Capitalism and Calvinism...

In lieu of a real post, I'll just quote this great passage from Ernst Troeltsch and see if anyone has a response:

"Above all, the imposing but also terrible expansion of modern capitalism, with its calculating coldness and soullessness, its unscrupulous greed and pitilessness, its turning to gain for gain's sake, to fierce and ruthless competition, its agonising lust of victory, its blatant satisfaction in the tyrannical power of the merchant class, has entirely loosed it from its former ethical foundation; and it has become a power directly opposed to genuine Calvinism and Protestantism." -- Ernst Troeltsch, Protestantism and Progress, 1912.

Thoughts?

the inevitable decline...

And so it has happened. What began with auspicious productivity has quickly taken a back seat to the chaos of the semester.

I had hoped to do at least one post a day, even if it was a brief sort of snippet about what I was reading. I find now that I'm just too exhausted or stressed to keep up with it.

So I solicit some thoughts on the value of this whole theo-blog thing. Namely, how important is it for academics to have a public persona? Is it a dereliction of duty to stay up in my ivory tower?

Avatar, language, and the noble savage...

I finally saw Avatar this weekend. I will forego the obligatory deprecation of it as Pocahontas meets Dances with Wolves meets Ferngully meets Dune (I may be the only one referencing Dune, but I did love it when Jake conquered the great worm Shai-hulud! "Pandora was made to train the faithful!"). All this is true: the plot was painfully derivative and predictable. But I must agree with the reviewers that all of that paled in the face of the sheer wonder of the world Cameron created. It was simply stunning and exquisitely detailed.

That said, I do have two conceptual issues..

First--and this might be a tad picky--I was curious about the linguistic assumptions of the film. Cameron took the time to hire a professional linguist to create the language of the Na'vi. Yet it was the human language that left me wanting more. Why, in the year 2154, is the human language pretty much the same as it is in 2010? I'm an unapologetic Joss Whedon fanboy, so I have to compare Avatar's non-advanced human language to the subtly textured speech of Firefly which incorporates garbled versions of Chinese profanity and random slang to give the space-western a slightly "alien" feel.

On a more philosophically annoying note, I was intrigued by the way in which Jake Sully was instructed to tell his big-bird-dragon-thingy to "fly left" or "bank right." The orgo-cyber link established between Jake and the animal allowed him to communicate to/control it with his thoughts. In early training, he was encouraged to speak his thoughts in order to get the hang of it.

But does this not assume a structuralist or pre-structuralist concept of language in which speech is merely the semiotic manifestation of internal psychic phenomena? This seems especially true if the language of the Na'vi and that of humans is supposed to correspond to the same pre-linguistic thoughts. Perhaps this is just the necessary convention of science fiction. There has to be a modicum of structural parallel in order for communication to take place. Yet, it seemed a giant leap to assume that the different languages corresponded to comparable mental states.

Second, I was a little troubled by the portrayal of the Na'vi. The post-colonial critic in me--(he's there, just way, way down in there)--always balks at the stereotype of the Noble Savage. This Romantic notion came about in opposition to the dehumanizing view of "savages" as, well, savage, less than human, unintelligent, and superstitious (think romans vs. barbarians). However, the "nobleness" of the savage corresponds to a Romantic idealization of the natural state. Ultimately this valorization of the exotic other dehumanizes its object (as object) just as much as classical conquistador conceits.

The Na'vi have such a beautiful, untainted, pristine culture that lives in spiritual harmony with all living things! They are so much better than us! They are pure and wise in ways we could never dream! They lack all of our sophisticated technology--and because of it they are closer to the mother earth! They are so dreamy and precious!

These are no longer people (so to speak). They are manifestations of our own desires and discontents. Of course, in cinema that's exactly the point! Cinema is able to express such things through analogical storytelling. Yet, my fear is that this too closely resembles ways in which American Indians and other "exotic" groups have been (and continue to be) treated both in popular culture and in social practice. The escape into Pandora-world is fine. However, we ought to be more nuanced and cautious when speaking of/with the "other" in the real world.

As a United Methodist, I'm particularly reminded of John Wesley's failed attempt to evangelize the native inhabitants of Georgia. His early journals are filled with his excitement at meeting these pure, untouched savages whose natural spirituality would surely incline them to reception of the Gospel! Wesley quickly found the American Indians to be more than his stereotype had allowed, and he was unable to adapt his mission to coincide with who they really were.

Of course one might easily say that Jake had a preconceived notion of the "savages" that was challenged when he really got to know them on their own terms. But, from a narrative point of view, the story-teller has simply traded one dehumanizing trope for another.

There's a theological point to be made here, I'm sure.

But I'm tired.

That's it. Rant over.

huge UM loss...

