will take up most of my day.
A bill you receive is one for your cares.
You can't tell yourself, "I will care for less."
You can't help but be in some other's debt
And you can't stop caring, that is your mess.
You can't help living a life with regret.
You can't help but pay for others' mistakes
(As both life and death are just what they are)
As well as your own, and that is what makes
The death of a man the life of a star--
Both distant, certain, and yet indistinct.
Not even after life are bills extinct.
It isn't great but it's improvised. Improvised sonnetts tend to be lacking in quality. I trust there is no need to expound upon the inspiration for such a piece of doggerel as this. My villanelle a few years ago was better.
Monday, January 04, 2010
link to a post by Bob Myers over at BHT
http://boarsheadtavern.com/2010/01/02/15938/
Quote by Reformed theologian Bavinck on Catholic doctrine of justification by works is superior to Protestant doctrine of justification by correct doctrine….
[W]e must remind ourselves that the Catholic righteousness by good works is vastly preferable to a protestant righteousness by good doctrine. At least righteousness by good works benefits one’s neighbor, whereas righteousness by good doctrine only produces lovelessness and pride. Furthermore, we must not blind ourselves to the tremendous faith, genuine repentence, complete surrender and the fervent love for God and neighbor evident in the lives and work of many Catholic Christians. The Christian life is so rich that it develops its full glory not just in a single form or within the walls of one church.
A useful reminder. I feel as though I have been in church traditions where salvation by right doctrine has been the norm. Of course I do believe it is vital to believe the right doctrines but I also find that it is not necessarily more helpful to believe the right doctrines as doctrines. It is too easy to look at a person's life, see that their doctrine does not measure up to what you think it should be, and write them off as just happening to be a good Christian despite that or perhaps not as good as they could be if they did something else better.
This salvation by right doctrine is admittedly a reaction on my part to impulses I saw within my Pentecostal background where the position was that if you displayed the right spiritual gifts, if you just let go and let God, if you just cut loose and REALLY got on fire for God then the Lord would open up pathways to new levels of spiritual victory and being used by the Spirit. To say that this approach could be antiintellectual is unfair because it implies that these sorts of people considered intellectual activity to be a part of the Christian faith in some form. I was once at the sort of church where little old church lady was sitting in on a Sunday school class where the youth pastor was going through how to interpret biblical literature and got to Ecclesiastes. Yes, I DID just write about how a Pentecostal youth pastor was explaining why Ecclesiastes is in the canon to his Sunday school youth group! Well, the reason he had occasion to explain was precisely because the little old lady who was some kind of pillar in the church (maybe, she at least thought so) asked, "But why is this book even in the Bible?" She didn't sound like she was asking the question for rhetorical effect.
As I have written elsewhere the Bible is full of stuff that doesn't always come off as particularly inviting. The older I get the more I realize that it is more honestly Christian to admit that, as Peter put it, there are some like Paul who write things that are hard to understand. Some people love the Psalms while not liking the prophets. Other people love the prophets but don't like the Psalms. Some people may like the Gospels and find the epistles troubling. Many people avoid the apocalyptic literature while going for almost anything else. Some people adore the epistles for their theology, set out in such wonderful, abstract, propositional terms, but struggle to get a proper appreciation for the historical writings and to put them to responsible application.
When I consider the reasons why I have not continued a formal connection to a particular churchl it increasingly dawns on me that I had become part of a mentality in which salvation by right doctrine was where I was at entirely without realizing it. I thought for sure I knew better. I had family and friends who were pretty much on this track, too. Salvation by right belief is part, not the whole. I can understand why some people would go all the way to the other way and define righteousness and salvation by right practice, right liturgy, and right church but I am admittedly still too much a Protestant to go where a lot of people want those quests to lead people. It is ultimately just a variation on an earlier quest to be with the right crowd and to feel secure knowing you've found the "right" church. The criteria may change but the impulse may often be the same.
By way of allusion to a Reclaiming the Mind post evangelicals in America have been so eager to NOT appear to be embracing a social gospel of some bygone liberalism they can seem to forget that the apostles cared about the poor. When I measure my Christian faith in light of things described in scripture I'm not particularly good but then I never really have been. On the other hand, in the last five to six years I have noticed changes in my spiritual life and I realize that while I have always had reasons to doubt being "good enough" by any measure of any Christian community I have been part of I have also found that I have been
Quote by Reformed theologian Bavinck on Catholic doctrine of justification by works is superior to Protestant doctrine of justification by correct doctrine….
[W]e must remind ourselves that the Catholic righteousness by good works is vastly preferable to a protestant righteousness by good doctrine. At least righteousness by good works benefits one’s neighbor, whereas righteousness by good doctrine only produces lovelessness and pride. Furthermore, we must not blind ourselves to the tremendous faith, genuine repentence, complete surrender and the fervent love for God and neighbor evident in the lives and work of many Catholic Christians. The Christian life is so rich that it develops its full glory not just in a single form or within the walls of one church.
A useful reminder. I feel as though I have been in church traditions where salvation by right doctrine has been the norm. Of course I do believe it is vital to believe the right doctrines but I also find that it is not necessarily more helpful to believe the right doctrines as doctrines. It is too easy to look at a person's life, see that their doctrine does not measure up to what you think it should be, and write them off as just happening to be a good Christian despite that or perhaps not as good as they could be if they did something else better.
This salvation by right doctrine is admittedly a reaction on my part to impulses I saw within my Pentecostal background where the position was that if you displayed the right spiritual gifts, if you just let go and let God, if you just cut loose and REALLY got on fire for God then the Lord would open up pathways to new levels of spiritual victory and being used by the Spirit. To say that this approach could be antiintellectual is unfair because it implies that these sorts of people considered intellectual activity to be a part of the Christian faith in some form. I was once at the sort of church where little old church lady was sitting in on a Sunday school class where the youth pastor was going through how to interpret biblical literature and got to Ecclesiastes. Yes, I DID just write about how a Pentecostal youth pastor was explaining why Ecclesiastes is in the canon to his Sunday school youth group! Well, the reason he had occasion to explain was precisely because the little old lady who was some kind of pillar in the church (maybe, she at least thought so) asked, "But why is this book even in the Bible?" She didn't sound like she was asking the question for rhetorical effect.
As I have written elsewhere the Bible is full of stuff that doesn't always come off as particularly inviting. The older I get the more I realize that it is more honestly Christian to admit that, as Peter put it, there are some like Paul who write things that are hard to understand. Some people love the Psalms while not liking the prophets. Other people love the prophets but don't like the Psalms. Some people may like the Gospels and find the epistles troubling. Many people avoid the apocalyptic literature while going for almost anything else. Some people adore the epistles for their theology, set out in such wonderful, abstract, propositional terms, but struggle to get a proper appreciation for the historical writings and to put them to responsible application.
When I consider the reasons why I have not continued a formal connection to a particular churchl it increasingly dawns on me that I had become part of a mentality in which salvation by right doctrine was where I was at entirely without realizing it. I thought for sure I knew better. I had family and friends who were pretty much on this track, too. Salvation by right belief is part, not the whole. I can understand why some people would go all the way to the other way and define righteousness and salvation by right practice, right liturgy, and right church but I am admittedly still too much a Protestant to go where a lot of people want those quests to lead people. It is ultimately just a variation on an earlier quest to be with the right crowd and to feel secure knowing you've found the "right" church. The criteria may change but the impulse may often be the same.
By way of allusion to a Reclaiming the Mind post evangelicals in America have been so eager to NOT appear to be embracing a social gospel of some bygone liberalism they can seem to forget that the apostles cared about the poor. When I measure my Christian faith in light of things described in scripture I'm not particularly good but then I never really have been. On the other hand, in the last five to six years I have noticed changes in my spiritual life and I realize that while I have always had reasons to doubt being "good enough" by any measure of any Christian community I have been part of I have also found that I have been
Saturday, January 02, 2010
Avatar, James Cameron as the liberal's upscale Michael Bay
Thanks to a generous friend I saw Avatar last night. I have now concluded that James Cameron has, and perhaps always will be, the liberal's Michael Bay.
Over the years critics have remarked upon Michael Bay's propensity to discard story logic in favor of explosive spectacle. IO9 wrote a gut-busting satirical review of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen in which it was flatly declared that Michael Bay was an arthouse film director whose goal was to create a film that so bludgeoned the senses it overwhelmed higher reason with the ennui of the cosmos we live in. James Cameron has demonstrated in his work ranging from Piranha 2 up through Avatar that he has a similar, yet tighter and more disciplined command of the cinematic art.
All of that is to say that I don't go to a James Cameron film to expect narrative logic, morally nuanced characters, logically anticipated and resolved plotholes, or compelling philosophy ... I go to a James Cameron film to have my eyes and ears bludgeoned by grandiose gestures. James Cameron is what you might get if you translated Tolkien into film without room for nuance (and notice I'm not saying Tolkien was necessarily subtle, since he bothered to write the profoundly aggravating Tom Bombadil into his books).
Having seen Avatar and Transformers Revenge of the Fallen inside of a year James Cameron has opened my eyes and I find myself seeing James Cameron and Michael Bay as two sides of the same coin. Cameron is the more accomplished film-maker and ... dare I say it ... artist. Yet at the end of the day both display the same lack of capacity for nuance or subtlety in their rampant moralizing and penchant for epic spectacle as though it constituted moral philosophy (funny, Tolkien can come off that way to me sometimes, but I digress).
Now that I have seen Avatar I am even more persuaded that Cameron's presentation of pantheism is what you get when a Westerner embraces the idea of pantheism rather than the lived-out consequences of applied pantheism. Miyazaki's films give us a more blunt and yet also more playful depiction of how a pantheist approaches global problems (i.e. ranging a whole swath of thoughts and emotions from Nausicaa, Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Ponyo to say nothing of the manga form of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind). The nature that you want to be in touch with may just as soon kill you as commune with you. Miyazaki gets that. Cameron gives us the dumbed down hippie version
That said, Cameron's spectacle is generally spectacular enough that so long as he's subordinating his inveterate preachiness to sheer spectacle he can turn out some decent popcorn movies. I'd give Avatar a 3.5 of 5. I don't feel like spoiling things this time and with Avatar being a James Cameron film, really, what on earth could there possibly be to spoil? I suppose the idea of changing one's views about another race is more plausibly explored here than it was in, say, Terminator 2.
