I Think You're Cool, Homer Simpson

Sorry, we'll save you a seat at lunch tomorrow.

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture is just that... a national religious campaign against torture. Longtime readers of my tubesdiary are probably sci-fi/fantasy fans but have also likely come across me mentioning it before.

Unfortunately, it's existence as an inclusive religious campaign makes it suspect in the eyes of many evangelicals who know other religions are confused at best or demonic at worst. So even if evangelicals wanted to join a more concerted effort to end torture, it would not be the NRCAT.

Perhaps recognizing this, the NRCAT set up Evangelicals for Human Rights. They drafted the Evangelical Declaration Against Torture. If you were in the Sunday school class wherein we covered that document you may know it, otherwise, probably not. It was a bit too direct for evangelicals and a bit too evangelical for broader interest.

Oh we just set up the game, you can play next... Eh, we got tired of playing this game.

That's just not how evangelicals do things. This is how evangelicals do things. We take something that many folks would consider a Christian concern, peace for example, and then turn it into an acronym like P(retty) E(xhausting) A(ctually) C(onfronting) E(mpire) so we don't risk making people fell bad about themselves or losing attenders.

Oh, acronyms, what would our church life be without you?

In the world of at leasts, at least action through acronym is action.* The more prevalent mode of contemporary evangelical action is spiritualizing a concern in a way that suggests something only matters to your insides. As far as this goes, Billy Graham was the king. My favorite (if I may torture the word favorite) example of this is the way he offered an interpretation of the My Lai massacre:

"Perhaps it is a good time for each of us to re-evaluate our life. We have all had our Mylais in one way or another, perhaps not with guns, but we have hurt others with a thoughtless word, an arrogant act or a selfish deed..."

Yes Billy, I drank the last of the milk this morning knowing someone else in the house may have wanted some for their cereal. That is just like murdering unarmed men, women, children and babies, forcing them into an irrigation ditch and shooting them as they cower, bayonetting infants in front of their mothers, and rape... don't forget the rape. Drinking milk is my My Lai- The real My Lai has noting to do with me, after all, I wasn't there so how could it? I feel bad about drinking the milk but much better about My Lai. Thanks, Billy.**

Theater 12? Nooo, we were in theater 10. Oh man... Oh well.

So EHR is a good idea, right? It's things like that that folks like Glen Stassen, Ron Sider, and Jim Wallis, might use to get evangelicals like James Dobson, Rick Warren, and Tony Perkins on the same page. Well, not literally on the same page, the latter have not signed the Declaration.

So on the one hand, there is this group and document that show, "See, there are evangelicals who think following Jesus means more than filling buildings and opposing THE GAY." On the other hand, this group and document likely mean very little to those evangelicals whose raison d'être is filling buildings and opposing THE GAY. Oh, be nice. Okay. Whose emphasis is a kind of self-actualization via Jesus.

Anywho... It brings to mind the present use of the name Friends/Quakers among Friends/Quakers who are not all that interested in being Friends/Quakers although it seems there is a stranger, webbier dynamic at work among Evangelical Friends than with the above. And of course this depends entirely on what I think it means to be Friends/Quakers, and I'll be the first to say I don't get to say what that is. Though, I will say that people (not Quakers) are often surprised by the present... guardedness- that's a good word... by the present guardedness of Evangelical Friends when it comes to being Friends/Quakers at all let alone emphasizing any of those more distinct points that have made Friends Friends.

I don't get to say what makes a Quaker a Quaker, but it seems other folks think active pacifism is a part of the picture. At least...

There's a story The Monster Machine tells about a professor of his asking about Quakers in class. So The Monster Machine volunteers a description- pacifism, a certain understanding of sacraments, simplicity. You know, the very things you probably think of when you think of Quakers (unless you happen to be one of us). And all the while, there's another student behind The Monster Machine growing more and more agitated until she finally says, "That's not what we're about at all." (or some such- it's your story, you tell it, The Monster Machine).

So this is a setup.

To what will have to wait. And it's waiting.


* Though I think we ought to recognize how dangerously blinding this type of church behavior is. We should talk about that some time.
** Let's make "Thanks, Billy" what we say when we find a way to let ourselves off the hook.

Siamese Dream is what Bivouac could have been
Bivouac-Jawbreaker

I Hit You Only Because I Love You So Much

So I'm thinking lots about silence these days. To be specific silence as an act, silence as an act of critical language. Blah blah blah...

I write this because normally I offer some clever or funny intro and segue into the subject, but not this time.

I know, I know, I'll write something to make you LOL or say "So true... so true" at another time.

What I have is something to ponder, maybe query style but perhaps not so systematic, around this point. Here 'tis: Do acts of love need verbal justification?

Are loving acts loving, in and of themselves, when they can be done without a need for explanation?
The more we need to verbally justify an action, is it less a work of love?
Is it ultimately self-serving to explain to someone that an act as loving, if it is not understood as such without an explanation ("self" here needing to be understood not merely as some inward sense of agency and consciousness but also including at least a framework and world of understanding that affirms and makes that sense of self possible)?
If, as a Christian, I say, "I do 'such and such' in the name of Christ" am I not actually doing it for self?
How would imagining how to silently show love (that is, without words) be transformative? (And then of course, doing.)
Am I just hearing the lingering echoes of Works of Love here? Ugh, that would be wasteful...

I suppose it might help to think of the things you do with and for those you love and how they are known as such in that world of understanding you share with them.

What?

I mean, you likely know people, live with people, share a world with people that you love- that you live with in love- wherein love is shown in the lives that you live with each other with little, if any, verbal justification. It may actually be that verbal justification diminishes the act to you, even if it would seem to otherwise follow from knowing that you love each other-

"I want you to know, I'm doing this because I love you"...

"I'd really like to do such and such for you, but if I can't tell you that I'm doing it for love, then I'd rather not bother..."

Seems creepy, disingenuous, or sinister, rather than loving, no?

What would you do, if you wanted to show someone you love them but weren't allowed to tell them you were doing it "for love"?
Who could you show?
Who would you have not the least clue how to show?

By the way, I do see the absurdity of using words to communicate questions born by pondering silence or meant to encourage silently demonstrating love but this is meant to be thrown away.

Food Goes In Here

The Monster Machine and I were speaking briefly about Lenten practices, specifically about the "I'm giving up 'X'" bit.

His sense was that it is a bit disingenuous that we talk so much about what we're giving up. I think his exact words were, "They're all a bunch of phonies and I'd like to punch each and every one of them in the [redacted] mouth".

You're right. He is awful.

I, as you have no doubt come to learn, am far more gracious and understated.

Whatever.

There are as many understandings of fasting and prayer as there are people so it might be silly to say, "Isn't Lent supposed to be blah blah blargh?" but who am I to not be silly?

Right.

Let's assume that there is some sense of Lenten practice, fasting from some such or other, that is meant to convey an idea of anticipation and preparation for the celebration of Jesus' victory over the world, and an acknowledgment of the nature of that confrontation between Word and world wherein we're the buttholes* that want to destroy the Word. Let's say it's meant to remind us that the source of our hope is not in anything in the world save Jesus, and that is uniquely as God. It would seem the practice should be oriented about confronting us with that relation.

So... you don't eat perhaps with the the purpose of being confronted with hunger and that with the purpose of bringing to mind the idea that if you don't eat you'll die, and that perhaps brings to mind what you do to save yourself, only you remember you don't save yourself- even by eating, though eating seems like the very kind of thing that would save you because, if you remember, if you don't eat you'll die.

You might despair because you realize that the most seemingly fundamental and life-giving aspects of your existence are for nothing, so if it were up to you you'd be lost. Then perhaps ultimately this relation brings to mind hope and gratefulness because it's not up to you, at least as far as you're concerned as a Christian.

But face it, if you're an American, you're not likely famishing- pear-shaped softies that we are. We generally don't have the kind of relation to food that going without it is all that threatening. Moreover, as Christians (of a certain kind perhaps) we already know that we don't do anything to earn our salvation**. As good protestants, we know "we can't do anything to be saved". It is our mantra.

Except that we do- I mean we do have our "musts" for salvation. We must say the right things and think the right things. And saying and thinking are entirely matters of doing. They are a matter of our doing.

Tangentially, how convenient it is that we say "You could never feed enough hungry people to earn heaven so, though your master says to do it, don't bother except as an accessory," and then we follow that with "What you must do is think and speak 'thusly'". Perhaps "to what" or "for whom" that is convenient is a question we could sit with during Lent.

Back to our doing...