There are obviously tons of stories of loss and tragedy coming out of Haiti this week. For UMs, though, the passing of Sam Dixon, the executive director of UMCOR, deserves particular grief:

http://gbgm-umc.org/global_news/full_article.cfm?articleid=5629

I'm reminded of my old pastor, Doug Forrester, who told me one time, "When Jesus comes back, I hope he has trouble finding me. I hope that I'm so busy feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, and comforting the afflicted that he will have to look around a bit--beyond the churches--to find me."

Sam Dixon was such a man, and I offer thanks for his life and for all those who work and volunteer with UMCOR. I love my academic work, but I know it doesn't really mean shit compared to those folk who embody the love of Christ to so many people around the world.

**I am sad now, two days later, to have to edit this post. It would be remiss not to mourn the loss of Clint Rabb alongside Sam Dixon. I mourn this loss not only because he was another amazing servant with GBGM but also because he was the step-father of a dear friend of mine. No words. Just grief and a paralyzing sense of impotence.

Haiti and the chaos of creation...

When I heard about the devastating earthquake in Haiti, I was reading Hans Urs von Balthasar's Cosmic Liturgy: The Universe According to Maximus Confessor. It seemed like a cruel joke to turn from news of the natural tragedy to the following line:

"[Maximus'] thinking is dominated by an undiminished optimism with respect to the reasonableness of nature's motion, to its directedness and consequently to its correctness; this is a trust in the essential goodness of nature."

What are we to do with a world that can wreak such death and destruction upon our brothers and sisters? Of course the primary and immediate Christian response to this incident has to be the outpouring of love through physical, tangible aid along with prayerful support. Long-term pragmatic issues would include investigating ways in which we might help support establishing infrastructure to help mitigate future disasters, not only in Haiti but in other parts of the world, especially those lacking the financial and material resources of the US.

But the Christian community also needs theological tools to engage the reality of a natural world that routinely inflicts enormous pain upon us. Much effort has been (rightly) spent in the last few years developing a Christian eco-ethic that values the natural world as God's sacred creation. But a more nuanced view of the nature of nature is needed to make sense of the vicissitudes of this good creation.

Does the standard liberal Christian ecological ethic (which I support) rest upon an assumption that nature is inherently good? And if so, what does this "goodness" mean? Does it mean orderly? Does it mean benevolent? Is it good in the same way the Imago Dei in humanity is "good"? Is its goodness necessarily manifest in relation to humanity?

Classical Christian doctrines of Creation have often had to fight against the tendency to identify the material world as necessarily evil (or, at least, not "good") because of its materiality. This tendency arises from a painful awareness that Christians shared with many Greco-Roman societies: material existence involves change, and change involves decay and death. It is the instability of physical motion that causes anxiety and fear about a transient existence.

Some options that were later deemed insufficient include a radical gnostic anti-materialism or a Manichaean dualism. Both of these options (more or less) posit an utter division between the goodness of intellectual/spiritual/immaterial existence and embodied/carnal/material nature. The key in these systems (again, with brutal generalization) is to transcend the constraints of the material world through diverse ascetic or mystical practices.

Plenty of more traditional Christian practices and theologians have embraced aspects of this cosmology. Most notably, Origen sees material existence itself as constitutive of sin and the result of the primordial fall of immaterial souls from their initial unity with God. The theology of Augustine is often caricatured as dualistic in a gnostic sense, but his polemic against the Manichees encourages a more positive view of created nature as grounded in the supreme ontology of God--and therefore as good--but ultimately disordered due to sin. Materiality per se is not the issue for Augustine; it is, rather, the rebellion of matter against the spirit that ought to rule it, particularly in the human soul and will.

One of the great contributions of Maximus the Confessor is the affirmation of materiality and motion as not merely consequences of the fall and of sin. Pushing against Origenist tendencies, Maximus identifies movement, change, and striving as constitutive elements of created nature. These motions, frightening in their seeming chaos, are ultimately good because they are oriented toward their consummation in the God who is also their origin.

But what are we do with the good motions of nature when they turn to violent quaking? Are we to chalk it up to the mystery of God? Are we to affirm the benevolent providence inherent in all motions of creation? Are we to blame the corrupted human will that knows not how to live in concert with such motions?

Or is it simply the case that shit happens?

I'm ending this post in aporia. I have theological convictions about the relationship between Creation and Creator. I have philosophical speculations about the nature and telos of the natural world. But none of those really make sense of things in Port-au-Prince.