I'm reminded of an interesting comment from a New Yorker author about how E. T. was the kind of deeply conservative film only a liberal could make. Cameron might well be the same sort of story-teller in some ways. His faithfulness to his tale is so archly conservative it might help explain for me why he seems like a doppleganger of Michael Bay. Where Michael Bay reflexively sees military personnel and officers as good Cameron sees them as evil. Where Michael Bay sees humanity as capable and obligated to save itself from alien destruction Cameron prefers to write off humanity as a race except for the three or five who pass muster with the ways of the Na'vi. Where Michael Bay sees peaceniks as fools who don't get the magnitude of what is going on around them and people have to fight and destroy the enemy ... James Cameron sees peaceniks as people avoiding the truth of having to fight and destroy the enemy who will destroy them.
The common ground both Bay and Cameron have is on the necessity of destroying the true other, as opposed to the accepted other. Avatar and Transformers Revenge of the Fallen are, if you will, the same story being told by both a conservative and a liberal. This may be why the ethics in the stories seem a bit hollow because it's still a magic white boy who saves the day in the end either way. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy Avatar. Far from it, it's a feast for the eyes and ears I'm just saying that while it is a feast for the eyes and ears it is probably best to describe it as a feast of eating at Red Robin while Michael Bay's fare is more like eating from the drive-thru at Dick's over on Queen Anne Avenue. Both are places that serve burgers and fries and certainly Red Robin has the more reputable, classy atmosphere and the higher end qualities on food but you're still eating a burger.
By all means enjoy that great burger! Just remember that while not all burgers are equal and Avatar is surely a better burger than Transformers Revenge of the Fallen we're still talking about two burgers. A man does not live by burgers alone even when the burger sells itself as having all the food groups and being of the highest quality and better than all the other burgers out there. Conversely, a cheap burger made of low quality meat with greasy fries is sometimes what you want. There is also a time for grape nuts and frozen fruit with low-fat milk, too. I hope that we can lay to rest the illusion that Cameron and Bay are qualitatively different sorts of film-makers or that Cameron somehow has a greater level of philosophical acument. At the end of the day both directors bank all their money on blowing crap up and letting the special kids make it through the end.
I can appreciate the reason why some folks are growing tired of the genre dubbed with some resentment as the "magic whitey" genre. I wonder if White Comanche might be an example of that genre or not ... and I honestly don't know if I'm going to see the film to find out. I'd be more likely to jump at a viewing of Dead Snow (an unsubtle reminder to some friends that I'd love to see a film about Nazi zombies tramping through the snow). In terms of sheer fun Avatar doesn't hold a candle to either last year's Star Trek film or Up, and yet it's still slightly better than average for the kind of flick it is. In fact in terms of thought-provoking material Avatar isn't going to best Coraline. I have an even greater desire now to see the film made by one of Cameron's ex-wives, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. This last year was a year in which I meant to see any number of films but didn't get around to seeing them. I enjoyed Avatar for what it was but I am not sure I'll go see it again and I certainly wouldn't buy it for my personal movie collection.
Over the years critics have remarked upon Michael Bay's propensity to discard story logic in favor of explosive spectacle. IO9 wrote a gut-busting satirical review of Transformers Revenge of the Fallen in which it was flatly declared that Michael Bay was an arthouse film director whose goal was to create a film that so bludgeoned the senses it overwhelmed higher reason with the ennui of the cosmos we live in. James Cameron has demonstrated in his work ranging from Piranha 2 up through Avatar that he has a similar, yet tighter and more disciplined command of the cinematic art.
All of that is to say that I don't go to a James Cameron film to expect narrative logic, morally nuanced characters, logically anticipated and resolved plotholes, or compelling philosophy ... I go to a James Cameron film to have my eyes and ears bludgeoned by grandiose gestures. James Cameron is what you might get if you translated Tolkien into film without room for nuance (and notice I'm not saying Tolkien was necessarily subtle, since he bothered to write the profoundly aggravating Tom Bombadil into his books).
Having seen Avatar and Transformers Revenge of the Fallen inside of a year James Cameron has opened my eyes and I find myself seeing James Cameron and Michael Bay as two sides of the same coin. Cameron is the more accomplished film-maker and ... dare I say it ... artist. Yet at the end of the day both display the same lack of capacity for nuance or subtlety in their rampant moralizing and penchant for epic spectacle as though it constituted moral philosophy (funny, Tolkien can come off that way to me sometimes, but I digress).
Now that I have seen Avatar I am even more persuaded that Cameron's presentation of pantheism is what you get when a Westerner embraces the idea of pantheism rather than the lived-out consequences of applied pantheism. Miyazaki's films give us a more blunt and yet also more playful depiction of how a pantheist approaches global problems (i.e. ranging a whole swath of thoughts and emotions from Nausicaa, Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Ponyo to say nothing of the manga form of Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind). The nature that you want to be in touch with may just as soon kill you as commune with you. Miyazaki gets that. Cameron gives us the dumbed down hippie version
That said, Cameron's spectacle is generally spectacular enough that so long as he's subordinating his inveterate preachiness to sheer spectacle he can turn out some decent popcorn movies. I'd give Avatar a 3.5 of 5. I don't feel like spoiling things this time and with Avatar being a James Cameron film, really, what on earth could there possibly be to spoil? I suppose the idea of changing one's views about another race is more plausibly explored here than it was in, say, Terminator 2.
I'm reminded of an interesting comment from a New Yorker author about how E. T. was the kind of deeply conservative film only a liberal could make. Cameron might well be the same sort of story-teller in some ways. His faithfulness to his tale is so archly conservative it might help explain for me why he seems like a doppleganger of Michael Bay. Where Michael Bay reflexively sees military personnel and officers as good Cameron sees them as evil. Where Michael Bay sees humanity as capable and obligated to save itself from alien destruction Cameron prefers to write off humanity as a race except for the three or five who pass muster with the ways of the Na'vi. Where Michael Bay sees peaceniks as fools who don't get the magnitude of what is going on around them and people have to fight and destroy the enemy ... James Cameron sees peaceniks as people avoiding the truth of having to fight and destroy the enemy who will destroy them.
The common ground both Bay and Cameron have is on the necessity of destroying the true other, as opposed to the accepted other. Avatar and Transformers Revenge of the Fallen are, if you will, the same story being told by both a conservative and a liberal. This may be why the ethics in the stories seem a bit hollow because it's still a magic white boy who saves the day in the end either way. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy Avatar. Far from it, it's a feast for the eyes and ears I'm just saying that while it is a feast for the eyes and ears it is probably best to describe it as a feast of eating at Red Robin while Michael Bay's fare is more like eating from the drive-thru at Dick's over on Queen Anne Avenue. Both are places that serve burgers and fries and certainly Red Robin has the more reputable, classy atmosphere and the higher end qualities on food but you're still eating a burger.
By all means enjoy that great burger! Just remember that while not all burgers are equal and Avatar is surely a better burger than Transformers Revenge of the Fallen we're still talking about two burgers. A man does not live by burgers alone even when the burger sells itself as having all the food groups and being of the highest quality and better than all the other burgers out there. Conversely, a cheap burger made of low quality meat with greasy fries is sometimes what you want. There is also a time for grape nuts and frozen fruit with low-fat milk, too. I hope that we can lay to rest the illusion that Cameron and Bay are qualitatively different sorts of film-makers or that Cameron somehow has a greater level of philosophical acument. At the end of the day both directors bank all their money on blowing crap up and letting the special kids make it through the end.
I can appreciate the reason why some folks are growing tired of the genre dubbed with some resentment as the "magic whitey" genre. I wonder if White Comanche might be an example of that genre or not ... and I honestly don't know if I'm going to see the film to find out. I'd be more likely to jump at a viewing of Dead Snow (an unsubtle reminder to some friends that I'd love to see a film about Nazi zombies tramping through the snow). In terms of sheer fun Avatar doesn't hold a candle to either last year's Star Trek film or Up, and yet it's still slightly better than average for the kind of flick it is. In fact in terms of thought-provoking material Avatar isn't going to best Coraline. I have an even greater desire now to see the film made by one of Cameron's ex-wives, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. This last year was a year in which I meant to see any number of films but didn't get around to seeing them. I enjoyed Avatar for what it was but I am not sure I'll go see it again and I certainly wouldn't buy it for my personal movie collection.
Friday, January 01, 2010
via Matthew Johnson at BHT, a link about 3 rules for making it through a lifetime of ministry
http://blog.marshillchurch.org/2009/12/31/what-the-eighty-six-year-old-pastor-said/
...
Of course, the old preacher rattled off three points:
1.“Read the Bible every day.” I asked him how many times he had read the Bible, and he said he was finishing up his 358th reading of the entire Bible
2.“Mumble prayers throughout the day.” He explained that it is vital to pray in the morning to connect with God and confess sin, but that we also need to mumble prayers throughout the day, talking to God about everything.
3.“Refuse to have any enemies.” He said that if you choose to forgive everyone of all their sins, then no matter who or what is against you, your heart will not become hard and bitter because you treat everyone like a friend.
Which one is most convicting for you? Me? Easily number 3.
***
This is no surprise but it's good someone told him this and it's better that he knows how amazingly bad he's been on implementing 3 up to this point. Given how many people he has called "good friends" that he probably doesn't even speak to any more he might want to work on the friendship part a little more but that's just a hunch on my part.
The flip side of 3 is remembering the biblical definition of friend, being willing to lay down your life for someone. Laying down your life for your enemies so that they can be made friends is something only Jesus could truly accomplish. If your understanding of friendship as the scriptures describe it is inadequate then just not considering other people enemies does you no good if you don't have more than one true friend in the world and that friend is your spouse, for instance. That sort of friendship can be good and healthy but was established on other grounds than actual friendship. But I digress ... .