Isn't this doing our security? Rather than food, perhaps it is this foundational Protestant "doing" from which we must rest. Could you stop reading your Bible for forty days? Could you stop gathering with like-minded folks to sing and hear about God's grandiosity these few Sundays? Could you not preach? Attend Sunday School? Teach a Bible study?

No? If you don't do it you'll die?

---

*I use the word "buttholes" in this. Don't read it if this scandalizes your sensibilities. -OR-
Fast from your sensibilities.

**This is just a variation on the theme you likely know- some form of "you can't earn your salvation" "you can't do anything to warrant God's grace"...

The Holy Spirit Will Come Upon You, and The Power of The Most High Will Overshadow You

In a Christian sense of the world, salvation is an unwarranted gift from God. That's a pretty standard concept to a Christian. What we say is that there is no human work that earns salvation or requires that God save us. Rather it's something in the nature of God- the good news of the Good News is that God is revealed as the kind of God that seeks to save humanity because of God's nature, not human nature.

I don't say this to try to sell it to anyone that doesn't already buy it. And of course, saved to or from what needs to be filled in. And I suppose there are other things to fill in as well, but I mention this point specifically because we who claim to know this, often act as if knowing this is the thing to do to get this salvation; we live in such a way that says "Knowing that Jesus died for your sins is that which you must do to get to get to go to heaven". I'm going to ignore for now that idea of "going" to heaven. You should too- there is something more important to address. Namely, knowing something, knowing anything, is a human work that, like any human work, is worthless insofar as "being saved" is concerned. Saying you believe "such and such" does nothing for your salvation.

You should be happy about that. It's a reminder that it's the power of God that saves, not your silly notions about this or that or what may or may not be. That's good news. And strange as it seems, it remains news to even Christians; in our lives as people who know that Jesus saves we easily get confused into thinking that knowing Jesus saves saves so the good news is often viewed as scary news.

We, evangelicals, are pretty good at saying you can never be good enough to earn salvation. You can never feed, clothe, or shelter enough people, you could never give away enough of what you own, you could never turn the cheek enough times, we could never [insert your pick here] to make God save you. Jesus saves. Sure. Often, that just makes most of us pretty good at neglecting that type of behavior. we say you can't do anything except we do have requirements for doing. We require the knowing and building and receiving a world in which we know what we know. That is something we do.

We say our beliefs are how we are saved (and as soon as we say that we're saying it's not the power of God that saves). We ignore maliciously or innocently, that we create a sense of the world in which belief in any thing and of any kind is possible. We act as if we don't craft and negotiate the sense of the world in which we know we know. We pretend that our minds are senses that simply receive what the world is. This is death Any sense of the world, even our Christian sense of the world, is a created thing, so to put our faith in that- to say belief saves- is to trust a human work for salvation. What we are doing with that is tying our salvation to a particular world. In one sense, that's only as it can be. We exist. We make choices and have commitments and loyalties in order to live. What else could we do? But to be brief, thinking that salvation lies in one particular set of commitments and arrangements is idolatrous.

What follows from that are often behaviors that pull us deeper and deeper into a particular way of doing and knowing that is more and more alien to faith. We want it because we often confuse the illusory security and certainty of a well established way of the world with the indomitability of life in Christ. We seem to know to say that Christianity is not about following a particular legal code of conduct (even if we say it with a wink), but we do say being a Christian means being and doing some type of such and such. It can be a terrible trap then to ask for more of that which we say makes one a Christian because we may only be asking for a more world-fixed expression of that which we presently call Christianity.

"Make me more of what I am," "Give me a bigger portion of what I already have," "Make me more secure and certain in the world," "Give us a deeper and stronger commitment to the way we know and do things now." "Thank you Lord that we are not like other folks... will you make us even more of that?"

We don't need more of the same, we need the courage, humility, and openness to strangeness that will lead us to walk in places we have never walked. When I hope that God would meet us, invigorate us, and give us new life, I realize I'm opening myself to a life that is foreign, alien, and scary.We don't do this ourselves. We need the spirit to confront us because the foreign, alien, and scary is generally that which we work to exclude and eliminate from our well-crafted, stable, and certain Christian existence.

It certainly doesn't seem easy, but if a young girl can say "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word"* knowing only that it will turn every aspect of her world upside down, then we can do it, no? We're better than some little girl that doesn't have the sense to not get pregnant while she's engaged to some other guy aren't we?

No? Maybe?

Nah let's just stick with what we know.


* It's a bit inside but with this verse in mind I could've titled the post "We Are 1:38".

I Have Built You an Exalted House, A Place for You to Dwell in Forever

Being a jerk is part of my vocation.

There.

Now that that's out of the way we can proceed and you needn't wonder if I know that what I've said is kind of jerky.

I recently received a number of email forwards lauding the outbreak of revival at Barclay College in Kansas. The broad strokes are a missionary on furlough visited the college and many students did things like confess their use of drugs, share that they felt their parents didn't love them, agree to become involved in some sort of ministry, stay in school, etc...

That's cool. I don't think any of it is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, if someone is addicted to drugs, finding a way to end that addiction would be a good thing. Or if someone is estranged from their parents, they should work towards reconciliation. Good things those. I say, "Hooray for you."

But revival? M'eh.

I suppose there are different types of revival, so I guess I am open to the possibility that experiences similar to what happens on Dr. Phil could be a type of revival. I'm sure in the lives of those people, it is a big difference, it is a reinvigoration of life, so I guess a revival of sorts, maybe.

Okay.

No.

I don't know that it is all that revival-y to suddenly overflow with what one has kept bottled-up or to finally come to a decision on a matter, even a deeply troubling or significant matter. I mean, "I was so sad, and couldn't tell anyone" and "I was going to leave school but now I'm not" moments may be significant scenes in the movie of one's life but I wouldn't call it revival. I don't call it revival. I can't.

It seems so individualistic, so self-centered, such a part of the life-crushing way of the world that I am reticent to use revival in regard to the occasion. Other people saying it's revival? Fine, call it revival. What am I going to do, say you're wrong that it seems like revival to you? Whatever. All I can say is I don't think it is, and I certainly don't want to pray or fast or do any of the voodoo that we say would encourage this kind of behavior because it seems like trying to cure a disease with more of the disease.

I am not saying it's bad to get something off of one's chest, or to make some kind of public declaration about a commitment to something or other, but if we're going to set aside the term revival, I think it ought not be for moments of self-understanding and revelation akin to what finds on a reality show cast reunion.

Do we sometimes need to do things like this? Sure. But it just seems par for the course for a "Be a Better You" kind of Christianity which seems like any other Modern, Western sense of self-understanding that's all about you and if that's all you're after rent Pay It Forward or read M. Scott Peck.

If we're going to say revival is a consequence of the Word of God confronting and changing us, then it seems silly at best, and maybe blasphemous at worst to liken it to "An Oprah Event to Remember".

So it is something I would like to see. It is something that better practices of silence anticipate and so maybe something Friends might appreciate. But given what we presently say passes for revival, we'd likely try to put an end to revival rightly called.

There's probably a parable or something about that.

Having Eyes, Do You Not See?

"The latest newsletter by an Inland Republican women's group depicts Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama surrounded by a watermelon, ribs and a bucket of fried chicken, prompting outrage in political circles."

...

"I absolutely apologize to anyone who was offended. That clearly wasn't my attempt."

The PE



Clearly.

I love these apologies. "If I offended anyone..."

Of course the "attempt" wasn't to offend. It was to solidify, insulate, demark, unify, assure, cohere, and defend.

I believe her. I believe she had no "intention" of offending. I think she was intending to create a sense of us, to mark off the people who get it, to create a type of boundary for her community. Within that community, for that sense of the world, these would not be offensive images or ideas. How could they be? (She just miscalculated who her audience was).

Think the images are awful. Understand why you think so. Say there is no place for them in democratic discourse. But don't mistake your ability to say so (if you say so) as a universal sense of decency or good that would allow anyone to say so.

If we assume there is some general sense of decency or good (and in sending this email/mailer she knew she was violating that) we are assuming our way of seeing the world is THE WAY to see the world. We tend to do that. It seems we want to do that.

If one is a Christian, though, or more to the point, if one is confronted by the offensively transcendent (that's silly), one ought to see that as a subtle trap. It's a trap in that it lures us with a hope for certainty and security but it's the security of a prison- sometimes thoughtfully crafted, but a prison all the same.