Ultimately, I have to move to the incarnation. Whatever the nature of nature, the incarnation affirms that God has taken all of created nature--in all its messiness and chaos--into God's self out of love for it. With that in mind, I will leave you with more Maximus :

"The world of appearances dies, just as man must, in order to rise again--transformed from old age to youth--in that resurrection which we hope will soon follow death... while God's power radiates over all things its visible and active presence, offering each creature in an individually appropriate way, yet to all through a share in itself, the unbreakable bond of unity for endless ages." -- Mystagogy, ch. 7

Amen.

Wesleyan distinctives...

once more with the fellowship application essays..

3. Outline and briefly discuss the Wesleyan distinctives that you regard as especially important. How are they relevant to current theological issues, trends, etc.?

Wesley was intrinsically a pastoral theologian, and his concern for practical divinity means that his most salient insights regard the life of faith rather than abstract theological premises. In particular, the most key Wesleyan distinctives have to do with his construal of the ordo salutis and the Christian’s experience of justification and sanctification. In particular, I believe his understanding of Christian perfection, the reality of sin in believers, and the means of grace are the most significant aspects of his thought for contemporary theological issues.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Wesley’s theology is his unwavering affirmation of Christian perfection as the telos of Christian living within this life. Often misunderstood, Wesley’s understanding of perfection does not entail the overcoming of created, material limitations of corruption. Thus, the individual Christian will still be subject to sickness in the body and to error in the mind. Thus a perfected Christian may in fact do wrong. The perfection of the Christian in this life is a perfection in love whereby the human heart is brought into complete conformity with the will of God. Thus, though a perfected Christian may do wrong from mental error, such wrong will always flow from a loving heart seeking the good of the neighbor in light of God’s love.

This Wesleyan emphasis takes a strong stand against antinomianism by affirming that the Christian is not only reckoned righteous but is in fact made righteous through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is a significant theological affirmation that I fear is often lost in UM preaching when we succumb to a generic “Protestant” identity. In many ways, Wesley’s understanding of salvation is closer to Tridentine Catholicism than to prototypical Lutheran or Calvinist Protestantism. Wesley’s concept of grace is more robust than mere imputation; grace is something that effects a change within the heart of the believer to the point of perfection in love.

This notion of perfection also has significant implications for Christian ethics. If we take seriously the juxtaposition of a perfected heart with a still enfeebled mind, then any sort of ethics that is ultimately teleological or deontological is proscribed. A deontological ethic does not meet the demands of love and presumes a transcendent awareness of universal laws that the created mind simply cannot grasp. A teleological ethic, though appealing because it seems to adapt the demands of love to the particular circumstance of a given situation, ultimately fails because of the impossibility of perfect knowledge of any given situation and of probable outcomes. Only an aretic ethic, focused on the virtue of the agent, can guide human moral actions. Certainly teleological concerns must be considered, but the standard for Christian moral actions has to rest in the love that motivates any given action. Only by admitting the limitations of our knowledge and agreeing on a shared virtue of love can we have legitimate conversation about how that love might be enacted in the world, both at the corporate and individual levels.

Of course for Wesley this belief in perfection is balanced by a serious appreciation of the reality of sin in believers. The place this crisis has in Wesley’s own biography is well documented, and in many ways the language of “backsliding” and constant repentance has become well ingrained in modern Protestant theology. Yet the implications of this for contemporary religious dialogue have not always been appreciated. The Christian life is, in many ways, a juxtaposition of humility and confidence. The reality of sin within the believing life is the reality that, no matter how far we progress toward perfection, no matter how assured we are of God’s love of us, we are still finite and fallible beings who are liable to turn again from the heart of God. It is with this balance of humility and confidence that we ought to enter into both ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue.

Within our communities of faith, however, this juxtaposition must lead us to a passionate embrace of the means of grace. In particular, Wesley’s strong advocacy of constant communion arises from these two poles of sin and perfection between which the converted Christian finds herself. The life of faith is not stagnant but a constant celebration of the grace of God, grace that is particularly accessible through the sacraments, prayer, and good works. The Spirit that is given to us works within us through our cooperation. The development of habits of virtue and love necessitate our active engagement of the sources of grace that Jesus ordained for us.

An appreciation of the role of the Means of Grace in transforming the heart allows us to engage in fruitful theological dialogue. In Wesleyan theology we see an anticipation of the cultural-linguistic model of doctrine espoused by post-liberals as well as the liturgical renewal trends that accompany emergent Church and Radical Orthodox movements. In recent theological work there is great interest in the way in which liturgy and practice shapes a community’s self-understanding and identity. Wesleyan communities have particularly rich theological tools for engaging this discussion since grace-infusing practices have been central to our identity from the beginning.

the Evangelical faith

I'm currently finishing up my essays for the John Wesley Fellowship application. I thought I'd post some of them here for public mocking and abuse.

The first question...