I have enough of a link to Mars Hill the last ten years I know at least partly how bad he has sucked at following 3 and it's probably worse than even I can imagine (and I can imagine a lot having used to participate on the unmoderated Midrash and having seen his antics as William Wallace II. There was a time circa 2006-2008 where he seemed particularly awful about 3. Screwing up 3 means it doesn't matter how well you do 1 and 2.
But this advice from the old preacher is so useful I want to share it because it's counsel I find helpful to be reading myself. Obviously far more than just preachers should consider 1-3! There are indirect reasons why 3 is vital for a healthy Christian life. The direct reason is that we are commanded by Christ to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us whether that persecution be real or, as is so often the case in our lives in the West, merely imagined or real but entirely self-inflicted through our words and conduct. Many a man who pleads that he is persecuted for his stand for truth is too often a self-serving jerk with delusions of grandeur.
The indirect reason is that defining your life and making your mission to tear down the people or institutions you consider your enemies makes them the basis of defining your whole life. Just as Luke Skywalker eventually discovers that the person he most wanted to destroy is his father so a person may discover that by deciding someone or something is his enemy that he needs that enemy to define who he is. He draws his lifeblood from his resentment rather than from Life itself. No amount of rebukes or corrections will suffice for this kind of person, and it may be that even being broken completely will not cause the man (or woman) to change their ways.
Proverbs says that a man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed, without remedy. Proverbs also warns that we should not rejoice when our enemy falls and do not be glad when he stumbles or the Lord will see it and be displeased and turn His anger from them.
...
Of course, the old preacher rattled off three points:
1.“Read the Bible every day.” I asked him how many times he had read the Bible, and he said he was finishing up his 358th reading of the entire Bible
2.“Mumble prayers throughout the day.” He explained that it is vital to pray in the morning to connect with God and confess sin, but that we also need to mumble prayers throughout the day, talking to God about everything.
3.“Refuse to have any enemies.” He said that if you choose to forgive everyone of all their sins, then no matter who or what is against you, your heart will not become hard and bitter because you treat everyone like a friend.
Which one is most convicting for you? Me? Easily number 3.
***
This is no surprise but it's good someone told him this and it's better that he knows how amazingly bad he's been on implementing 3 up to this point. Given how many people he has called "good friends" that he probably doesn't even speak to any more he might want to work on the friendship part a little more but that's just a hunch on my part.
The flip side of 3 is remembering the biblical definition of friend, being willing to lay down your life for someone. Laying down your life for your enemies so that they can be made friends is something only Jesus could truly accomplish. If your understanding of friendship as the scriptures describe it is inadequate then just not considering other people enemies does you no good if you don't have more than one true friend in the world and that friend is your spouse, for instance. That sort of friendship can be good and healthy but was established on other grounds than actual friendship. But I digress ... .
I have enough of a link to Mars Hill the last ten years I know at least partly how bad he has sucked at following 3 and it's probably worse than even I can imagine (and I can imagine a lot having used to participate on the unmoderated Midrash and having seen his antics as William Wallace II. There was a time circa 2006-2008 where he seemed particularly awful about 3. Screwing up 3 means it doesn't matter how well you do 1 and 2.
But this advice from the old preacher is so useful I want to share it because it's counsel I find helpful to be reading myself. Obviously far more than just preachers should consider 1-3! There are indirect reasons why 3 is vital for a healthy Christian life. The direct reason is that we are commanded by Christ to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us whether that persecution be real or, as is so often the case in our lives in the West, merely imagined or real but entirely self-inflicted through our words and conduct. Many a man who pleads that he is persecuted for his stand for truth is too often a self-serving jerk with delusions of grandeur.
The indirect reason is that defining your life and making your mission to tear down the people or institutions you consider your enemies makes them the basis of defining your whole life. Just as Luke Skywalker eventually discovers that the person he most wanted to destroy is his father so a person may discover that by deciding someone or something is his enemy that he needs that enemy to define who he is. He draws his lifeblood from his resentment rather than from Life itself. No amount of rebukes or corrections will suffice for this kind of person, and it may be that even being broken completely will not cause the man (or woman) to change their ways.
Proverbs says that a man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed, without remedy. Proverbs also warns that we should not rejoice when our enemy falls and do not be glad when he stumbles or the Lord will see it and be displeased and turn His anger from them.
For my part I'm very bad at 1, not so good at 2, and actually try hard with 3 (not that I'll vouchsafe success, sometimes people just decide you're their enemy no matter what you decide ... which is something I've seen people do that inspired my little discourse above).
Something that this whole subject gets me thinking about is how within Christendom 3 is a spectacular failure for many of us, something unbelievers look upon with great amusement. Consider that Calvinists consider Arminianism to be a terrible doctrine, even a heresy. Catholics and Wesleyans and Orthodox consider Calvinism to be a terrible heresy and a false gospel. Many Christians are so busy villifying each other about so many things that are not core confessions about who Christ is, about the Trinity, and so on that there are all sorts of "enemies" that we have listed as Christians. Our enemies are frequently based not only on perceived and real doctrinal differences but on practical differences in culture and politics. The most common thing in the history of all Christianity is to consider people with doctrinal differences enemies and to speak and preach and write and publish and blog about them as though they were enemies allied with Satan himself. If you wonder how Christian culture warrior types react to the "heathen" read how they respond to professing Christians who differe on doctrinal, liturgical, and other points that would still technically put them within the realm of Christian confession.
If there is anything folks at a certain church should be most ashamed of it is a history of looking down on other churches as not being as good when, in fact, many of them are and in many respects better. There are churches with pastors who are actually competent and responsible in handling and preaching from Old Testament texts. There are churches who have already officially arrived at being Reformed Baptists which is basically what a particular megachurch that doesn't want to quite admit it's a denomination already has become. If they did I'd be very, very happy! I could wish them all the success God provides if they admitted to being a denomination already and became one of the several hundred Baptist denominations that have arisen! Of course I say this realizing, over the last year, that my disposition is more Presbyterian than Baptist but I don't expect a random blog-reader to care what that means.
When you consider people enemies they return the favor even if you don't think you live out your conviction that so-and-so is an enemy in any obvious way, or even in a way that could (you think) be noticed by anyone else. But that's you fooling yourself. I had someone call me up almost out of the blue (it wasn't but it felt that way at the time) to ask me why someone hated him. I had no idea. I could see the reasons for the conviction and could even grant a plausible, powerful case that some animosity was afoot but I couldn't really explain it. I was stymied. All that is to say that if you consider someone your enemy you will treat them like an enemy even when you think you don't. Your life and actions will reveal, at length, your attitude.
You may think you have no enemies but the reactions of other people may reveal otherwise. Jesus said that if your brother has something against you go and be reconciled to him, not the other way around. He didn't say in that setting that if you have something against your brother to not even go to the altar but first go seek reconciliation. Too many Christians seem to think that the time to press endlessly for reconciliation is when they have been offended and not when they have offended.
If you push for reconciliation when you are offended but are content to do your usual worship stuff in church without meeting to be reconciled with someone you have offended then you define your worthiness to participate in worship of the Lord on your own terms and may be potentially eating and drinking judgment on yourself. I can't know that, of course, I'm just suggesting it as something to consider. There were times, personally, where I avoided participating in communion until I could make sure I cleared the air and worked things out with people I felt strongly I had upset and offended.
At the time I thought I had not personally erred on a matter of essential teaching and had not intended to hurt the feelings of the other person but I still did not trust that my own conscience was enough to exonerate me so that I could eat the bread and drink the wine. This doesn't make me a particularly good Christian, of course, but it is something that I have had personal convictions about ("convictions" meaning that is what I believed I needed to do, not the other Christianese variation of "I really felt convicted by the sermon because the pastor talked about how selfish singles are and I'm not married." That I feel I need to clear that up at all would be another blog topic if I felt like writing one).
So as you go into yet another year that may or may not be your last consider who you have decided is, at any level at all, your enemy. Consider who may have considered you their enemy through no choice of their own or even by their choice.
Monday, December 28, 2009
1980s toys and cartoons and the 00s--passion to do what has been done before
The first decade of the 21st century met with a host of films and TV programs connected to 1980s cartoons and toys. Include comic books and this last decade included an unprecedented number of comic book movies that got mainstream attention whether we're talking about Ghost World, A History of Violence, Road to Perdition, 30 Days of Night, Daredevil, Spiderman, Blade, Persepolis, Ghost Rider, Whiteout, 300, Sin City, Watchmen, or any other comic book film you care to mention. As for toy franchises this year we got a G. I. Joe film (bad), and another Transformers film (also very bad). There have been rumors for years that John Woo might get behind a Master's of the Universe film. The next Smurfs movie will not make it until next year or the year after but it began to get greenlit in this decade, I think. The Chipmunks and Scooby Doo also got revamps for the current age ... though to be fair that raggedy dog never really went out of style no matter how many times I may wish he DID go out of style. We also got those insufferable Star Wars prequels. As bad as people say Episode 1 was the other two episodes were equally appalling but that is something I will leave aside for now.
It would seem people in their thirties and forties are insisting on foisting upon mass culture our childhood obsessions and naturally this means stuff from the 1980s. This, I submit, is perfectly normal. If something gets popular enough it turns into film. I don't personally see much need for Harry Potter films to get turned into films at all. Star Trek is a case in point for a franchise where each successive generation has enough adherents that it dragged on for four decades with intermitten success. I lost interest at the end of The Next Generation and didn't really come back until Abrams was brought on board for the reboot. No matter how bad Star Trek got in the movies with the 11th one we have a revived franchise and that is more than can be said for George Lucas' work. People actually born in the 1980s don't realize how big Star Wars was for us. Well, they do in as much as whatever zeal they have for Harry Potter or whatever they get into is the same sort of zeal but for a different cultural artifact.