What we do and who we are is understood in communities wherein what we do and who we are makes sense. That's as it can only be. Abstract concepts take on real meaning as we live them. Love, justice, freedom, salvation, etc. are meaningless, or worse are ideological, when we simply relate to them as a concept or ideal- or when we pretend that the concept or ideal is real. For good and ill, we show what we understand love to mean when we show what we understand love to mean. The same for any other concept: justice, freedom, salvation, sin, etc... What does it mean to show justice right now given our present conditions? Free to be what? Salvation, from, to and for what? Sin against what, in what way, why? All of that is done within some cultural boundary, maybe permeable, but still bound.

That's what we do, what we are doing. It's a human thing to do, a human work, if you will. And as such, it, as far as some Christian narrative may be concerned, is a bit deadly (as if death comes in bits), except of course, in so far as it allows us to be some type of reflection of divine love. So you know, that's something.

But in creating this world of meaning and understanding, we are creating a world of meaning and understanding (duh). And we are no less prone than anyone else to making it a prison just because we think what we have to say is very special. Perhaps we are at even greater risk because we think what we have to say is so stinkin' special. Maybe we pretend our stink is somehow unique from everyone else's stink. Maybe we are convinced that our stink comes from God rather than us. That's fine, but we need know, even if we receive divine stink, we have to speak it from our own stinking holes.

The point is, we build so we can make these ideas known as more than ideas. We make sense of the world so we can make sense of the world, but we easily fix these expressions in stone. We fix a safe and secure world where it is clear what we mean by "we" that never means to offend, in which we cannot even know if it would offend, but also in turn wherein we lock out what is offensive. Our prisons secure us from everything, but worst of all, isolate us from what is ultimately scandalizing and offensive about the Word of God (for any idolators out there, I don't mean The Bible).

I would say it is a part of our being made holy to be better and better able to catch this, to be made brave enough to be drawn out of that prison, but it's possible, actually it's quite likely, that Sunday after Sunday, Bible study after Bible study, whatever it is we do necessarily as Christians, we craft the culture to build the walls of our Christianity higher and thicker. We solidify the boundaries of who we are. We confuse being made holy, sanctified, set apart from the world, with being more and more enmeshed with and adapted to a particular sense of the world.

"If I offended anyone..." is the other side of "Well, I never..." Both could be a promising starting point, but we try to avoid them or seldom mean them as we should.

Build Zion With Blood and Jerusalem With Wrong

Last night at our Quaker Peace Fellowship meeting we watched Taxi to the Dark Side.

Infuriating.

But as I was preparing for it, writing up the curriculum, as it were, I was struck by the difficulty of describing a dependence on torture as anything other than a kind of faith.

I offered this as part of the discussion material:

Relying on or accepting torture requires a kind of faith- a trust in something unprovable and unknowable and often contrary to given evidence: that torture will provide useful information. It becomes a system that takes human life in the name of that faith making that human life a sacrifice. In Christian theological terms this is idolatry....

The issue of faith goes further. It preserves our way of life. It keeps us safe. It is ultimately a good. That all seems to be part of the faith and hope in a system that uses torture (even as it wants to call it something else). Torture becomes an act of devotion to the god of that system. I could really drag out the metaphor, only I don't think it's a metaphor.

In any case, faith or hope seem like the wrong word, but in their inappropriateness, each seems like the perfect word. Others may want to call it something else. A negative faith. Sin. Despair.

Sure.

But I think faith has to be the first word to use so there is some dissonance, so we are confronted with our idolatrous relation to a system. (That is, if we are a people who have a sense of what faith might be.) If we have a misplaced faith, it ought to be called out as such. Only after we see that it is possible for it to be misplaced faith could something like sin or despair make sense. No?

History Is Caged*

A completely irrelevant man once said:

"Is this true Christian religion to see so much preaching, praying, sermons, lectures and to see so many blind and lame, poor men and women, and children up and down the streets, and at the steeple-house doors, is not this an ill savour among you and in you, and the high profession ye profess? "

George Fox, in To All The Magistrates in London

*Ugh- what a downer title. What happened to the light-hearted references to movie titles, dialogue, and song lyrics

It's About Heritage, Not Hate

So some students at a Quaker university in Oregon hung an image of Barack Obama from a tree. Really. I know that sounds bad on the surface but we should remember that hanging a black man from a tree is an age-old form of American protest.

And if you look at the situation in context you can understand the act. There was a note attached indicating that the demonstrators were protesting a university outreach program targeting minorities. From what I hear, a good number of the kids at George Fox had their Harvard and Yale spots taken from them by less qualified minority students. So, you know.

A Quaker school. In Oregon.

Anybody want to talk me down?

Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran Hooray

So Obama is hardly the pacifist I would like as a president (in my humanity I know that is not possible, but in my hopefulness, well I hope) and on that mark may only be better than John McCain because he doesn't incessantly joke about killing people. Seriously, Barack, I know you read this, escalation in Afghanistan and occupation are not the answer, but thank you for not constantly making light of the deaths of others.

Anyway we already know my thoughts on the war hero trope/tripe and tonight's speech sold more of the same but what really got me was the crowd's reaction when John McCain said he was a warrior who hated war so knew what to do to keep the peace.

That was an applause line, folks.

Granted, it wasn't a crickets chirping moment, but they cheered more for lower taxes.

That was troubling. The 13 year old curators of the YouTube haven't put that bit up yet- so if you missed it, you missed a lot.

This is a segue.

Soon after the CA Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to prevent same sex couples from marrying, our Yearly Meeting/Annual Conference/Equipping Center sent out reminders of what our Faith and Practice said about marriage and teh Gay. The reminders also included some "resources" one could consult on the legal and pastoral issues. I asked if these resources reflected our interpretation of Faith and Practice. Of course the response was that they were simply resources while F&P remained F&P. When I asked why we did not include a broader scope of resources or let F&P speak for itself... well there was no answer to that.

I would wager there are not many same sex couples sitting in our YM simply waiting for the state go ahead to get married. There are a few gay people that lurk about the periphery of our congregations, but hardly in numbers that would seem to warrant a Yearly Meeting-wide memo. Strange... no not strange... what's the word I'm looking for? Oh it'll come to me soon, but let's say strange for now. Strange that we would need to provide resources and reminders for an issue that really isn't a concern of ours. I mean it doesn't require that we address who we are, how we sin, where we struggle in any significant way to say "Gay, Boooooo!".

Memos about divorce, okay. Reminders about honest economics, sure, that makes sense. Advice about the need and how to forgive, I could see that as mattering to us. But harping on teh Gay is about as meaningful as taking a position on handicraft workers operating without the authority of the guild.

Similarly, when Congress authorized the use of force against Iraq, there were no Yearly Meeting announcements. When we actually started dropping bombs, we had nothing to say. It was that way for recent other "conflicts" as well. It's been that way.

Strange... No. Dangit, what's the word I'm thinking of?

That crowd and the lukewarm applause at the idea of "Not War" disturbed me. We are, thank God, not that crowd so I am not making the case that is exactly how we would respond (I am so praying we would not respond that way). But it did show how easy it is for death-mongering to be a default position; the idea of Not War is foreign and confusing. You don't applaud the idea of Not War. But that's the world, isn't it? It takes something transcendent, something divinely other to convince us that it need not be the case, to convince us, as the gentlemen said to McCain (and Obama should remember) "You can't win an occupation". I'd add, no one wins wars. But to the previous, add our reluctance to be confronted with actual sin (that which we actually do to participate in and legitimize death, injustice, and destruction) and you've got quite a recipe for, well, death, injustice, and destruction.

We're not that crowd, sure. But we are no more eager than they to confront how we participate in death, especially if it requires confession. Why should we be when there are GAYS somewhere that need to be told what we think of them?

Faithless. That's the word.
The Title of This Should've Been the Scene from Holy Grail Wherein Lancelot Butchers a Wedding Party
Hail to the thief (softly)- Radiohead

I Am Just Like You, You Are Just Like Me, We All Stand Or Sit When We Pee

I don't imagine that anyone anywhere could or should be exactly like anyone else in a community. I would say it's an impossibility but that would perhaps be too strong given my sense of how much I think one can say about certain things.

Even in some sense of community, none of us can respond faithfully to some call of God by saying, doing, or being what someone else has said, done, or been. I would say that is impossible, but that doesn't stop us from pretending we can overcome difference or imagining faith is self-reproduction. It seems we live in an era in which we attempt to overwhelm difference through the imposition of identity or by clinging to the illusion of common features. Well, it seems a lesson of history that humans do that always, but I suppose I can only speak for now, and say that now, we attempt to overwhelm difference in our own particular way. That is a tragedy insofar as any good news of the Good News is concerned.