1. Construct an outline of the theological affirmations you believe to be essential to the Christian faith and life. Comment briefly on each of them, including evidence of your commitment to the current Doctrinal Standards of the United Methodist Church -- understood as our Articles of Religion, Confession of Faith, General Rules, and Wesley’s Standard Sermon and Explanatory Notes on the New Testament.

My drivel...

Christianity is an evangelical faith, and as such it is primarily narratival. The essence of Christian faith and practice is the story of God’s work in the world, in the Church, and in the life of the individual person. The central theological affirmations, then, follow the main movements of the plot, namely, Creation, Sin, and Redemption. These plot elements revolve around the main character of Jesus Christ whose life, death, and resurrection reveal the true meaning of the story. It is within this gospel narrative that the individual believer finds herself incorporated into the life of the Triune God whose story it truly is.

Creation

In professing the doctrine of Creation, I do not seek to wade into the murky waters of the cultural debates over evolution, intelligent design, or the 6,000 year-old Earth. Rather, I refer to Christianity’s affirmation of a truth that transcends the empiricism of the natural sciences: that which is most real is not us but that upon which our existence and essence contingently rests. The Christian faith confronts the egoistic self with its radical dependence upon an Other (not necessarily in a Schleiermachian sense, but his language is helpful). Implicit in this awareness and proclamation of the ultimate Other is an awareness, not only of the finitude of the self, but, more importantly, of the proper and original orientation of the self.

With my own pro-Nicene and Patristic biases, I am wont to declare that the doctrine of the creation is intimately tied up with the doctrine of the Triune God. Happily I find this disposition legitimated in the Articles of Faith, which begin by affirming the existence of the one God, “the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible.” This same first article concludes with a rehearsal of the Trinitarian formula—as if it flows naturally from the declaration of God’s creative nature. The significance of this doctrinal association is the belief that the Triune God revealed in the work of redemption in the incarnation of Jesus Christ is the same God upon whom our very existence depends. The affirmation of the Trinity in Creation—of the Word through whom all was made and the Spirit that hovers over the waters—assures the unity of the story of faith. The God who creates is the God who redeems and recreates us. It is in the image of the Triune God that we are created, and it is into the life of the Triune God that we are incorporated through the Body of Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

This is why Wesley, in his Explanatory Notes on John 1:4 comments

In him was life-He was the foundation of life to every living thing, as well as of being to all that is. And the life was the light of men-He who is essential life, and the giver of life to all that liveth, was also the light of men; the fountain of wisdom, holiness, and happiness, to man in his original state.

In many ways the Christian doctrine of Creation is defined by the doctrine of the Triune God because it can only be understood as Christian through the hindsight of the redemption that is effected by the incarnation of the Word and the sanctification of the Spirit.

Sin

Like any good narrative, the gospel we proclaim turns upon a conflict. Because of the reality of Sin, the Christian proclamation of Creation contains an element of lament for the incongruity between it and our present reality. At its heart, sin is the turning away from this understanding of our created nature and its proper orientation. In “The Spirit of Bondage and of Adoption” Wesley describes this as the “natural man” (nature understood in a post-lapsarian sense): “He is in gross, stupid ignorance… He is utterly ignorant of God, knowing nothing concerning him as he ought to know” (I.1). This noetic fall is characterized by an ignorant pride that corrupts not only the mind but also the heart. False self-awareness leads to an inability to love oneself or one’s neighbor properly because there is no awareness of the God who teaches and enables such love through humility. The denial of our created and contingent nature corresponds to a denial of our sinful nature that proceeds from it.

Here we see the two interdependent poles of the doctrine of Sin: original and actual. The affirmation of the universal fall is grounded in the ubiquitous experience of discrete sin within the world, at both the individual and corporate levels. As the seventh Article of Religion states, “Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, but it is the corruption of the nature of every man,…and of his own nature inclined to evil, and that continually.” The illness begets the symptom. The corruption of our nature is a perversion of Creation that reorients our minds and hearts away from the love of our Creator toward a delusional, self-serving pride that terminates in discrete actions of violence and sin against our neighbor. This turning away from the source of life results in our death; our selfish pride is our self-destruction.

Salvation

The essence of the Christian gospel, however, is not the awareness of our sorry state but the good news of the salvation effected in the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ and through the gift of the Holy Spirit that restores creation. The resolution of the conflict in the Christian narrative operates at both the universal and individual levels. In “The New Creation,” Wesley speaks of the cosmic redemption whereby “all the elements… will be new indeed, entirely changed as to their qualities” (10); he further proclaims that “on the new earth no creature will kill or hurt or give pain to any other” (17). For Wesley, then, the doctrine of Salvation turns upon the doctrines of Sin and Creation by the overcoming of the former for the restoration of the latter.