But people who were teenagers through the better part of this last decade and who were kids will probably be mostly happy that the books became popular enough to become films even if they don't actually like the films. With all these mammoth book sets getting turned into films who knows but that Angelina Jolie may end up playing Dangey Taggert in an Atlas Shrugged film. Ten years ago I would have imagined it would be impossible for the Lord of the Rings books to get adapted into film.
For people whose nostalgia goes no further back than whatever they deem worth remembering all of this will seem like proof that Hollywood has run out of ideas. They never had their own ideas and a film is too large a project to be built upon "new" ideas. I'm not dismissing the art form at all but canards are canards. Would we be better off having new ideas and new stories for film when all the stories have been told? Novels, short stories, epic poems, and ballads have covered all the kinds of stories there have been to tell since before the advent of photography. It is only our collective and individual failures of memory that gets us thinking that, somehow, there are actually new ideas. We should get a more careful, nuanced working definition of what constitutes "new".
In the last decade I have seen that animated films in the West are, if anything, one of the more fruitful fields of film. I admit to being highly biased in favor of cartoons. I wanted to be an animator when I was a kid. Eventually I discovered how much drawing was involved in such an enterprise and in my early twenties I shifted my attention to journalism, theology, and music after I had an eye injury that completely changed my priorities about what sorts of arts I would work in. I keep my eyes open for stuff that intrigues me and stuff that is not so much new as compelling.
Just because something has not been committed to film before doesn't make it worth the effort. The tedious animated film Nine demonstrated "new" is not really new. We don't want "new" ideas for film if those new ideas include Norbit or basically anything Eddie Murphy has done in the last ten years. You don't want a "new" film based on "new" material if it is insufferable.
I think it's okay for earlier generations to want younger generations to get into the stuff they were into. People who are in their twenties now can only have been introduced to Rush, the Cure, Bob Dylan, Hendrix or anything else by older people. The passion you discover in discovering the old does not mean it is old for you. I have at times believed that the avant garde is nothing more than going back further in time or to more obscure places than what people usually go to when they emulate something more "mainstream". "Revolution #9" isn't a particularly daring piece if you compare it to anything by Stockhausen, Messiaen, Berg, Webern, or Stravinsky in terms of sheer innovation. It is, however, to the immense credit of the Beatles and their production team that they created "Revolution #9" in the context of pop music. It becomes even more an accomplishment when you consider that for all intents and purposes the Beatles started out like just about any other boy band from the time.
You would have thought the 80s revival would have hit us already since in the 1980s people were revisiting the 1960s. Everyone hitting their 30s and 40s seems to look back fondly on whatever they were into in their teens and twenties.
It might be fun to complain about things being revived or redone and say that Hollywood is out of ideas but that's too easy. Anyone without a grounding in how much we humans repeat ourselves could say that. I had a friend in college who said that he didn't like American film because of all the cliches. I pointed out that European cinema is just as cliche as American cinema and he responded, "Well, I like European cliches better." Oh, and that makes it all better, huh? Shooting for cliche and shooting for trite from the outset may be the easy way out but shooting for anything not cliche lands you in the realm of some other set of cliches. The human experience is not quite so wide and varied as we persuade ourselves it is, particularly in the modern West (or the old West).
Take Avatar, someone could say that it is just Fern Gully or Dances with Wolves in space and that wouldn't necessarily be wrong (I won't know until I see it). Conversely, why point this out without pointing out that this sort of romanticism is about as old as H9llywood itself. We have all sorts of people fooling themselves into thinking that if they shut off their Blackberry, their iPod, their email, their computer, their cel phone, their whatever-you-name-among-modern contrivances-we-thin-we-depend-on-too-much that life will get simpler and we'll be more attuned to nature and better to ourselves and each other. Yeah, and people were saying that twenty years ago and forty years ago and sixty years ago, too. Before the hippies were the beatniks and before them the Transcendentalists and each generation has had its batch of anti-Transcendentalists. Want to guess where I land on that spectrum? That earlier post about Kafka and Dostoevsky is a big clue. :)
I don't think it's bad that we see people in each generation attempting to get the same ideas to work. Augustine dealt with the human conviction that we have evolved and will evolve centuries before Darwin developed his variation of the theory. Darwin stumbled upon a variation of an old idea. Ideas that intrigue people and help them get through life tend to self-replicate. Cartoons that were popular with people in the 1980s become movies, whether the cartoons were literally cartoons or, as we'll see, the cartoon is a bit more figurative like the upcoming A-Team movie. I love it when a plan comes together, even if that plan is, strictly speaking, not very new. On that note, happy New Year. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
It would seem people in their thirties and forties are insisting on foisting upon mass culture our childhood obsessions and naturally this means stuff from the 1980s. This, I submit, is perfectly normal. If something gets popular enough it turns into film. I don't personally see much need for Harry Potter films to get turned into films at all. Star Trek is a case in point for a franchise where each successive generation has enough adherents that it dragged on for four decades with intermitten success. I lost interest at the end of The Next Generation and didn't really come back until Abrams was brought on board for the reboot. No matter how bad Star Trek got in the movies with the 11th one we have a revived franchise and that is more than can be said for George Lucas' work. People actually born in the 1980s don't realize how big Star Wars was for us. Well, they do in as much as whatever zeal they have for Harry Potter or whatever they get into is the same sort of zeal but for a different cultural artifact.
But people who were teenagers through the better part of this last decade and who were kids will probably be mostly happy that the books became popular enough to become films even if they don't actually like the films. With all these mammoth book sets getting turned into films who knows but that Angelina Jolie may end up playing Dangey Taggert in an Atlas Shrugged film. Ten years ago I would have imagined it would be impossible for the Lord of the Rings books to get adapted into film.
For people whose nostalgia goes no further back than whatever they deem worth remembering all of this will seem like proof that Hollywood has run out of ideas. They never had their own ideas and a film is too large a project to be built upon "new" ideas. I'm not dismissing the art form at all but canards are canards. Would we be better off having new ideas and new stories for film when all the stories have been told? Novels, short stories, epic poems, and ballads have covered all the kinds of stories there have been to tell since before the advent of photography. It is only our collective and individual failures of memory that gets us thinking that, somehow, there are actually new ideas. We should get a more careful, nuanced working definition of what constitutes "new".
In the last decade I have seen that animated films in the West are, if anything, one of the more fruitful fields of film. I admit to being highly biased in favor of cartoons. I wanted to be an animator when I was a kid. Eventually I discovered how much drawing was involved in such an enterprise and in my early twenties I shifted my attention to journalism, theology, and music after I had an eye injury that completely changed my priorities about what sorts of arts I would work in. I keep my eyes open for stuff that intrigues me and stuff that is not so much new as compelling.
Just because something has not been committed to film before doesn't make it worth the effort. The tedious animated film Nine demonstrated "new" is not really new. We don't want "new" ideas for film if those new ideas include Norbit or basically anything Eddie Murphy has done in the last ten years. You don't want a "new" film based on "new" material if it is insufferable.
I think it's okay for earlier generations to want younger generations to get into the stuff they were into. People who are in their twenties now can only have been introduced to Rush, the Cure, Bob Dylan, Hendrix or anything else by older people. The passion you discover in discovering the old does not mean it is old for you. I have at times believed that the avant garde is nothing more than going back further in time or to more obscure places than what people usually go to when they emulate something more "mainstream". "Revolution #9" isn't a particularly daring piece if you compare it to anything by Stockhausen, Messiaen, Berg, Webern, or Stravinsky in terms of sheer innovation. It is, however, to the immense credit of the Beatles and their production team that they created "Revolution #9" in the context of pop music. It becomes even more an accomplishment when you consider that for all intents and purposes the Beatles started out like just about any other boy band from the time.
You would have thought the 80s revival would have hit us already since in the 1980s people were revisiting the 1960s. Everyone hitting their 30s and 40s seems to look back fondly on whatever they were into in their teens and twenties.
It might be fun to complain about things being revived or redone and say that Hollywood is out of ideas but that's too easy. Anyone without a grounding in how much we humans repeat ourselves could say that. I had a friend in college who said that he didn't like American film because of all the cliches. I pointed out that European cinema is just as cliche as American cinema and he responded, "Well, I like European cliches better." Oh, and that makes it all better, huh? Shooting for cliche and shooting for trite from the outset may be the easy way out but shooting for anything not cliche lands you in the realm of some other set of cliches. The human experience is not quite so wide and varied as we persuade ourselves it is, particularly in the modern West (or the old West).
Take Avatar, someone could say that it is just Fern Gully or Dances with Wolves in space and that wouldn't necessarily be wrong (I won't know until I see it). Conversely, why point this out without pointing out that this sort of romanticism is about as old as H9llywood itself. We have all sorts of people fooling themselves into thinking that if they shut off their Blackberry, their iPod, their email, their computer, their cel phone, their whatever-you-name-among-modern contrivances-we-thin-we-depend-on-too-much that life will get simpler and we'll be more attuned to nature and better to ourselves and each other. Yeah, and people were saying that twenty years ago and forty years ago and sixty years ago, too. Before the hippies were the beatniks and before them the Transcendentalists and each generation has had its batch of anti-Transcendentalists. Want to guess where I land on that spectrum? That earlier post about Kafka and Dostoevsky is a big clue. :)
I don't think it's bad that we see people in each generation attempting to get the same ideas to work. Augustine dealt with the human conviction that we have evolved and will evolve centuries before Darwin developed his variation of the theory. Darwin stumbled upon a variation of an old idea. Ideas that intrigue people and help them get through life tend to self-replicate. Cartoons that were popular with people in the 1980s become movies, whether the cartoons were literally cartoons or, as we'll see, the cartoon is a bit more figurative like the upcoming A-Team movie. I love it when a plan comes together, even if that plan is, strictly speaking, not very new. On that note, happy New Year. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
http://credenda.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=141:how-nt-wright-stole-christmas&catid=99:culture&Itemid=122
I suggest a moratorium on new Christmas hymns, until we all learn the Magnificat and the Benedictus and the Nunc Dimittis so much by heart that they seep out our fingers at the keyboard, until we instinctively sing of Jesus’ birth like Mary, like Zecharias, like Simeon.