Fortunately, it seems less and less tenable. Unfortunately, as it seems less and less tenable, I'm sure we will make more desperate moves to preserve some common sense.

Anyway, I think we are meant to be together in our difference through the unity of the Holy Spirit, not through what amounts to nothing more than the dominance of one human tradition or another. We ought to be committed to what and how we, as real existing individuals in different communities understand the leading of God, and we ought to remember that how we are led is not to be confused with how another ought to be led. As someone more high-fallutin' than I said: "Even in the Apostles' days, Christians were too apt to strive after a wrong unity and uniformity in outward practices and observations, and to judge one another unrighteously in these matters; and mark, it is not the different practice from one another that breaks the peace and unity, but the judging of one another because of different practices… For this is the true ground of love and unity, not that such a man walks and does just as I do, but because I feel the same Spirit and Life in him, and that he walks in his rank, in his own order, in his proper way and place of subjection to that; and this is far more pleasing to me than if he walked just in that track wherein I walk." That was Isaac Penington, so I guess you can't argue against it; an old quote proves everything.

Wait, that's not true.

Anyway, I don't say this as a lesson to anyone, only as background to what follows.

This:
I see limits to that unity- real, existent, historic, practical limits. I don't mean there is a limit to the unity in the Spirit or that this limit requires division. I think there is an incredible beauty and value to difference- especially as we attempt to live with it, but perhaps as a result of the possibility of sin, or the nature of some Hegelian dialectic,* we can only go so far.

It is one thing to say, "I am such and such and they, way over there, are other, but I am okay with that and I need not make them like me for them to be fine." That's more of a "live and let live", which is an unusual decency in our world, but still not the unity in the Spirit. I am writing about being different but being together, the kind of together in difference for which a marriage, a good marriage, is an apt metaphor.

In this unity, difference is a blessing. The "other" is a gift. In the unity of the Spirit we are moved beyond ourselves and are better than we would otherwise be- if we are indeed in a community wherein we are free to be different. In this unity, even with difference, there is a sense of "us" and a sense of what can be. But there is the practical limit. Even at our most subjectively responsible, I mean even as we most honestly confront the reality of our humanness and submit to transcendence, we can only be what we can be. We can only go as far as we can go. To return to the marriage metaphor, there is only so much difference I or The Qweenbeen could live with. Even if we need to attach a negative value to it and say it is a failure, there are actual things, actual practices or ways of being that would push us in different ways.

In a communal way, there may be moments of divergence.

Long-time readers of my interweb diary have unenvied social lives but may also have observed that I may seem a strange fit in my Evangelical Friends community. I am deeply committed to it even as I see us distancing ourselves from what it might mean to be either. Seriously- we have an Annual Conference. We are not a Yearly Meeting. No one would confuse any of our Southern California meetings for peace churches. We disdain our Quaker intellectual and spiritual heritage. We are broadly seduced by the promise of "attractiveness" and "relevance". We seem to desperately want to be Free Methodists (not that there's anything wrong with Free Methodists), and aggressively deny or qualify anything that might be called Quaker.

Strange.

Well, not so strange if I want to invest these phenomena with cosmic or spiritual significance, but someone else can do that.

As I said, we ought to be committed to what and how we understand to be the leading of God, but it seems that it is possible two or more cannot always remain together in that. I would suggest that my own commitment to that understanding, an understanding that I express as an Evangelical Friend- as a Quaker- makes me less and less suitable to be a part of one community or another- many communities actually. It may even make me unsuited to be a part of some people who want to at least call themselves Quaker. Funny, no?

For much of my cognizant spiritual life, I have thought there is a value to being committed, in difference, to becoming more than we presently are. There has been a reason to confront frustration, my own limitations, our collective foibles, to speaking, perhaps prophetically, about concerns we might otherwise ignore. But we can only be what we can be. For some time now, I have struggled to know where and when a point of difference makes for incommensurate difference. As condescending as it sounds, it's a helpful question: ought one spend time explaining math to a dog? That points two ways.

As noble as it sounds to be committed to being a voice of conviction and unpopular opinion, there is a matter of confession to it. It is quite possible that I am excusing myself from being what I am led to be, from doing those very things that I feel compelled to do as a matter of faith because I am not a part of a larger body that values those things. As an example, I have said no one would likely confuse any of our EFCSW meetings for peace churches. It is good to be a reminder to what we say we value, to being a remnant. But might the resources spent being a reminder be spent better or more faithfully applied elsewhere? Isn't there a taint of cowardice in staying away from or not deliberately creating a community wherein peacemaking, as an example, is valued and done? I have to admit that facing a resistant community becomes the path of least resistance when the alternative is pursuing the unknown or creating something new.

If I am supremely committed to the idea that a people of God ought to be X, and I know that a people, given their real existent historic conditions, cannot possibly be X, then doesn't it seem I've let myself off the hook if I choose to be among that people? Doesn't it seem like I've made it possible to never have to confront the challenge of being X?

I am not deceiving myself that the presence of difference would be avoided in any other community- even one with resonant values and commitments. I am more trying to not be seduced by the beauty of difference itself, especially if its shininess distracts me from living in the Kingdom of God.

So... fish or cut bait.

*Ugh- I don't really think that.

Hang On To Your Ego
It Ain't Me Babe- Bob Dylan
Oye Como Va- Tito Puente
The 59th Street Bridge Song- Simon and Garfunkel
I Got a Home In Dat Rock- Paul Robeson
Sex and Dying in High Society- X
Jumpin' At The Woodside- Duke Ellington
Nitemare Hippy Girl- Beck
Here We Go Again- Ray Charles
My Funny Valentine- Chet Baker
Communication Breakdown- Led Zeppelin

WWJD? BKBTRPAOTD

One of the most hollow forms of resistance to peacemaking by Evangelical Friends is also the most enduring. I'm not suggesting that all Evangelical Friends have dismissed peacemaking- only that one particular way Evangelical Friends who have is especially empty. But ironically, for its emptiness it rests solidly as the foundation of some of our worst behaviors.

It is the belief that personal holiness or one's own relationship to Jesus is the best and only way to pursue peace. I don't take issue with that conceptually. In fact, I would say that sincere and devoted disciples of Jesus would be incredibly committed to peacemaking and that people who are committed to peacemaking are following a Jesus-like example. Where it becomes hollow and perhaps duplicitous is under the shadow of a Modern Grahamsian* political philosophy that deceptively compartmentalizes the religious from the political. I say deceptively because there is no way of being that is not political, but the ideological genius of the Grahamsian school is to convince its adherents that they are not political.

For example, in the Grahamsian School, integration and civil rights concerns of the mid 20th century US were deemed too political an issue to address critically through institutional or organizational avenues. It was not the kind of thing about which an evangelist should speak because it was the kind of thing Jesus would fix when he got here. So one was off the hook; the job was to evangelize not to prophesy. How convenient that the two could be separated in such a way that maintained the status quo.** Can I use the word hegemony or does that make it too wonky? Maybe. So I'll say that the Grahamsian assumption that politics and religion can be separated supports and justifies (that's really important) the acts and values of... of... oh I have to write it... the acts and values of the bourgeoisie. Uck. Sorry, but that's what it is.

So it isn't that Grahamsians are not political. It's that their politics can be hidden in plain sight. Their politics are the fodder for the politics of domination, however it's fodder disguised in the landscape. That Billy Graham, for example, could advocate the destruction of people's drinking and irrigation water in North Viet Nam and be apolitical is borne by his commitment to being political in a way that supported the dominating politics. I know that line is anachronistic- I don't think Billy Graham would have thought of the North Viet Namese as "people" at the time. The point is, nothing is apolitical, and the pretense of being apolitical is a politics of domination. We act politically when we say teaching poor people Christian vocabulary is acceptable- necessary even, but challenging our justification of political and economic institutions that depend on there being poor people is boat-rockingly dangerous, praying for the quick end to a war or violent conflict is good, challenging our support of a culture of violence is too controversial.

Practically, I have heard more than once from more than one person in response to some hippy Jesus idea of mine or other that we'd do more for peace by learning to forgive people in our families than challenging our support of militarism and nationalism. That the two could be mutually exclusive or prioritized thusly is firmly nailed to Grahamsian politics. In a Grahamsian scheme, we easily identify conservative American (hey, I didn't say bourgeoisie) values with the holiness that comes from being a Christian and that is no mere coincidence. No coincidence, rather a hollow but consequential deception.


* This word is hilarious. Find out why.
** Really. Find out why it so hilariously appropriate that I call it Grahamsian.