Wesley qualifies, though (and the majority of the Christian tradition agrees with him) that “the most glorious of all will be the change which then will take place on the poor, sinful miserable children of men” (18). Salvation in the Christian faith is primarily about the restoration of humans, both corporate and personal, by way of the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is in the person of Jesus Christ that the doctrines of Creation, Sin, and Redemption meet, for God chooses to become human, embracing the otherness of God’s creation to overcome the sin that separates it from God. Our gospel is the Gospel of Christ because it is in his Cross that our sinful nature is overcome and transformed. It is with Christ that we die and are born again.

Wesley describes this salvation as effected in two ways. In “On Working Out Our Own Salvation,” he identifies Jesus, the Son as “a propitiation for the sins of the world” and the Spirit as the one “renewing men in that image of God wherein they were created” (2). Here we have the twin concepts of justification and sanctification, the one which sets us aright and the other which perfects us in love. Again, in the same sermon Wesley clarifies, “by justification we are saved from the guilt of sin, and restored to the favour of God: by sanctification we are saved from the power and root of sin, and restored to the image of God” (II.1). The key to this culmination of the Christian story is that it does not simply resolve the conflict of Sin but it “makes all things new” by restoring the glory of God’s original creation

It is appropriate that it is by the Spirit of Christ that we are incorporated into the Body of Christ and share in his death and resurrection. For it is this same Christ who is the Word through whom we were made, and it is the same Spirit that hovered over the waters of chaos at creation that now animates us in love by restoring order to our hearts. In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we are incorporated into the story of God’s work in the world. It is through the witness of Christ—both objectively and subjectively understood—that we learn to tell the gospel of Creation, Sin, and Redemption because it is a narrative that can only be told in hindsight through the lens of Jesus’ work in our own life, both as individuals and as a community. We proclaim this gospel, then, as an invitation for others to share in this story of God’s love.

an elephant, a Fish, and some blind folk walk into a bar...

Let me make this perfectly clear:

I hate--nay, loathe(!)--the "blind-guys-describe-an-elephant" analogy.

For those of you not familiar with this story, it goes as follows. A bunch of blind guys stumble upon an elephant. One grabs its foot and describes the object as a thick tree trunk. One grabs the ear and describes it as a wide, flat, leathery sheet. One grabs the trunk and explains that the object is really a thick snake-like thing. They argue over who is right without resolving anything. The basic idea is that the elephant is God and different religions grasp the elephant at different points. None of us has complete knowledge, and we ought to listen to one another in order to learn the whole of the animal.

I didn't always dislike it. I mean, it has a good point about the multiplicity of religious experience and the benefits of dialogue. It affirms the limits of human knowledge and encourages humility. All good things.

But it has a few limitations and, ultimately, lacks real theological sophistication. Some objections I have:

1. There is a chance that not all the bind guys are actually touching a single animal. One may in fact be stroking a snake that is next to the elephant

2. We do not approach the divine blindly. We are not religious blank slates. We have socially constructed conceptual minds that impose categories of interpretation upon any experience we might have.

3. Different understandings and interpretations of an object do not depend upon different "parts" of the object. Disagreement can occur when a bunch of people grab the exact same part of the elephant.

The main issue for me, though, is that this story ignores the role of the community in interpretation. In most versions of this analogy, the blind men are not described as a community that come to a shared understanding of the object by way of agreed upon standards and shared language. No, they are normally competing "religions" or "communities" or "theologies" that seem to exist as isolated, singular interpreters.

There is a chance that Stanley Fish has completely gone out of fashion, but I still find his literary theory insightful (and helpfully accessible). I've been reading his classic Is There a Text in This Class? It is a defense of the linguistic community as the locus of interpretive meaning in a text or speech-act.

One of my favorite examples he gives is of a list of linguistic theorists left on a chalk board from an earlier class. When the new class, studying medieval religious poetry, comes in, Fish tells them that the list is an hieroglyphic medieval poem. The students then set about creating meaning from this list by identifying theological themes in names like "Jacobs-Rosenbaum," "Thorne," and "Ohman(?)." The key here is that the words do not have any intrinsic meaning; neither, though, is there an unlimited range of possibilities. Rather, within a given social context, certain rules of signification allow people to create and communicate meaning with one another.

Here's where this knocks up against the elephant. Even though the students were "creating" meaning in the experience of the list of names, they had communally agreed upon standards that allowed them to assess which options were legitimate or not. They could debate with one another. They could critique one another. And they could define the limits of appropriate meaning.