An amusing quote for me because I have not attempted to compose any Christmas songs and have focused more on Advent material when I have turned my attention to this period in the liturgical year. I was inspired to compose a Latin Magnificat and a vernacular Magnificat and a setting of the Nunc Dimittis. I really want to get to the Benedictus and my brother long ago proposed a fascinating idea of a split choir (of men and women, of course) in which the Magnificat and Benedictus are interwoven into a single work. Now THAT sounds like an amazing project to tackle.
A few years ago I put together a rudimentary libretto using passages from Revelation as an Advent text. I meant to compose the song cycle myself but haven't gotten around to it and am not sure I remember the details of it anymore. Hmm ... perhaps I should get back to composing Advent music again.
I suggest a moratorium on new Christmas hymns, until we all learn the Magnificat and the Benedictus and the Nunc Dimittis so much by heart that they seep out our fingers at the keyboard, until we instinctively sing of Jesus’ birth like Mary, like Zecharias, like Simeon.
An amusing quote for me because I have not attempted to compose any Christmas songs and have focused more on Advent material when I have turned my attention to this period in the liturgical year. I was inspired to compose a Latin Magnificat and a vernacular Magnificat and a setting of the Nunc Dimittis. I really want to get to the Benedictus and my brother long ago proposed a fascinating idea of a split choir (of men and women, of course) in which the Magnificat and Benedictus are interwoven into a single work. Now THAT sounds like an amazing project to tackle.
A few years ago I put together a rudimentary libretto using passages from Revelation as an Advent text. I meant to compose the song cycle myself but haven't gotten around to it and am not sure I remember the details of it anymore. Hmm ... perhaps I should get back to composing Advent music again.
Avatar?
Haven't seen it and don't know precisely when I will (or even if I will). I studiously avoided Titanic years ago on the grounds that if James Cameron was using the rehated star-crossed lovers across conflicting classes trope I had better things to do with my time and money. I went and caught Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen the day I was invited to go see Titanic. My sister asked me if the girl who invited me to see Titanic was cute and I said that it wasn't a matter of cute there were principles involved and I had already bought my ticket for Lawrence of Arabia anyway.
Avatar promises to be another liberal screed on behalf of James Cameron, probably using technology to decry itself. At least Peter Gabriel's music that opines on technology as a means to dehumanization is AMBIVALENT. When Gabriel records a pop song there are the concerns about losing touch with nature and yet there is an equally strong impulse to revel in sound for the sake of sound. Peter Gabriel can attempt to have it both ways because he has made a career of attempting to have it both ways. Art rock/prog rock/fusion pop has always been that way.
Meanwhile Hayao Miyazaki can create cinematic jeremiads about the dangers of encroaching technology and destruction and not come off as facile because as anyone who knows about animation knows he's old-school. He still likes to handle his films through traditional hand-drawn techniques and even his manga magnum opus Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind consisted entirely of his own writing, pencils and artwork. When you care enough to do cartoons the old way it helps reinforce a methodological purity that matches the ideological vision driving your art.
Of course I'll never agree with Miyazaki's pantheism but he's more intellectually consistent and respectable, even going so far as (in the manga version of Nausicaa) compelling his protagonist to confront the reality that her attempts to save the ecosphere of her own world may damn it to destruction because it was engineered to expend itself as a way to revive the ecosphere that had been destroyed by wars that happened generations ago.
Cameron's work has been more about the epic and emotional gesture than about idea. I suppose I should concede here that even his most successful film franchise, Terminator 1 and 2 (at least) is hamstrung by a complete failure to unpack the inevitability of the time loop his initial narrative creates. The paradox at the heart of the Terminator franchise is that Skynet's very attempt to prevent the birth of John Connor is the direct cause of John Connor's birth. Only in a world where Skynet did not attempt to stop Connor's birth would Connor's birth actually have been prevented. No one sent up this paradox more beautifully or brutally than South Park did in their "Trapper Keepr 2000" episode.
If Cameron were consistent with the idea that preventing Skynet was possible then if John Connor actually PREVENTS the existence of Skynet he precludes the possibility of his own existence. This is why Terminator 3 was ultimately not the failure several critics said it was because it took the narrative conceit more seriously than Cameron's philosophical conceit that "there is no fate but what we make". The problem with that conceit is simply that we are not the only ones making our fates and that Skynet was determined to make its own fate, too.
Cameron has a history of failing to address the implications of his philosophical and social assertions. Even a film like Pixar's WALL-E is internally consistent by refusing to settle on an artificial distinction such as "machines are bad and people are good, technology is bad and simple living is good". WALL-E represents, as machine, the better qualities and limitations of humanity. The auto-pilot represents the lesser qualities but without having to be considered the "villain" of the story in some arch form. What some have said reflects a weakness Pixar has for failing to come up with memorable or intimidating villains is one of the things I admire about their work. It is an ability to see some shades of gray in ostensibly black and white narratives and their consistent exploration of how their protagonists need to repent of something to better love their neighbors that keeps me coming back to Pixar films.
I suppose I could wax pop psychological and guess that Cameron is still rebelling against a father who said he wouldn't amount to anything and still attempting to prove to everyone, not least himself, that he's better than anyone at what he does. I can appreciate that impulse to tackle things that are tough just because they are tough. I also realize that doing that doesn't make you an artist in itself. I appreciate Cameron's films when they emphasize spectacle over thought and explosions over exposition. My indifference about seeing Avatar is because if I want a film to preach at me or subvert ideas I can go watch films by Miyazaki or the Coen brothers. I still have more interest in seeing Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker than seeing Avatar. Perhaps it's fitting since Avatar's release that I find myself more interested in seeing the film of one of his ex-wives. Since Cameron isn't claiming to make a film about a historical event I suppose I can muster up the will to go see Avatar.
Of all the descriptions I have seen for the film so far the most amusing is one that describes Avatar as what you would get if the Thundercats bred with the Smurfs and the resulting offspring fought Robotech. Since I'm obviously a fan of cartoons this description is not only not insulting to me presented at face value but sounds like a far more accurate description of what Cameron has done than other reviews. Now if someone were to describe Avatar as what you would get if Rubik the Amazing Cube mated with Turboteen and those offspring fought the characters from the Pole Position cartoon and Donkey Kong I would never go near a theater. I trust you understand what I mean. Cameron might find it insulting to have his magnum opus compared to 1980s cartoons but I wouldn't. To get into why will require another post for another time.
Avatar promises to be another liberal screed on behalf of James Cameron, probably using technology to decry itself. At least Peter Gabriel's music that opines on technology as a means to dehumanization is AMBIVALENT. When Gabriel records a pop song there are the concerns about losing touch with nature and yet there is an equally strong impulse to revel in sound for the sake of sound. Peter Gabriel can attempt to have it both ways because he has made a career of attempting to have it both ways. Art rock/prog rock/fusion pop has always been that way.
Meanwhile Hayao Miyazaki can create cinematic jeremiads about the dangers of encroaching technology and destruction and not come off as facile because as anyone who knows about animation knows he's old-school. He still likes to handle his films through traditional hand-drawn techniques and even his manga magnum opus Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind consisted entirely of his own writing, pencils and artwork. When you care enough to do cartoons the old way it helps reinforce a methodological purity that matches the ideological vision driving your art.
Of course I'll never agree with Miyazaki's pantheism but he's more intellectually consistent and respectable, even going so far as (in the manga version of Nausicaa) compelling his protagonist to confront the reality that her attempts to save the ecosphere of her own world may damn it to destruction because it was engineered to expend itself as a way to revive the ecosphere that had been destroyed by wars that happened generations ago.
Cameron's work has been more about the epic and emotional gesture than about idea. I suppose I should concede here that even his most successful film franchise, Terminator 1 and 2 (at least) is hamstrung by a complete failure to unpack the inevitability of the time loop his initial narrative creates. The paradox at the heart of the Terminator franchise is that Skynet's very attempt to prevent the birth of John Connor is the direct cause of John Connor's birth. Only in a world where Skynet did not attempt to stop Connor's birth would Connor's birth actually have been prevented. No one sent up this paradox more beautifully or brutally than South Park did in their "Trapper Keepr 2000" episode.
If Cameron were consistent with the idea that preventing Skynet was possible then if John Connor actually PREVENTS the existence of Skynet he precludes the possibility of his own existence. This is why Terminator 3 was ultimately not the failure several critics said it was because it took the narrative conceit more seriously than Cameron's philosophical conceit that "there is no fate but what we make". The problem with that conceit is simply that we are not the only ones making our fates and that Skynet was determined to make its own fate, too.
Cameron has a history of failing to address the implications of his philosophical and social assertions. Even a film like Pixar's WALL-E is internally consistent by refusing to settle on an artificial distinction such as "machines are bad and people are good, technology is bad and simple living is good". WALL-E represents, as machine, the better qualities and limitations of humanity. The auto-pilot represents the lesser qualities but without having to be considered the "villain" of the story in some arch form. What some have said reflects a weakness Pixar has for failing to come up with memorable or intimidating villains is one of the things I admire about their work. It is an ability to see some shades of gray in ostensibly black and white narratives and their consistent exploration of how their protagonists need to repent of something to better love their neighbors that keeps me coming back to Pixar films.
I suppose I could wax pop psychological and guess that Cameron is still rebelling against a father who said he wouldn't amount to anything and still attempting to prove to everyone, not least himself, that he's better than anyone at what he does. I can appreciate that impulse to tackle things that are tough just because they are tough. I also realize that doing that doesn't make you an artist in itself. I appreciate Cameron's films when they emphasize spectacle over thought and explosions over exposition. My indifference about seeing Avatar is because if I want a film to preach at me or subvert ideas I can go watch films by Miyazaki or the Coen brothers. I still have more interest in seeing Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker than seeing Avatar. Perhaps it's fitting since Avatar's release that I find myself more interested in seeing the film of one of his ex-wives. Since Cameron isn't claiming to make a film about a historical event I suppose I can muster up the will to go see Avatar.