I Say Potato, You Say... Wait, How's That Gonna' Work

Sometimes people who feel the need to justify why they are not a Christian via Christianity's many foibles use the division of Christian traditions/denominations as a reason to reject the ideas and practices of Christianity. Does that make sense? What I mean is, for some it's possible to look at all the various and incompatible yet passionately defended expressions of Christianity as evidence that there can't be anything worth committing to, with the infighting itself providing a "See, it's all bunk," opportunity.

First of all, people looking for that opportunity should realize it's perfectly acceptable to be indifferent to all manner of things. I think we are blessed to live in an age wherein it is unnecessary (more and more so anyway) to justify why one would not be a Christian alongside the many other things that one is not. Go with it. You don't live with Bushido, or feudalism, or Magik, or Shaktism, or chivalry and you do so- or do not do so- without justification. That's fine. It can be just like that if you let it.

Just leave it alone. No. Stop. Don't pick at it or mess with it. Go on, you have nothing to say with it.

Hmm... Maybe, if you can't stop, it's likely because it's more a part of you than you'd like it to be, in which case you're stuck with it. Sorry.

Secondofly, haven't you heard the justification that denominations/traditions are like different flavors of the same thing? Each denomination contributes something unique to the broader body but is uniquely for itself. You could say it's similar to what happens when ordering a pizza for a large number of people. I like mushrooms but not olives. So-and-so likes olives but hates onions. She likes pineapple but won't eat meat. Who's-his-face has to have anchovies. What's-his-stink likes everything except bell peppers. It's a big confusing mess, but when we all come together and make our contribution we finally have something we can all agree on and consume: a pizza with half cheese and half everything from which some people can pick off the things they don't like. It's like that, right? Or it's like a restaurant that serves something for everyone. It's all one pizza or it's all one restaurant so there's really not the division that some people see. It's all a matter of flavors and preferences piled on top of the dough in the pizza trope or prepped by Latin American immigrants in the back a la the kitchen metaphor. Isn't it one big happy family of consumption?

Ugh, really? You think so? How could you think something like that? Your faith as a matter of consumption and no more than aesthetic preference? Yeegads that's awful. How much more shallow could we be? He likes dunking but she likes sprinkling; we say Jesus is in the cracker but they say around, but who cares because those are matters of taste? Yeesh.

A friend and I, The Brownloveshark, if you must know, were talking about the Lord's Supper (as it's called in some places) this past weekend and I was getting all excited about the possible beauty of a Friends perspective on the matter. I was also getting pretty despondent about the emptiness of some of our actual Friends practices and statements about it. But then I was quickly cycling back to optimism in thinking about the allowance for the diversity of practices that are technically possible given our position on the matter in our present version of Faith and Practice. Then I took a nap with my baby. Then I made dinner.

Anyway, I don't believe that one who says "Jesus is literally in this piece of bread" is in the same camp as one who says "around" the piece of bread nor are they of the same camp that says, "Skip the bread all together." Same camp? Pfft. It's not even the same planet. Those are completely different ways of seeing the world, of understanding how humanity relates to divinity and vice versa. I don't believe Jesus is literally in a piece of bread, or around a piece of bread, or symbolically present with a piece of bread (though I will drink wine) and not believing those things is at the core of the content of my faith which is my relating to God. I will say though, if you believe that a piece of bread is somehow a conduit for God's love, if you really believe that, you'd better eat that bread as a matter of relating to God. I don't so I won't. But whether one does or not, it's a matter of the most important type of commitment and a source for the deepest kind of difference.

Really.

It's not the same thing. However in our present Evangelical context we try to overcome that difference by saying we are united by agreement in the doughy core of faith. (Well, some Evangelicals are more honest and say Catholics aren't a part of the deal, though how they then excuse Lutherans and Episcopalians is a matter of dishonesty. But it's the best kind of dishonesty: religious.) So our written statements of faith carry the life of our bodies and we say if we agree on these basics then there is no division among one group that says by practice you really must consume God's grace through this bread and another that by practice says we symbolize the reception of God's grace in ritually eating this bread, or between one that says in its actions women are by their very nature unable to have religious authority over men and another that says in its actions men are just as qualified as women to be church leaders (see what I did there?), or one group that shows marriage is only for the pairing of a penis and a vagina and another that shows... Oh wait, no. Not that last one. They are out of the fold no matter what they say. Am I right? (High five). My point is, this Statement of Faith phenomenon, this imposition of agreement is a type of unity, but it is not the unity of "The Lord's Supper" or anything that might be called "good news".

I suppose it's necessary, if we're committed to an idea of God bound to a kind of geometric certainty that these very real differences be washed away so the diversity of practices give way to a unity of statements. After all, it's not a very coherent world that would have Jesus present in a piece of bread and not present in a piece of bread. So, in a world of certainty we skip over the bread and emphasize the Jesus, but by emphasizing the Jesus we destroy the practices in which Jesus is known in life, well at least the lives people live as existing humans. But who told you to be committed to an idea of God bound to geometric certainty? Well, aside from those silly men who got all wrapped up in their Logic or Philosophy 101 classes and parlayed that into Christian radio shows, who told you? We, well Christian "wes" are not committed to a broad philosophical or logical concept of God; we say we're into the God revealed by the story of the Bible. But, and this is a big "but" we often seem to think that this God revealed in the Bible should be like the God of Philosophy 101 and that puts us right back into this whitewashed Christianity trap. (See how unfortunate it can be to take your college underclass years too seriously?)

Pathetic.

As Friends, sometimes we say that our practice of Open Worship is Communion. We've come together as like-minded people, we've sung this, we've read that, we've said such and such, and now we have a time to reflect on what we've sung, read, and said and if inclined, share those reflections with others.* And that's pretty good. I mean, to get people who, if pressed, would be revealed as more different than similar to come together in an act of devotion is laudable. In this respect, the pizza bit is maybe something to affirm. But insofar as it remains a matter of conformity to these external media, it's not communion. Maybe we could call it looking in the same direction, collective worship, sharing in devotion, shared assent and affirmation, something like that. But when we call it communion, well, that's where I say it's a sad thing if only because we settle for less (I say "if only" because I'm sure it's more). It's one of the sadder aspects of Evangelical Friends that we confuse the Word of God with the word of God and imagine an awkward and wooden conformity to the latter can be communion with the former.

That we can collectively say "P-I-G" means "pig" is a simple matter of human cleverness and should not be called communion. Our getting together periodically to say "God is big, hooray" is of similar stuff. It may take a degree of work and ultimately be impressive, but let's not call it communion. It is us becoming and being with us. Or if I make a concession and say it's a kind of communion, I can only say it's communion among humans. Again, given our histories and regular demonstrations of how divided we are, human communion could sometimes be a step in the right direction, but a step that should be taken cautiously given our tendency to replace division with domination. But God with us communion, something divine and transcendent, the communion of the Word taking on a body and setting up his tent among us, that is something else. Unfortunately through what we've sometimes accepted as communion, we make it all the more difficult to be struck with the divine.

When we come together, in our Evangelical Friends Meetings for example, we do so as people who are on the same page. We are an "us". And as I've said already, that being "us" is not communion. Saying "God is big" in unison is not the rending of the veil that opens the Holy of Holies. It may, at times, most times, create a thicker and thicker insulation that adapts us to each other but prevents us from being in communion with God. The process of becoming more and more adjusted to each other does create community, but it depends on exclusion. The unity of those who know "P-I-G" is pig is not the fellowship, to refer to a model, of a Gentile and a Jew, a woman and a man, a free person and a slave, clean and unclean sharing a table. I don't mean there is a miracle in the meal, I mean that there could be a meal is the miracle. The revolutionary, dying to one's self, new life grace, is not the act but is seen in the act of people who ought not be together sitting at a table with each other.

I suppose we can say there's magic in some food and when we eat it we take in God. We could also replicate 1st c. Asia Minor to the last detail and say we are part of the same community as the true church so we have communion when that is done. Or maybe we can be more sophisticated and pick certain practices and rules we think are mentioned in the Bible that ought to be retained and repeated and somewhere in that is communion. No one will stop us. But I think as Friends we can have something else, especially when we recognize silence is not for reflecting on what we've said or done but on what God does do. Silence is not the thing we must do to build unity, but the starting point to seeing our practices as the barriers that God overcomes. It's the reminder that all our language fails, even, especially even our well-crafted statements of faith. It's the recurring starting point of a life together in solidarity through difference rather than an erasure of difference. It is knowing and showing that Christ is here to teach us.