Not everyone is touching an elephant; and faith communities have agreed-upon language and parameters beyond which one can say, "Sorry, my friend, but I think you are actually holding a poisonous snake." Moreover, within a cultural-linguistic community, we may all grab the elephant's leg but establish standards for the most adequate way to describe it. "No, sir, it is not actually slimy and studded with diamonds." Finally, we don't stumble upon the elephant with no resources; we bring to the experience the language of our faith--or culture, or whatever--that enables it to actually be an experience in the first place.

So I have two theological rants that grow out from this for me, rants which I won't go into completely here, but which will probably come up in later posts:

1. Relativism does not mean that nothing ultimate exists; what it means is that we have a finite and contingent mode of knowing and signifying. So when we speak of our faith as "cultural-linguistic" it is not a debasement of our theological claims. It is an acknowledgment of the limits of reason to access and explain that faith. This is why, in the butchered words of Barth, Belief cannot reason with Unbelief--it can only preach to it.

2. Because faith does not originate in reason it is all the more important that our understanding of it and discourse about it be rationally governed. This may seem to contradict my previous statement, but it makes sense if you consider systems of logic to be based upon socio-linguistic norms. That is to say, the responsibility of good Christian theology is to learn its language and explore the different ways of knowing offered within our community. Likewise, it is the necessary role of Church leaders to practice appropriate mystagogy--habituating the community to its language, training them through liturgy, scripture, preaching, and practices to not only speak the language but adopt it as their own.

There is a very good chance that I will look back on this post as way too imprecise. But my language is still maturing too..

too many classes, not enough time...

One of my continuing sources of anxiety is my inability to do all that I think I ought. Part of this is about beginning my last semester of course works and having to opt out of classes that would be really good for me. I was going to audit a Ricoeur class, or maybe a Jewish Backgrounds to the NT class, or maybe a Church and Politics (read: Augustine and Augustinians) class... but alas, I have no time. I'm so very ready to be done with coursework and to begin focusing on my actual research, but I know that there is still so much that I don't know, that I would like the chance to learn in a seminar context with an expert to help guide me and colleagues to pick up my slack!

I'm always reminded of the main character in Don DeLillo's White Noise. I don't think I ever finished the book (like so many books), but the main character stuck in my head. He was a professor of Hitler Studies (charming) whose dirty secret was his complete ignorance of German. He was clandestinely taking language classes in his spare time to mitigate his shame. And that, my friend, I fear will be my future--though hopefully not with German.

And yet I'm reminded that we all have embarrassing gaps in our knowledge. We all have areas of expertise, and we all fudge all the other stuff to greater or lesser degrees. Augustine was crap at Greek! (Ok, so that's kind of a false historical myth, but it's a fun one to bring up in this instance.)

I've always sort of had anxiety over this. I got in the historical theology game pretty late, and I think I've done pretty well considering. I came to seminary thinking I wanted to be a community organizer. I had a BA in Religion that never touched the tradition but focused instead on feminist and liberation theologies. Somehow I got seduced by the Dark Side around 2005 and decided to pursue a career in Patristics--nevermind that I had no Latin or Greek whatsoever. So, yeah, to find myself doing fairly well in a top-notch PhD program is pretty satisfying.

But I'm always painfully aware of what I don't know. My ancient philosophy has been hobbled together over the last few years. My engagement with 20th/21st century theology is almost non-existent, save what I remember from undergrad. And even that was fairly pigeonholed. I have no knowledge of theory except what hermeneutical language I've picked up along the way. I passed my German and French exams, but have not used them since.

And yet, I remind myself: I'm only a 2nd year student. I just wish I didn't have such good colleagues. Conversations with folks like Ralston and Penniman (I'm sure you'll be reading them in a few years) always leave me wishing I had my finger more securely on the theological pulse. Ralston can tell you who is even thinking of writing what at any given university, and Penniman can move smoothly from a discussion of Maximus' Greek text to a commentary on emergent church practices.

And yet, darn it, I know more about Nemesius of Emessa than either of them! So, HA!

And I have a much better beard.

the "objective" historian...

I recently had a conversation with a fellow early Church student about how I view my approach to the discipline. I expressed how, for me, it was important to acknowledge that I approach these texts from a confessional point a view, as someone who accepts them as part of my community's tradition. (More on this later). She replied, (something like:)"Well I guess you are more situated than I am. I mean, as a secular historian if I'm challenged on a point I can easily change my mind."

Keeping in mind my bad paraphrase, what I heard was, "Because you are a Christian, you are obviously a bad historian who cannot handle critique of your understanding of the material." Now, I know this person well enough to know that this is not really what she meant. But it sure did come across this way. It got me thinking a bit about acceptable and unacceptable "perspectives" from which to do history...