Of all the descriptions I have seen for the film so far the most amusing is one that describes Avatar as what you would get if the Thundercats bred with the Smurfs and the resulting offspring fought Robotech. Since I'm obviously a fan of cartoons this description is not only not insulting to me presented at face value but sounds like a far more accurate description of what Cameron has done than other reviews. Now if someone were to describe Avatar as what you would get if Rubik the Amazing Cube mated with Turboteen and those offspring fought the characters from the Pole Position cartoon and Donkey Kong I would never go near a theater. I trust you understand what I mean. Cameron might find it insulting to have his magnum opus compared to 1980s cartoons but I wouldn't. To get into why will require another post for another time.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Link--Reclaiming the Mind "If the Bible is not inerrant than Christianity is false and other stupid statements"
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2009/12/if-the-bible-is-not-inerrant-then-christianity-is-false-and-other-stupid-statements/#more-3540
Back when I was at a certain church I had come to the conclusion that if one states that the Bible infallibly accomplishes the purpose for which it was written that is sufficient and that contemporary definitions of inerrancy rely too much on a polarity imposed upon it by folks who were embracing a post-enlightenment rationalism that would require its adherents to reject the credibility of the biblical documents on the basis of differences in genealogies or different numbers assigned to different battles in, say, Kings and Chronicles. To hold that scripture is infallible but not necessarily inerrant or that inerrancy is not as critical as christology, however, lands you in exceptionally hot water depending on where you are, who your friends are, and who your relatives are. So I simply avoided saying that though I am willing to affirm that scripture is reliable and trustworthy it's not necessary to go beyond the historical records to impose an apologetic criteria on to the scriptures that the scriptures themselves do not require in order for the message to be believed.
I didn't say a whole lot about this because one of the pastors at that time was saying things like that God could basically make the world not end due to any possible consequences of global warming so that people would be around and that the unpardonable sin is unbelief. I strongly disagreed with these particular explanations but decided it was not worth it to press those points if all the elders at the church, according to this pastor, all agreed on certain things.
Actually, I feel a bit weird writing this but having the view of infallibility over inerrancy is easier to articulate now that some of my family members are Eastern Orthodox instead of essentially Reformed Baptist American style. There was a time when I thought they might decide I wasn't really a Christian if I actually said that inerrancy is not as important as a proper understanding of the trinity and an appreciation of the trustworthiness of the events attested by scripture. For isntance, whatever people would claim to be errant documentation of the late Brittany Murphy's death no one should reasonably contest that 1) she's dead and 2) she was in 8 Mile and King of the Hill, etc, etc.
Now I am willing to say I believe the scriptures are historically trustworthy overall but I have seen too many Christians take that kind of teaching and marry it to other things that are not even close to essential to the Christian faith like voting for this particular political party or having that particular view on economic theory or defending this interpretation of history based on allegiances to sides so long after the fact it's silly to think your view matters in the end. If you really think the Confederacy was better than the Union because the Union was being run by a bunch of functional Unitarians the news I have for you is for those of us with American Indian family histories we kind of don't care--the northern racists beat the southern racists and American Indians still got treated like crap and it wasn't until about a century later when blacks organized to object to the racism on both sides that things started to change.
As Mark Noll pointed out the central problem in the Civil War for evangelical Protestants (yes, he makes a good case for the North being effectively as evangelical as the South despite claims to the contrary) is that BOTH sides consisted chiefly of evangelical Protestants who affirmed scripture as the ultimate and final authority and yet the theological debates got nowhere and the issues were resolved by force. This may be indicative of the problems in American evangelicalism ever since. At some point we can't really solve the social problems we want solved and must resort at length to invoking or rallying political force. We must at length convert our social capital into moral capital and then invest in political power to make sure things go our way.
Admittedly much of what I have written this winter is downbeat. Job hunting and reflecting on the last ten years of my life tends to get me downbeat. I am in my thirties rather than my twenties so I am seeing people make obscenely stupid decisions with their lives and pleading victim status after having taken abusive attitudes toward people. It is not uncommon for bullies to feel like victims and for bullies to bully each other and each one pleads to his or her constituency that they are not, in fact, bullies but persecuted for being the lone bastion of truth and reason. Except that what they are fighting for is not really truth or reason but shortcuts to pin what they want done on the thing most likely to get them what they want.
My objection to inerrancy is not to inerrancy itself at all or the concept behind it but how people exploit their defense of the scriptures as a way to essentially obtain what they want. When you have people of conservative and liberal allegiances essentially rewriting the biblical texts to suit their social and political agendas you're getting people whose gods are their political ideologies and not Christ. If you only say that God is in control when your preferred political party is in power then you may have to examine your heart to discern whether or not your actual god is the party you vote for.
I have seen people look down on other people for fiscal irresponsibility who made spectacularly foolish decisions in their own finances. I have seen people demonize other people for questioning the prevailing social fad regarding interaction of the sexes. I have seen people demonize other people for not being Calvinists or for being Calvinists. It is this capacity to demonize people that bugs me. I am anything but immune to the temptation and it is precisely that aspect in myself that I find profoundly aggravating! I also find it profoundly aggravating in other people. Few things bug me more than when I get the sense that a person thinks he or she is better than someone else whether it is the "I am a superior individual" variety or the "I'm not perfect but I'm not as bad as you are" variety. Inerrancy is one of the ways in which a variety of Christians can pull this maneuver.
As Scotteriology put it, there's a huge swath of American evangelicals who hold that as long as you hold the right doctrines your failure to live out the applied ethics of those doctrines doesn't matter. If you don't make your rent then its your landlord's fault for being a jerk who does illegal things, not you being a jerk for presuming on the generosity of a landlord who you called a friend yet still needs you to pay rent on time to make expenses. If you are in a dating relationship and someone dumps you because you lack the emotional or mental stability to be who they need you to be in the relationship, well, it's too bad that happened but it would be worse to raise children in that kind of toxic dynamic. If you look down on other people's health failures as signs of moral failures and you've given yourself heart failure or diabetes that's also too bad, because self-discipline wouldn't be something the scriptures exhort us to if it came to us naturally. Jesus wouldn't have said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak if we all had the self-control and single-mindedness of Batman (well ... maybe Christopher Nolan's Batman isn't quite in that mold).
I try to appreciate that when you face that you are causing your own death you repent and you share that sense of urgency with everyone you know but it doesn't entitle you to look down on people whose problems may not be the same as yours. And amidst all this I hope what you don't do is invoke your view as being the right one because you know the real meaning of the scriptures and simply have to be right because of who you are. There comes a point when I find myself thinking of a comment made by Dr. Wilson to Dr. House regarding House's complete disdain for the field of mental health professionals, "Never before has a man so villified a profession he so badly needed help from." Yes, I know people like this in the real world. I didn't bust a gut laughing because that line rang hollow or didn't mean anything to me.
For a lot of my life the deal was as long as you affirmed inerrancy and the hobby horses chained in train to it you were copacetic. I have grown weary of litmus tests attached to litmus tests over the years and seeing how people get treated when they don't measure up. If I were someone else I'd say that the Christian faith isn't worth it but my struggles as a Christian are nothing compared to my skepticism about what Americans embrace as the alternatives.
I have been hunting for work for a few months now and that means I have time to think and I often doubt whether or not all that time to think is necessarily a good thing. I don't regret being able to compose more music at all but I realize that I am at a strange phase in my middle thirties where I feel like, for me, I completely lack the intellectual curiosity I had in my twenties, pretty much all the way through my twenties. It is as though I can feel my body and brain changing or slowing down.
Back when I was at a certain church I had come to the conclusion that if one states that the Bible infallibly accomplishes the purpose for which it was written that is sufficient and that contemporary definitions of inerrancy rely too much on a polarity imposed upon it by folks who were embracing a post-enlightenment rationalism that would require its adherents to reject the credibility of the biblical documents on the basis of differences in genealogies or different numbers assigned to different battles in, say, Kings and Chronicles. To hold that scripture is infallible but not necessarily inerrant or that inerrancy is not as critical as christology, however, lands you in exceptionally hot water depending on where you are, who your friends are, and who your relatives are. So I simply avoided saying that though I am willing to affirm that scripture is reliable and trustworthy it's not necessary to go beyond the historical records to impose an apologetic criteria on to the scriptures that the scriptures themselves do not require in order for the message to be believed.
I didn't say a whole lot about this because one of the pastors at that time was saying things like that God could basically make the world not end due to any possible consequences of global warming so that people would be around and that the unpardonable sin is unbelief. I strongly disagreed with these particular explanations but decided it was not worth it to press those points if all the elders at the church, according to this pastor, all agreed on certain things.
Actually, I feel a bit weird writing this but having the view of infallibility over inerrancy is easier to articulate now that some of my family members are Eastern Orthodox instead of essentially Reformed Baptist American style. There was a time when I thought they might decide I wasn't really a Christian if I actually said that inerrancy is not as important as a proper understanding of the trinity and an appreciation of the trustworthiness of the events attested by scripture. For isntance, whatever people would claim to be errant documentation of the late Brittany Murphy's death no one should reasonably contest that 1) she's dead and 2) she was in 8 Mile and King of the Hill, etc, etc.
Now I am willing to say I believe the scriptures are historically trustworthy overall but I have seen too many Christians take that kind of teaching and marry it to other things that are not even close to essential to the Christian faith like voting for this particular political party or having that particular view on economic theory or defending this interpretation of history based on allegiances to sides so long after the fact it's silly to think your view matters in the end. If you really think the Confederacy was better than the Union because the Union was being run by a bunch of functional Unitarians the news I have for you is for those of us with American Indian family histories we kind of don't care--the northern racists beat the southern racists and American Indians still got treated like crap and it wasn't until about a century later when blacks organized to object to the racism on both sides that things started to change.
As Mark Noll pointed out the central problem in the Civil War for evangelical Protestants (yes, he makes a good case for the North being effectively as evangelical as the South despite claims to the contrary) is that BOTH sides consisted chiefly of evangelical Protestants who affirmed scripture as the ultimate and final authority and yet the theological debates got nowhere and the issues were resolved by force. This may be indicative of the problems in American evangelicalism ever since. At some point we can't really solve the social problems we want solved and must resort at length to invoking or rallying political force. We must at length convert our social capital into moral capital and then invest in political power to make sure things go our way.