We have the faintest hint of that in our current version of Faith and Practice (I'd better be careful or it may not be in the next). Of course there's a whole lot of else and inertia to deal with and most people don't want to do that even on their best days, and with our ever-growing fear of difference and willingness to draw faithless lines in the sand, we may not be presently experiencing our "best days".

But we can hope, and you know what they say, "Poop in one hand, hope in the other, and see which fills first." Oh wait, that's not encouraging.


*Of course, not every meeting in our Yearly Meeting cum Annual Conference practices Open Worship nor would they say this is a description of how they do it if they did. Whatever.

That's A Lot To Load on a Baby

I once showed up at a Yearly Meeting meeting in a sport coat. I don't remember why. I wouldn't generally do that so there must have been some reason I was already wearing a sport coat or was going to need one later. I probably would not even remember that I wore a sport coat on that occasion except that someone older and more ministerially invested than I am said I was alienating people by wearing a sport coat. His take was that anyone interested in getting people into churches should notice and follow the cue that nobody in our culture wore sport coats or suits anymore.

He might be right. I hear someone in our Yearly Meeting/Annual Conference is doing some kind of Glamis or Dirt Bike church. On Sundays, he's going to meet with people who have opted to go dirt-biking for the weekend and then read the Bible and sing with them for a couple of hours.

I guess.

I suppose, it might look weird to show up to a place like that in a sport coat. The kind of weird monks probably seemed wearing habits, or the weird Quakers seemed wearing gray and dressed without ruffles. M'eh.

I suppose you can't argue with results. Here I am showing up to places in a sport coat, and there my accuser is, well-suited for ministry in our Yearly Meeting.

Nobody wears sport coats indeed.

Every now and then... well actually more often than "now and then" suggests...

So...

Quite frequently I hear about the need for THE CHURCH to be authentic and relevant. I mostly see that is meant in a Church Growth© way and not necessarily in a so the Kingdom of God is seen kind of way. How it manifests itself is in goatees, Hawaiian shirts as dressy, saying dude, kids who look and act like most everybody else but have NOTW branded somewhere on their person... I think it also makes us think we need to incorporate more images, the word "dude", faux-hawks, and flat screens... lots and lots of flat screens into our weekly concerts/affirmations. What's more relevant than that stuff?

The Lovely Elizabeth, like all babies, is as smart as they come. I don't mean she knows how to use a toilet or can make her hands do what she wants them to do. I don't even think she knows she can know it's possible to want at this point. So when I say smart I mean her world is infinite human possibility. She has the capacity to absorb and integrate herself into any mode of human existence that we know or can imagine. That's smart.

It's my job to narrow that. I will teach her that X is in a set with Y but not a part of the set that includes 1 and 2, and that's different from the set of µ and ∆. I'll help set for her the frames of reference and categorization through which she will understand the world. My narrow world. It's my duty to shrink the horizon of her concerns and interests so that she may be well adjusted to one manner of being. It's my job to pass on my pettiness and sinful tendencies. My idols will become her idols so that for her- much of sin will merely be the way "it" is. If I do my job, I will have passed on the ability to overlook the worst of sins- that which justifies our way of being as the way of being.

When we talk about relevance or authenticity I don't think we want to mean we need to get at that but I suspect that's the very think we need to address if a church is really going to be relevant and authentic. I don't think we want to get at that because the very best idols are those to which we are the most loyal, those that offer the most security and comfort, those that let us skirt around the despair that blankets human existence.*

I'm sure at some point she'll lie. She'll steal. At some point she'll feel the pangs of guilt at hurting someone. We've got a world that understands sin as such and have great ways to alleviate that guilt. But there will be no need to feel guilty for participating in the world as it is- no need to recognize any of that as sin.

Unless the Holy Spirit does its** job. I'm looking forward to that. If it wasn't for that anticipation and action I don't know how that despair could be overcome... Well other than by embracing blissful ignorance or remaining in happy denial I wouldn't know how to do it. But it is there, and as I look at my daughter, the person that I call my daughter but know must be her own person, I am filled with a word I don't know in English. I have that waiting, expectant hope that is esperar.

Thank God.

* I'm really much more fun than this suggests.
** The Holy Spirit is an "it". Deal with it.

Sin Boldly

Working on my syllabus this morning I ended up with a preachy bee in my bonnet.

This was the buzz...
Can we as Christians say we proclaim the God of love if we cooperate with and legitimize institutional systems that by their very nature dominate and destroy?

Gee, that's a stupid question. Of course we can. We do it all the time, and it's not even a matter of of being duplicitous or hypocritical.*

Although it's an important question, it assumes one is willing to see their world as a part of that destructive machine. And who wants to do that?

A step must be made before that question can make sense. It's a step that requires the Word of God confronting us intensely in our humanness. The institutional systems of the above question are the perfect idols. They are a kind of perfect sin in that they can remain unexamined because they are often the very foundations of our world. In that they must be confronted, but in that, it's so easy to see them as separate from what we conventionally call sin. If we address them at all, they are often merely the unfortunate exigencies of our fallen world. It's the way it is may mean that these things are morally neutral or, if morally problematic, they are morally problematic in our favor.

In my metaphysical kookiness I say the Spirit confronts us concerning sin, but it's not the confrontation of asking what is correct; is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?

If it is found with that question, it is in the silence of our response.

* Just blinded by the spirit of anti-christ.

We're Not Actually Saying This is
the Earth Calling You

I was trying to teach Me Love You about jokes yesterday. He's reached an age when he finds it necessary to experiment with creating his own jokes, only he's not telling jokes. Not even riddles. They're nonsense and though nonsense may sometimes be used to make a joke a joke- he's not reached that stage of the craft. I think jokes are an incredibly important part of language, thought, interaction, being human. It's fine to be eight years old and not quite understand how to craft a joke. Mostly fine. But he has to be drawn through this.

Here's why I'm a jerk. I won't laugh at a kid's joke if it isn't funny. I ask why it's a joke. I'll say I don't get it and ask it to be explained. Of course the threshold for what counts as a kid's joke is very low, but I say there is a threshold.

-Why was the fork afraid of the spoon?
-Why?
-Because it was twisted around it.
-I don't get it. Why is that funny?
-Look at the picture there, see the spoon is wrapped around the fork.

It's not funny. That's the same bit as those Meet the Spartans writers use. It's pointing at something you both see. Maybe it will make millions of dollars but it's not funny. It should be corrected.

-Knock knock.
-Who's there?
-Hoo
-"Hoo" who?
-Sorry I don't talk to owls.

That is funny.

But that explaining...

If you don't "get" a joke it can be explained but that doesn't do what is necessary for you to get the joke. You may be able to describe the structure, so to speak, the culture of a joke, why it can be what it is, but that is not the same as getting the joke. A joke necessarily takes advantage of cues and references that are part of a culture so though we may be able to say why it could be funny, or even, once we know the cues say, "Hey that is funny," we're still not a part of the people that get the joke. Are we?

-So a real cultured guy bought a pair of pants but they were so tight he couldn't get them on, so he shaved his legs.
-Uh, that's not funny.
-Oh... well see only barbarians wear pants.
- ...
-I mean in antiquity, only barbarians wore pants, but then it started to become fashionable to emulate barbarians and wear pants.
-Okay?
-And it was kinda' like what we do with cowboys- it's an affected masculinity so for him to wear pants is to be all, "Here comes John Wayne 'I'm not gonna cry about my pa, I'm gonna buy an airport and put my name on it,'" but then he gets rid of his leg hair... which is girly so he's, I don't know, not all manly like a hairy pants-wearing barbarian.
-Oh... okay. Try it again
-So a real cultured guy bought a pair of pants but they were so tight he couldn't get them on, so he shaved his legs.
-Okay, okay, yeah, I could see myself laughing at that. Yeah, okay, that is funny. Maybe next time though, make it about a middle aged divorced guy who wants to reclaim the virility of his youth and attract girls so he gets a big black Harley and because he doesn't feel manly enough with just the bike, he gets himself some leather chaps and all that but then he's not attracting girls if you know what I mean. That's funny. Say it that way next time.
-But that's not my joke.
-Eh well, it's funnier this way.

Mind The Tags
Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity- Holst
Tuesday's Dead- Cat Stevens
36-24-36- Violent Femmes
Beautiful- Smashing Pumpkins
Extra Savoir-Faire-They Might Be Giants
Levitate Me- The Pixies
Brand New Cadillac- The Clash

Blue Steel? Ferrari? Le Tigra? They're The Same Face! Doesn't Anybody Notice This?