I recently finished Liz Clark's excellent book History, Theory, Text in which she encourages historians of late antique Christianity to be more mindful of literary and critical theory. Clark provides excellent summaries and assessments of the work of everyone from Saussure to Derrida and traces the historical discipline's engagement with (or ignorance of) such thinkers throughout the 20th century. I sympathize and mostly agree with Clark's assessment of the usefulness of post-structuralist/hermeneutic/literary theory in the discipline of early Christianity. In particular, Clark rightly highlights the way in which the historian's own culture, context, and assumptions shape the way she reads a seemingly concrete text. This understanding then allows Clark to open up the meanings implicit in seemingly innocuous texts vis-a-vis power, gender, and social control.

What I regretted about Clark's work, though, is that it seemed to dismiss (if only by silence) the possibility of real scholarship that takes seriously the Church as the historian's context. While Clark is right to lament the hegemony of confessional readings of the Church Fathers and the limited range of questions and reading practices associated with such an approach, I fear she does not take seriously that some real historians are also real Christians who see their faith defined by the language that is taking shape in early Christian texts.

For me, I study these texts because of my faith. I study them because I believe Christianity is best understood as a particular cultural-linguistic community whose identity is shaped by specific types of language and practice. The study of our history, then, is the study of the development (and, at times, decline) of our shared language. Study of the early Church allows us to broaden our lexical options and imagine different types of signification within our systems of speech and practice. Simply put, saying, "Jesus is my Lord and Savior" has meant different things to different people in different periods. Yet, in some way, all these meanings are connected, and we can benefit from expanding our own appreciation for the possibilities of the phrase.

And yet, does this make me a bad historian? I don't think so. When my friend suggested that I would not be able to change my mind or except correction on a point, I think she made a category confusion. It is a helpful confusion, though, as it is made by Christians and historians alike in different ways.

There is a difference between the presuppositions I bring to the text and the conclusions I draw from it. Now, certainly they are mutually informing. Certainly, one will shape the other. This is why we need transparency in our own contextualization. But, if I say I come to the study of early Christianity with a commitment to the Nicene faith, this does not imply that I expect to find that faith proven by my historical study. That is to say, someone who questions or corrects my reading of Augustine does not thereby say anything about the faith that shapes who I am as a Christian historian. On the flip-side (I'm looking at you, Christians!) the study of history cannot in any way prove or legitimate Christian doctrinal claims. It can only help us better understand the nature of those claims.

Similarly, a feminist historian looking to uncover modes of sexual power and gender differentiation in early monastic texts does not seek to find proof in those texts that men and women are equal (or that gender is a social construct, or whatever other legitimate position one wants to insert here). No. This is a prior assumption that guides the investigation and shapes the questions. Surely if I inform Virginia Burrus that she reads, say, Athanasius wrong, she is not going to say, "Oh crap! Men are more intelligent than women! I was wrong all along!"

And no one would expect her to. Nor would anyone question the integrity of her scholarship because it comes with a particular vested interest. (Ok, some people might, but they just suck.)

Mind you, I'm not trying to play the whiny oppressed white male Christian here. That's a tired defensive line that I hear way to much in my own classes. But there is a legitimate concern here, that "Christian" scholarship is no longer legitimate in the academy. Certainly there is lots of unreflective pseudo-academic crap out there under the title "Christian scholarship." But there is also a bunch of pop-historical crap out there, too (read: the History channel). All I want to argue is that "Christian" is a perfectly legitimate context within which to do history... especially if that history is (*cough cough*) our history! Moreover, it can be just as rigorous and respectable as a "gendered" person studying the history of gender.

why I love Revelation...

So for the past few months I've been leading a small group Bible study on the book of Revelation with the Sr. High youth at Saint Mark UMC. In the midst of the confusing and violent imagery, I was reminded of why I loved this book so much. Near the end of the study I was invited to write an advent devotion for a compilation our church was putting together. Though we are now strong into Epiphany, I thought I'd share it here:

Rev 4:1-8

The Advent theme for this week is “Watch.” Among all the texts in scripture, Revelation is perhaps most apt for this imperative. The final book in our Bible is a report of a vision that the author experienced while in exile, presumably suffering persecution for his faith. John is one who watches and who invites us to watch with him. In this chapter John is given a glimpse of the heavenly court in which God, surrounded by the divine entourage, is worshipped and glorified. In one sense, John invites us to witness the glory that is the Lord. In another he invites us to see the worship of our earthly Church as participating in the life of Heaven. The meaning of this participation is glimpsed within the scope of Revelation’s narrative. John watches not merely God’s detached existence among the singing angels; he witnesses, through powerful and evocative symbols, the consummation of God’s reign upon the earth. This reign is brought about through the exultation of the crucified Christ and those who follow him and the humbling of the powers of this world. For a man exiled for his faith, this is a powerfully hopeful vision. For a Church that feels itself embattled against a world that does not know—nay, even crucifies!—its God, this vision gives strength and assurance that we are not alone. And it is in worship, as we emulate and participate in this heavenly scene, that we keep watch, not passively observing but vigilantly anticipating. We watch, not as naïve dreamers but as expectant witnesses to what God has done, bearing the promises of what God will do in our world.