Admittedly much of what I have written this winter is downbeat. Job hunting and reflecting on the last ten years of my life tends to get me downbeat. I am in my thirties rather than my twenties so I am seeing people make obscenely stupid decisions with their lives and pleading victim status after having taken abusive attitudes toward people. It is not uncommon for bullies to feel like victims and for bullies to bully each other and each one pleads to his or her constituency that they are not, in fact, bullies but persecuted for being the lone bastion of truth and reason. Except that what they are fighting for is not really truth or reason but shortcuts to pin what they want done on the thing most likely to get them what they want.
My objection to inerrancy is not to inerrancy itself at all or the concept behind it but how people exploit their defense of the scriptures as a way to essentially obtain what they want. When you have people of conservative and liberal allegiances essentially rewriting the biblical texts to suit their social and political agendas you're getting people whose gods are their political ideologies and not Christ. If you only say that God is in control when your preferred political party is in power then you may have to examine your heart to discern whether or not your actual god is the party you vote for.
I have seen people look down on other people for fiscal irresponsibility who made spectacularly foolish decisions in their own finances. I have seen people demonize other people for questioning the prevailing social fad regarding interaction of the sexes. I have seen people demonize other people for not being Calvinists or for being Calvinists. It is this capacity to demonize people that bugs me. I am anything but immune to the temptation and it is precisely that aspect in myself that I find profoundly aggravating! I also find it profoundly aggravating in other people. Few things bug me more than when I get the sense that a person thinks he or she is better than someone else whether it is the "I am a superior individual" variety or the "I'm not perfect but I'm not as bad as you are" variety. Inerrancy is one of the ways in which a variety of Christians can pull this maneuver.
As Scotteriology put it, there's a huge swath of American evangelicals who hold that as long as you hold the right doctrines your failure to live out the applied ethics of those doctrines doesn't matter. If you don't make your rent then its your landlord's fault for being a jerk who does illegal things, not you being a jerk for presuming on the generosity of a landlord who you called a friend yet still needs you to pay rent on time to make expenses. If you are in a dating relationship and someone dumps you because you lack the emotional or mental stability to be who they need you to be in the relationship, well, it's too bad that happened but it would be worse to raise children in that kind of toxic dynamic. If you look down on other people's health failures as signs of moral failures and you've given yourself heart failure or diabetes that's also too bad, because self-discipline wouldn't be something the scriptures exhort us to if it came to us naturally. Jesus wouldn't have said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak if we all had the self-control and single-mindedness of Batman (well ... maybe Christopher Nolan's Batman isn't quite in that mold).
I try to appreciate that when you face that you are causing your own death you repent and you share that sense of urgency with everyone you know but it doesn't entitle you to look down on people whose problems may not be the same as yours. And amidst all this I hope what you don't do is invoke your view as being the right one because you know the real meaning of the scriptures and simply have to be right because of who you are. There comes a point when I find myself thinking of a comment made by Dr. Wilson to Dr. House regarding House's complete disdain for the field of mental health professionals, "Never before has a man so villified a profession he so badly needed help from." Yes, I know people like this in the real world. I didn't bust a gut laughing because that line rang hollow or didn't mean anything to me.
For a lot of my life the deal was as long as you affirmed inerrancy and the hobby horses chained in train to it you were copacetic. I have grown weary of litmus tests attached to litmus tests over the years and seeing how people get treated when they don't measure up. If I were someone else I'd say that the Christian faith isn't worth it but my struggles as a Christian are nothing compared to my skepticism about what Americans embrace as the alternatives.
I have been hunting for work for a few months now and that means I have time to think and I often doubt whether or not all that time to think is necessarily a good thing. I don't regret being able to compose more music at all but I realize that I am at a strange phase in my middle thirties where I feel like, for me, I completely lack the intellectual curiosity I had in my twenties, pretty much all the way through my twenties. It is as though I can feel my body and brain changing or slowing down.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Advent as a time of misery
http://denisedayspencer.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/the-advent-within/
http://theologyforwomen.blogspot.com/2009/12/holidays-clarify-our-pain.html
We tend to talk about Christmas as a joyful holiday and the "bah humbug" types are told they need to have a different attitude, that or the humbug sorts consider outrage at the time because they object to religion or object to capitalism or whatever they object to the only "reasonable" or "rational" explanation of how to behave.
Advent is not just a time of waiting, it is also a time of misery. As Denise Spencer puts it in her entry, the first Advent was not a happy time. Zechariah was struck mute by an angel for unbelief. Mary was given the announcement that she would be the mother of Jesus and was showing her pregnancy quickly enough that Joseph was sure he needed to end the betrothal quietly so as not to disgrace her. Nevertheless decades later people would say of Jesus "Is this not Mary's son?" which meant they assumed he was not Joseph's son and that Jesus was a bastard. Mary had a painful childbirth to look forward to without being sure she could rely on anyone for help. She and Joseph ended up bringing forth their child in pretty miserable circumstances.
It seems we do not know that "Hosanna" means "save us", and we do not know that to sing "hosanna" now is to ask that we be saved. Hosanna is the prayer to which Christ is our answer and the answer to those prayers come at first in the form of pain and even judgment. Zechariah's prayer was heard but when he expressed disbelief that it had been answered he was silenced. Mary accepted the announcement that the promises of God were being fulfilled and accepted it with joy but then came the months of things like morning sickness and half whispered recriminations about her character and the doubts of her own betrothed.
Christ came to us through the birth pangs of his mother who then lived to see him crucified as if her were guilty of fomenting terrorism against the Roman state. She came to visit him at one point and Jesus said that his true family are those who hear the word of God and obey it. There were times when she had doubts about his sanity. She loved him as a mother would love any son, to be sure, but if Christ was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief then Mary would not be expected to be a woman of only serene joy and endless gladness. She not only saw her son killed but killed in one of the most shameful ways possible. She saw him charged with fomenting revolution against not only Israel and charged with blasphemy but executed by Roman officials as an enemy of the Roman state. I'm sure a few American evangelical Christians can savor the irony that Jesus was a Palestinian peasant executed on the charge of being a terrorist promoting acts of terror against the greatest power in the Western world.
If they can't, well, God has made sure the joke is on them. That is also part of what Advent is for, to reveal the strange and frankly miserable ways in which God, through Christ, ensures that the joke is on us when we think we are perched at the top of the pile thanks to the backs of the little people we climbed over to get to the top. Mary rejoiced that God has taken these proud people and toppled them from their thrones. She sang the Magnificat and then dealt with months of expecting a child who was born with livestock because no one could (or would) take them in. Then she and her husband had to make for Egypt to escape the certainty of a dynasty planning to kill everyone under the age of 2 that lived in the village. God's announcement meant that the proud and mighty would be toppled from their thrones but Mary had to live with the misery of knowing that they had not been toppled yet and that some of them were attempting to kill her son before he even learned to speak more than a few words.
So for this week, if you happen to be reading this, consider that if Advent this year feels like a time of misery for you for whatever reason, you're not alone.
http://theologyforwomen.blogspot.com/2009/12/holidays-clarify-our-pain.html
We tend to talk about Christmas as a joyful holiday and the "bah humbug" types are told they need to have a different attitude, that or the humbug sorts consider outrage at the time because they object to religion or object to capitalism or whatever they object to the only "reasonable" or "rational" explanation of how to behave.
Advent is not just a time of waiting, it is also a time of misery. As Denise Spencer puts it in her entry, the first Advent was not a happy time. Zechariah was struck mute by an angel for unbelief. Mary was given the announcement that she would be the mother of Jesus and was showing her pregnancy quickly enough that Joseph was sure he needed to end the betrothal quietly so as not to disgrace her. Nevertheless decades later people would say of Jesus "Is this not Mary's son?" which meant they assumed he was not Joseph's son and that Jesus was a bastard. Mary had a painful childbirth to look forward to without being sure she could rely on anyone for help. She and Joseph ended up bringing forth their child in pretty miserable circumstances.
It seems we do not know that "Hosanna" means "save us", and we do not know that to sing "hosanna" now is to ask that we be saved. Hosanna is the prayer to which Christ is our answer and the answer to those prayers come at first in the form of pain and even judgment. Zechariah's prayer was heard but when he expressed disbelief that it had been answered he was silenced. Mary accepted the announcement that the promises of God were being fulfilled and accepted it with joy but then came the months of things like morning sickness and half whispered recriminations about her character and the doubts of her own betrothed.
Christ came to us through the birth pangs of his mother who then lived to see him crucified as if her were guilty of fomenting terrorism against the Roman state. She came to visit him at one point and Jesus said that his true family are those who hear the word of God and obey it. There were times when she had doubts about his sanity. She loved him as a mother would love any son, to be sure, but if Christ was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief then Mary would not be expected to be a woman of only serene joy and endless gladness. She not only saw her son killed but killed in one of the most shameful ways possible. She saw him charged with fomenting revolution against not only Israel and charged with blasphemy but executed by Roman officials as an enemy of the Roman state. I'm sure a few American evangelical Christians can savor the irony that Jesus was a Palestinian peasant executed on the charge of being a terrorist promoting acts of terror against the greatest power in the Western world.
If they can't, well, God has made sure the joke is on them. That is also part of what Advent is for, to reveal the strange and frankly miserable ways in which God, through Christ, ensures that the joke is on us when we think we are perched at the top of the pile thanks to the backs of the little people we climbed over to get to the top. Mary rejoiced that God has taken these proud people and toppled them from their thrones. She sang the Magnificat and then dealt with months of expecting a child who was born with livestock because no one could (or would) take them in. Then she and her husband had to make for Egypt to escape the certainty of a dynasty planning to kill everyone under the age of 2 that lived in the village. God's announcement meant that the proud and mighty would be toppled from their thrones but Mary had to live with the misery of knowing that they had not been toppled yet and that some of them were attempting to kill her son before he even learned to speak more than a few words.