I only just realized on a car ride north this past Saturday how a statement, a statement I was going to address to make the point that as a Christian I find Christian metaphysics an odd sell, may be true. I was going to point and say, "See how silly," but now I don't know. Of course I am ahead of myself and, you dear reader, I've left at the station.

Let's start at the beginning, and when I come to the end, I'll stop.

So I have the good fortune of sorting through gifted books to see which should be saved and which should be sold or gifted farther down the library food chain. Oh, right- I'm library faculty now. So, I'm sorting through books and as I do so, I encounter an insurmountable problem: we exist as we do. Since we exist in time and space and books are actually made of matter, I find it difficult to make the cuts that must be made. I suppose in a perfect world, in which we and other things did not have mass and take up space, I could save all the books there were, but two roads diverged in a yellowed wood and all that, so we save what we can and pass along the others.

Just to be clear, I know the things that we say should be saved. John Calvin could've smeared feces on vellum, called it theology and we'd save it. But there are other more difficult or less obvious calls to make. I suppose that's where I come in with my particular "expertise". Perhaps it's more fair to say my particular familiarity. In any case, that's not a tough call either. But then there are the texts that seem like an obvious throw away, but to me should be saved. Texts like Jesus Taught Me to Cast Out Devils by Norvel Hayes or 101 Questions and Answers on Demon Powers by Lester Sumrall, the latter containing this gem:

"It could be possible that the headquarters of the devil is on the moon. There is no scripture to substantiate this theory, but we do know that the moon has a tremendous effect upon our earth. If someone goes crazy, he is called a lunatic, meaning 'moon struck'. Medical science has stated that patients in mental hospitals become very unstable during certain phases of the moon; they may be normal for 28 days, then suddenly become stark raving mad. This is an area for further study."

Clearly, in a finite space (the library space) some things can be saved and some things must be passed over. And this will be passed over. I could probably make the case that our library has a particular interest in the Devil's on the Moon text because Lester Sumrall was loosely connected with Theodore Engstrom who was one of our university board chairs and part of the whole mid-century Holiness stew that dotted the cultural landscape with radio hours, tracts, bible colleges, publishing houses, and political movements. There is, in fact, a straight and direct "spiritual path" from Lester Sumrall to John McCain. I say that to neither impugn nor lift up John McCain, only to point out that this is not some crazy, out of left field, claim. It may be crazy, but it is mainstream crazy. It is as mainstream crazy as Billy Graham positing that heaven is a physical place located in/at the North Star.*

These books must be saved, but they won't be. Of course there's a kitschy value, there is a loose denominational interest, it's a collection of someone's thoughts and ambitions manifested in the prioritization and arrangement of physical resources into a book- for these reasons I think they are, like any book, worth saving. They are artifacts.

But I also think it ought to be saved for the sake of our being saved. These books, like so many tracts, pamphlets, sermons, regionally published studies, Sunday School lessons, passion play programs, crusade literature etc.. will be lost. And it is in those materials where crazy hides. When we dispose of these artifacts we develop the ability to suppress the story they tell. We can escape the actual presence of these books that influences day to day Christianity. We are able to deny they have ever had a role in shaping our religious commitments or, more importantly, our condemnations. We can say we've never been crazy, we've always been on the side of good, we're nothing if not right and by right we mean whatever is winning right now. So when I say they ought to be saved for the sake of our being saved, I mean that they should remain as a reminder of our folly and arrogance and a reminder that the saving work of God is not done for the sake of getting our stories straight. Unless of course Christian salvation is a matter of assent to a properly constructed and expressed proposition, in which case I will take this all back.

I'll make it plain. It is the purview of religious people to spout crazy. It's what we do. She's a witch, burn her. "As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten..." so women can't be priests. I'm not saying crazy because it may turn out to be a mistaken claim (which, technically it isn't because it's not the kind of thing about which you can be mistaken). It's crazy because it's rooted in... well nothing. Nothing more than personal commitments anyway. Which is something- in fact it's something much more than nothing. Those personal commitments are what make your life worth living. If your life is worth living. But because the claims are crazy, very little can be claimed, though the claim always remains as the basis for how we live. And when I write "we" I mean "we" not just "one". As in, it is the basis for how we live, not for how one lives. And that's why I wrote an odd "sell" up above. It's a strange bit as it is, but even stranger to try to convince someone else outside of your "we" to go for it. But that's what we do and the whole of Western Christian history, let alone all human history, shows that we'll say and do just about anything.

That's the thing with metaphysics- you can say whatever you want, and who's going to tell you you're crazy? I mean other than me, who is going to tell you you're crazy? Well, also, I mean other than another group's armed adherents who come and throw you out of a second story window because they reject your metaphysical claims- who's going to tell you you're crazy? Or, I mean other than the authorities that will burn you at the stake for articulating the wrong things- who's going to say anything?

But maybe not.

Like I said. This car ride saturday may have me change my tune. When I shared with others the line that the devil's headquarters is on the moon, I quickly remembered that Gil Scott-Heron said Whitey is on the moon and suddenly the possibility of a clear singular vision came to mind. I don't have it yet, but I may only be able to be so dismissive of metaphysics for a little longer.

I Always Thought it Was the Smith's That Took Me Back
Nothing's Shocking- Jane's Addiction

* See Edward Fiske in the June 8, 1969, New York Times if'n you're all up in my face about not including references. He said it. Rationalize it and move on.

Where The Carcass is, The Buzzards Will Gather

I am not sympathetic to street preaching or cold sell evangelism. It is not, according to my understanding, a part of what it means to be making disciples. Though doing it may be a part of what it means for someone to be growing as a disciple. That's possible. Still, I just can't do it.

It is often dependent on facile word games or invalid and untenable premises. It sets up the Gospel as a matter of assent to an abstract proposition rather than living or virtue. It strikes me as arrogant and in line with the worst aspects of religious expression regardless of tradition.

That said, it is very straightforward and, in a sense, honest. So, it's got that going for it. If one believes that the only way a person can avoid an eternity of post-mortem torture and anguish is by giving assent to a certain proposition then the least one should do is tell as many people as they can how to avoid that torture. If you believe that the person ahead of you in line, your mother, the guy in the crosswalk, your coworker, et al. are bound to an eternity of inconceivable punishment if they do not hear about their sin and then accept Jesus Christ, then you would be a pretty big jerk if you didn't tell them all about that. It's not very different from standing idly by as a bus comes speeding down the highway and it is only a matter of moments before they are killed, but you say nothing. If you have the knowledge that can save them and you don't share it, then it seems like you have a part in their death. And we say hell would be worse than being hit by a bus.

It seems, someone that doesn't share this knowledge is far worse than the person who doesn't know any better. How could you not spend every waking moment warning people? How could you even sleep knowing hell was in store for everyone? How could anything not directly a warning about the coming hell not be a vanity? The least you would have to do is offer a warning if not a clear means of rescue.

It would seem a Christian who believes this but didn't share it would be the most detestable thing there could be.

I don't buy the premises though. Of course for some, these are not merely premises one can accept or not. These premises are, for some, "just the way things are" and I have clearly rejected that. My saying I do not buy the premises may simply be a result of cowardice and laziness. That may simply be how I reconcile my belief that I am a Christian with the fact that I do not go around telling everyone how to avoid spending eternity being boiled in a lake of fire. And, for others this may be the very point that shows I am not a Christian.

That's fine I guess. I don't know how I could accept something I can't accept. If the only options are to believe those premises or not. I do not. If it follows from that that I am bound to an eternity of torture, that's out of my hands- which I suppose fits with a sense of faith that puts everything into God's metaphorical hands. I have not been given whatever must be necessary to believe the premises so I can't believe them. That all seems to fit together nicely and what's life for if not making sure everything fits together with a perfectly nice sense of certainty and security?

So there's that. I am willing to admit that I may, according to a certain set of premises, be hell bound even though I claim to be some sort of disciple of Jesus. It seems there ought to be more like me: people who claim to be Christians but are condemned by their laziness. Take a look at some of the statements of faith of various groups- mostly evangelical groups. It's mostly evangelical groups that make it a point of necessity to give statements of faith. You'll find that they almost invariably say something like: We believe in the resurrection of both the saved and the lost; they that are saved unto the resurrection of life and they that are lost unto the resurrection of damnation.

Of course there is often some wiggle room in these statements. "We believe that for the salvation of lost and sinful people, regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential" doesn't tell you how that regeneration occurs so perhaps one is not inevitably on the "get into the streets" hook. So maybe we need not be so concerned with warning people of hell. Maybe there is some other way for the not-knowing to become the knowing.