Holy God, Keep us vigilant! Keep us hopeful! Keep our eyes ever upon your vision for our world that we might conform ourselves to your love and the world to your kingdom. Amen.

There is a lot more to be said, I think, about the role of liturgical practice in participation/anticipation of the already/not yet of God's reign effected in the slain lamb whose wedding feast we attend at the eucharistic table... but I'll save that for another time...

No longer at ease here, in the old dispensation...

I always think of T.S. Eliot's "The Journey of the Magi" when I return home to Virginia for the holidays. There is a strangeness that confronts me in the very people who are closest to me. This occurs both in my family and in my church. It is the most painful type of "otherness," the kind that highlights the gap between my past and my present as well as my inability to reconcile the two.

I'm pretty much the only one in my immediate family to get a full college education. Add to that the fact that I'm in a PhD program, committed to progressive politics and social ethics, and actually know the difference between WiFi and DSL, and I turn out to be quite the alien species to them. The hardest part for me, I think, is that their strange planet is actually my home, and they are the ones who have always supported and nurtured me. Yet, I don't know how to even carry on a conversation with them sometimes. I love my dad, but, sorry, I don't really care about Ruger's new scope for the .308 bolt-action rifle with wood-grain stock (if such a thing actually exists). My brother tries, but I just can't muster enough false interest to hear about the newest Motley Crue album. And how do I talk to them about my interests?

"Yeah, Mom, I've been reading some Gadamer, trying to figure out how German hermeneutics can help me understand the intersection of the historical horizon in my own experience. Oh and I 'm looking forward to unpacking the gnomic will of Maximus the Confessor this semester. It should really go well with my analysis of divine contingency in Nemesius of Emessa. And yeah, I just got a copy of Optatus' treatise against the Donatists. Why yes, that does in fact excite me. How was your day?"

Going to church on Sunday is equally painful. I mean, I love my home church. Absolutely love it. This community was amazing to me as a child and teenager. They provided a loving and affirming environment that I desperately needed. Much of my academic interest in theology comes from my experiences at that church. But I just feel I don't relate to them anymore. Not only do I fear the inevitable encounter with someone whom, Lord knows, I SHOULD remember but I just don't, but I also find it hard to explain what I do and why I think it matters. All I can think is, "Man, that sermon was awful. Where was the text?" Or, "These people have no real understanding of the implications of Trinitarian doctrine for their experience of the divine!"

I think that last sentiment really gets at the heart of the problem. For most of the year I live in a fantastic bubble of academic theology. The people I talk to are either other scholars or seminary students. Sure, I might find some of the students quite naive, but the academic context allows for a type of discourse that the home church simply doesn't! In a classroom, or even over coffee, I have time to discuss with a seminarian the reasons I feel history and theology matter for the practice of Christianity. I can say, hey, go read this book by Lindbeck and see what you think about inter-religious dialogue as cultural-linguistic interchange. But that ability falls away when I move into the local pew with people who don't give a flying falafel about critically examining the nature of their faith.

Maybe I underestimate them. That is certainly a fear I have. Yet often I find myself making the opposite mistake--not appreciating the differences between them and me enough. At times when I've tried to teach within the church I go over everyone's head. I forget that I cannot assume a basic level of theological knowledge, like the difference between the OT and NT (seriously). At times I rail against the failure of Christian education in local congregations. But then I realize: that's quickly becoming MY JOB.

So, I stand there, staring at the co-members of my home church as they ask how my studies are going. "Good, good," I say, "better than a real job!" A chuckle, a hug, and I'm gone, back to editing an article to submit for publication in the academic journals that now define my sense of self-worth. And yet, as I learn to speak the professional academic language, what would it mean for me to relearn the language of my home? Not as regression. You cannot return to the old country, after all. Not really. But you can integrate. You can incorporate your native tongue with your adopted language. You can learn to move between worlds and by doing so reconcile them to one another in your own self--not annihilating their otherness, but embracing it as constitutive of what it means to be a created person in a diverse world.

So that's what this blog is hopefully going to be about. I want to write about my studies, interesting things I'm learning, fun problems I'm trying to solve. I also want to write about scripture and liturgy and church. Some of this will be annoyingly academic and esoteric. But I hope that will be balanced by and integrated into my broader devotional and theological reflections. I hope to journey between Athens and Jerusalem and find myself a home somewhere in between...

maybe in Pontus...