So for this week, if you happen to be reading this, consider that if Advent this year feels like a time of misery for you for whatever reason, you're not alone.
Monday, December 21, 2009
An advent meditation--what exactly is a Hosanna chorus?
http://theologyforwomen.blogspot.com/2009/12/holidays-clarify-our-pain.html
Dostoevsky famously wrote that his Hosanna passed through a crucible of doubt but this very phrase suggests that the word "Hosanna" has a meaning that has so greatly changed over time it is difficult to discern precisely what it is supposed to evoke. In Dostoevsky's usage the word implies some kind of praise and an absence of doubt and yet in terms of its literal meaning "Hosanna" is perhaps more poignantly pertinent in the psalms of lament and psalms requesting aid in time of war.
Hosanna means "save us" or "please save us". It has been used so often as a chorus of praise and in a particularly upbeat way that the supplicatory nature of the word can be completely lost even in in settings by a composer as masterful as Bach. The osanna is often presented as a moment of triumph already realized which can happen even in a work like Durufle's Requiem (which I adore, just so you know).
So far I'm rusty on masses these days but if you compare the setting of Osanna by Frank Martin or Bach to, say, Arvo Part's Berliner Mass you'll see that each of these three wonderful masses have spectacularly different approaches to the very concept of the word. Bach's setting reflects a confidence in the work of Christ as though it were complete (as I hear the setting). Frank Martin's Mass for Double Choir has an element of expectation to it but is fairly cheery. Part's setting is dark, lonely, and even sorrowful. Not even in Byrd's masses do you find this sort of sadness and Byrd, who had to circulate his masses under the noses of Protestant leadership, would seem to have had more reason to make a forlorn setting.
To sing Hosanna is to ask Christ to save us and for me at this time of year and with no job and uncertainty about the future and acutely aware of my capacity to sin and even my indifference to turning from discouragement, impatience, and other failings ... I find Arvo Part's setting of the text in the Berliner Mass most resonant, most poignant. Part captures the sadness and even the anger we can feel awaiting the salvation of the Lord and wishing that we were not simply stuck where we are. We are like David, acutely aware of his own sin and realizing that he fumbles over and over but anxious despite this sin to turn to what is right. I want to be like that even though I realize how often I am not like that. I know that my spirituality is essentially a sham ... and yet all our spiritualities are shams apart from Christ and within Christ they take a lifetime to become perfected by seeking the author and finisher of our faith, something I am of late not the least bit good at.
Augustine, somewhat amusingly, wrote in his Confessions that his prayer was for some time, "Lord make me chaste ... but not yet." This is funny because it can be idiomatically re-presented to us as "Lord save me but don't save me yet." And how does Christ save us? Through the Cross. This is the cross He asks us to take up and carry as we follow Him, and it is the cross He takes up on our behalf. Even Christ had to have someone else carry His Cross and he was nailed to it. If Christ in His darkest hour could not carry His own physical burden of the literal cross even while He knew that that burden was to be borne for us, then He knows what it feels like to be forsaken.
Christ's life itself was a bearing of our infirmities and this for our salvation. How easily and quickly we can forget even when we tell ourselves this is the truth we live by, the story that guides our story. David forgot often, Solomon forgot often and eventually for an unusually long time. Even the best among God's people have ended in miserable failure forgetting what the Lord had urged them to remember. Samson ended in a way that was both triumphant and pathetic yet was considered a hero of the faith. Jephthah sacrificed his own daughter after making a rash vow and yet he was regarded as a hero in the faith, too, because he was a judge who executed justice on behalf of Israel.
The judges were the ones God raised up when His people cried out "save us!" These judges were all ultimately failures and the great judge had yet to come. Even when I realize that I do not want to be saved yet, like Augustine used to pray, I know that I cannot finally forget that asking the Lord to save me remains for me to bring to the Lord, a petition to not forget.
Dostoevsky famously wrote that his Hosanna passed through a crucible of doubt but this very phrase suggests that the word "Hosanna" has a meaning that has so greatly changed over time it is difficult to discern precisely what it is supposed to evoke. In Dostoevsky's usage the word implies some kind of praise and an absence of doubt and yet in terms of its literal meaning "Hosanna" is perhaps more poignantly pertinent in the psalms of lament and psalms requesting aid in time of war.
Hosanna means "save us" or "please save us". It has been used so often as a chorus of praise and in a particularly upbeat way that the supplicatory nature of the word can be completely lost even in in settings by a composer as masterful as Bach. The osanna is often presented as a moment of triumph already realized which can happen even in a work like Durufle's Requiem (which I adore, just so you know).
So far I'm rusty on masses these days but if you compare the setting of Osanna by Frank Martin or Bach to, say, Arvo Part's Berliner Mass you'll see that each of these three wonderful masses have spectacularly different approaches to the very concept of the word. Bach's setting reflects a confidence in the work of Christ as though it were complete (as I hear the setting). Frank Martin's Mass for Double Choir has an element of expectation to it but is fairly cheery. Part's setting is dark, lonely, and even sorrowful. Not even in Byrd's masses do you find this sort of sadness and Byrd, who had to circulate his masses under the noses of Protestant leadership, would seem to have had more reason to make a forlorn setting.
To sing Hosanna is to ask Christ to save us and for me at this time of year and with no job and uncertainty about the future and acutely aware of my capacity to sin and even my indifference to turning from discouragement, impatience, and other failings ... I find Arvo Part's setting of the text in the Berliner Mass most resonant, most poignant. Part captures the sadness and even the anger we can feel awaiting the salvation of the Lord and wishing that we were not simply stuck where we are. We are like David, acutely aware of his own sin and realizing that he fumbles over and over but anxious despite this sin to turn to what is right. I want to be like that even though I realize how often I am not like that. I know that my spirituality is essentially a sham ... and yet all our spiritualities are shams apart from Christ and within Christ they take a lifetime to become perfected by seeking the author and finisher of our faith, something I am of late not the least bit good at.
Augustine, somewhat amusingly, wrote in his Confessions that his prayer was for some time, "Lord make me chaste ... but not yet." This is funny because it can be idiomatically re-presented to us as "Lord save me but don't save me yet." And how does Christ save us? Through the Cross. This is the cross He asks us to take up and carry as we follow Him, and it is the cross He takes up on our behalf. Even Christ had to have someone else carry His Cross and he was nailed to it. If Christ in His darkest hour could not carry His own physical burden of the literal cross even while He knew that that burden was to be borne for us, then He knows what it feels like to be forsaken.
Christ's life itself was a bearing of our infirmities and this for our salvation. How easily and quickly we can forget even when we tell ourselves this is the truth we live by, the story that guides our story. David forgot often, Solomon forgot often and eventually for an unusually long time. Even the best among God's people have ended in miserable failure forgetting what the Lord had urged them to remember. Samson ended in a way that was both triumphant and pathetic yet was considered a hero of the faith. Jephthah sacrificed his own daughter after making a rash vow and yet he was regarded as a hero in the faith, too, because he was a judge who executed justice on behalf of Israel.
The judges were the ones God raised up when His people cried out "save us!" These judges were all ultimately failures and the great judge had yet to come. Even when I realize that I do not want to be saved yet, like Augustine used to pray, I know that I cannot finally forget that asking the Lord to save me remains for me to bring to the Lord, a petition to not forget.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
saying goodbye to the dreams of youth
http://kabynandalyssa.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/i-know-i-chatter-on-far-too-much-but-if-you-only-knew-how-many-things-i-want-to-say-and-dont/
This is for me an eloquent reflection on saying goodbye to the dreams of youth. I have for several years considered how the dreams I had in my teens and twenties were not realistic dreams. The idealism of youth was not even something I particularly valued at the time but no matter how practical and realistic you THINK you are there is nothing like actual life to disabuses of ideals and idealism you don't even think you have. There are times when I think that "realists" are people who have decided that your dreams are more worth giving up than theirs are yet who do not realize the impracticality of their own dreams.
At length I settled on the idea that a dream can help you work through life provided it is not the goal of your life. Whatever dream you have will ultimately fail to satisfy and at the end there is always death. As Koholeth puts it in Ecclesiastes, even if you attain fame, honor, and riches and achievements you still die and then who knows whether the person who inherits what you labored for will be wise or a fool? If we talk here about Solomon something suggests to me that he began to sense his sons were not going to lead the kingdom in a good direction. The kingdom of Israel was already in danger of dividing as early as the reign of Saul. Unity was easy during financial prosperity and with leaders willing to accomodate for the sake of unity (and in Solomon's case very quickly killing off anyone who was a threat both to his rule and to the unity of the kingdom).
A mid life crisis can happen at any time and any age, what is most frequently called "mid-life crisis" at any rate. All that is required is for your dream to run into reality.
This is for me an eloquent reflection on saying goodbye to the dreams of youth. I have for several years considered how the dreams I had in my teens and twenties were not realistic dreams. The idealism of youth was not even something I particularly valued at the time but no matter how practical and realistic you THINK you are there is nothing like actual life to disabuses of ideals and idealism you don't even think you have. There are times when I think that "realists" are people who have decided that your dreams are more worth giving up than theirs are yet who do not realize the impracticality of their own dreams.
At length I settled on the idea that a dream can help you work through life provided it is not the goal of your life. Whatever dream you have will ultimately fail to satisfy and at the end there is always death. As Koholeth puts it in Ecclesiastes, even if you attain fame, honor, and riches and achievements you still die and then who knows whether the person who inherits what you labored for will be wise or a fool? If we talk here about Solomon something suggests to me that he began to sense his sons were not going to lead the kingdom in a good direction. The kingdom of Israel was already in danger of dividing as early as the reign of Saul. Unity was easy during financial prosperity and with leaders willing to accomodate for the sake of unity (and in Solomon's case very quickly killing off anyone who was a threat both to his rule and to the unity of the kingdom).
A mid life crisis can happen at any time and any age, what is most frequently called "mid-life crisis" at any rate. All that is required is for your dream to run into reality.
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