But for those on the hook we see clearly that their faith is in what they do. What they are able to say about their faith is plainly in their actions. That is their statement. That's important to see. What we do follows from what we accept as necessary. Evangelicals do something similar, even if they aren't on the hook for their statements. That is, the act of abstracting one's "faith" into statements that stand apart from one's life is itself an act that says something about one's faith- the evangelical need to put things into abstract propositions that may or may not have an expression in a community is itself an expression of that community's faith. That is, "Making The Statement" is an act integral to evangelicalism- even if what one thinks ought to follow from those statements is absent. That is the "what we say" in line with the "what we do".

We have statements on all manner of things and the statement is sufficient because making the statement is the life (though that alienates living from one's life). It seems to me that it is an attempt to give the statement a life that the body doesn't have. When we can't say, "See how we live", we must resort to "Refer to what I said." It is much like the task of correctly describing a frog- dead, flayed and pinned open on a tar tray. It's certainly a frog though there's not much more to do with a frog in that condition. And describing the frog is certainly an act that is done that says something about what one thinks ought to be done.

Unfortunately, a community oriented about the correct labeling and use of statements is as much a church as a dissected frog specimen is a frog; when the needs of living encounter either, both will be found lacking.

But How Can You Talk With a Person if They Always Say the Same Thing?

This is tough. Back in the day, the day being the time neither you nor I were alive, the Pope declared himself as being able to speak infallibly when speaking from his throne of heaven. That actual power has only been invoked to declare things about Mary that needed to be declared if the metaphysical system of Christianity is going to stand anywhere other than midair. To wit: Mary was physically drawn up to heaven without tasting death because she was sin free. At least that's the assumption.

Thank you, thank you, don't forget to tip your server.

Anyway, the Pope did this at about the same time Protestant groups were giving birth to their scriptural infallibility/inerrancy statements. For both groups this was a break from what had come before in western Christianity and a consequence of struggles against and possibilities emerging from within the features of some thing we call Modernity. That is, the concept of papal infallibility was declared in the late 19th century and was used in the mid 20th- times of ecclesial shakiness and power grasping. In the broadest, perhaps most illegitimate of senses, for western Christians, Christendom was less and less a possibility, the shrinking world called universal systems into question, the perfectability of civilization was no longer assumed, blah blah blah.

Whatever, the concept of infallibility arose during this period. Though it seems like this is a negative reaction to “modern ideas”, it is at its core a Modern proposition. Though The Church is reacting at this time against Modern concepts, like secularism, the power of a state, Rationalist bases for human rights, etc... it is an entirely Modern claim- that the Pope, as an individual, is above other bishops, as primate, a first among equals. That one person, pope or other, has a clearer sense of what is right than the body of bishops is only possible in the world of Modernity. The idea is a creation.

In the World of At Leasts, since the Second Vatican Council, in the Catholic way of doing things, there has been a return to the conciliar tradition and authority of something collectively called The Church.

But Catholics are Catholics and Protestants aren't. We don't believe in The Church, we believe in The Bible. Still, along with Catholics, we have the rise of inerrancy/infallibility statements among Protestants that root their understanding of the world, just as the Pope would theoretically root his declaration, in something certain: for Proterstants, scripture itself. I mean, a parallel development to papal infallibility is the rise of contemporary scriptural authority claims as we currently understand them, so that by the end of the 20th century, any group that's going to call itself Evangelical, probably Christian even, is going to say something like: The Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and practice because it, like the Pope, has a special status above others by nature of its essence. Papal and scriptural infallibility are twins. Papal infallibility was struck down just as it was learning to walk. Whereas scriptural infallibility has grown to its obnoxious, pimply, cocksure adolescence: lusty, lazy, convinced of his indestructability and place at the center of the world, consuming well more than it contributes, and stinking of Flaming Hot Cheetos.

But that is not something that has always been. I know that's uncomfortable for many Protestants. Even more uncomfortable would be to pull away the layer of statement in infallibility/inerrancy and get at what we actually do. We say scripture is itself the authority for what we say or do and generally remove the matter of understanding or interpretation from the equation even though it is there. So, for example, a cogent, thorough, unified "Biblical" argument for the institution of slavery or against miscegenation may or may not hold sway given historic conditions. The use of pain relieving agents in childbirth or surgeries may or may not be prohibited by scripture depending on the interaction of gender politics, conceptions of sin and suffering, the power of titles and institutions, the nature of death, what counts as secular against what is religious, and what 1.3 billion Chinese people had for lunch yesterday. So... there are many factors that go into what it takes to make what we call beliefs. But what we do is say, "The Bible says such and such about whatnot, as plain as anything," and then expect that our actions, specifically the do or not do, follow from that. But that's make believe.

I, for one, am not troubled by our manufacturing belief. I am mildly troubled by ignoring that process in our day to day lives. I am deeply troubled by traipsing down paths of moral instruction and ethics without accounting for this process. But more to the point, I am troubled that some "we" thinks we can be (not just call ourselves) the church and get away with this. If we really want to be a people called out of the world, called to sojourn, called to be pilgrims, we're not allowed to be that safe. Firstly because the Bible says we can't. Ah ha- just kidding. Firstly because, the word god has to mean more to us than "Santa Claus" and secondly because we're a people that say the Bible means something to us, and if it's more than a catalogue of data, that is, if it's going to mean something to us we have to be honest and confront that it means nothing to us as a set of instructions.

Yeesh that's a heavy thing to leave hanging, but there it is.

What this likely means is that we'll either have to help our greasy-faced teenager mature through his adolescence into a more responsible and participatory adulthood or remove him from such a a position of responsibility all together.

It should be deeply troubling to a people that want to be this community that responds to the Word of God to say and do something like, "What does the Bible say about slavery?" and then interpret some texts in The Bible that use the word slavery as having some directly instructive relation to our understanding of slavery in the same way we would understand a sign that read "No Swimming Without Lifeguard Present" posted on a fence surrounding a swimming pool has a relation to whether we should swim- and even that's not enough information to know whether we should swim.

Oh well. One day you and I will be dead.

My Goodness That was a Sweet Altidore Goal
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground- The White Stripes
Paranoid Android- Radiohead
Hypnotist of Ladies- They Might Be Giants
Judy is a Punk- The Ramones
Tommy- The Who
Life During Wartime- Talking Heads
Going to California- Led Zeppelin
Mr. Tambourine Man- Bob Dylan
Mr. Grieves- Pixies
Plateau- nirvana
Tired of Waiting- The Kinks
Jane Allan- Billy Bragg
Jackass- Green Day
Hidden Charms- Howlin' Wolf

Please, Pray For Chewbacca

This past Saturday was our Friends Center banquet. The Friends Center is our YM's locale for ministerial training. The banquet is a fundraiser for said center.

There was a lot one might take from this event. Some might have been struck by this "coaching" our YM is chasing down as the next great tool for developing leaders. Others might think the sexy pendulum swung too far the other way this year. This was last year's entertainment.


They are a violin trio.

Seriously.

Anyway, true as those other things might be, I was taken by two especially outstanding facts. One, our associate pastor, the Friends Center Associate Director, The Voice of Huckabees*, is quite a trooper. And the second is, I could never watch a movie with our YM superintendent.

Anyone familiar with The Voice of Huckabees would know she is not the type to hog the spotlight, shill for silly bits of church programming, or do things unpreparedly, but there she was, up front, under the spotlights, doing a bit of acting with our superintendent meant to demonstrate how easy "coaching" is, only it reinforced the notion that this "coaching" is a strange beast.

If I were doing a skit in front of a couple hundred people meant to sell them and a Yearly Meeting on some program essential to the future, I would do some preparation. The Voice of Huckabees did, our superintendent, however, perhaps to show his total reliance on the Holy Spirit, did not. It was a bit awkward, but the ever faithful Huckabees, stuck with it and carried the pair through their bit of improv. And then Quaker Pope prayed. Specifically he prayed for those things Huckabees mentioned in their skit as her concerns. I should restate that: Quaker Pope, prayed for those things that Huckabees was pretending were her concern in their skit.

She was pretending.

Which brings me to my second point. I don't know what the risk of it ever happening may have been, but I will now go out of my way to be sure I never watch a movie, play, musical, read a story to or do some other bit of make believe with our Yearly Meeting superintendent. Not only would I find it very off-putting to be interrupted at key story points to pray for the characters, but it also seems a bit blasphemous.

*I think this nom du blog might work, though it isn't yet permanent. I know it's a bit obscure. It mostly hangs upon the fact that this is a reference to a character that says "Don't Look at Me".