the parish

emergent cohort

The cohort meets tonight. Details are on the emergentokc site.

Cain and Abel, Redux

I just finished watching The Proposition. It's the most emotionally devastating movie I've seen this year. Nick Cave--singer, songwriter, Australian--wrote the screenplay about a family of outlaws during the attempted "civilization" of the Outback.

Guy Pearce, who I've not seen in anything significant since Memento, plays the lead, a middle brother emotionally torn between his idiot younger brother and sociopathic older brother. The proposition, made to Pearce's character, Charlie Burns, by a cop, played incredibly well by Ray Winstone, is to kill his older brother in order to save his younger brother from the gallows. The execution is set for Christmas and the proposition is made nine days before Christmas.

I've seldom seen a movie that so ably critiques sacred violence. There is a sequence in the middle of the movie that features the flogging of Charlie's younger brother. The community comes together to witness the example of retributive justice. Mel Gibson tried for the same effect with his flogging of Caviezel in The Passion of the Christ, but where Gibson's pornograhpy fails due to its overtly evangelistic message, Hillcoat's (director) treatment works precisely because we're set up to view the horror through the eyes of a "good" person, Emily Watson playing Winstone's delicate but morally upright wife. She places her husband in the position of choosing between her and the criminal, and the full effects of her Faustian bargain are made apparent with a straightforward portrayal of communal participation in would-be redemptive violence that relies surprisingly little on the pornographic violence and gore to which Gibson resorted.

The flogging proves to be the climax of the film; all else is a denouement that spirals into uncontrollable violence and a choice that robs all the actors of their "souls." Of the brothers, one begs to be delivered from the cycle of evil, and one realizes that passivity in the face of evil is not a choice; in the exercise of violence, both are transformed into something less than human. Winstone, who makes the original Faustian proposition, reaps the full effects of his decision to bargain using tenuous categories of good and evil. Violence begets violence; the devil usually determines the outcome of wagers involving the human soul; and, redemption is not possible once the grammar of violence is taken up.

Render Unto Caesar, or Tax Policy for a Fat Church

All Saints Episcopal in Pasadena is in a protracted fight with the IRS. I don't know what was in Pastor Bacon's "anti-war" sermon, but it has the IRS wanting to reconsider their tax exempt status. I have a solution.

Churches need to give up their tax exempt status. It is completely unjustifiable and constitutes preferential, prejudicial treatment. On what basis do they get the exemption? 501(c)3 ministries have historically receieved tax exempt status because they function as non-profit entitities that serve the community. Does that describe the modern, evangelical or mainline church? Sometimes. Less than half the time—far less than half, I'm guessing. In addition to their tax exempt status, ministers are allowed to take up to 45 percent of their salary as tax-exempt "housing allowance." Sorry, what other job allows that? Time to stop whining about government interference if you're going to keep allowing the government to give you tax shelters, folks. (This is another way pastors are able to say, "My salary is only x," when in fact they often aren't counting housing allowance, retirement, and insurance, things other schmucks have to pay out of pocket. The real question for pastors is, what is your total package?)

Here's what I propose, any money a church spends on benevolence, real benevolence, not taking a group of teenagers to Mexico for a week, can be tax exempt. Pay electric bills for poor folk, house a homeless family, feed people without food, build a house for someone, pay for a medical procedure for a destitute member, etc. All that would come from an account that genuinely does 501(c)3 quality work. All the rest, and here's the rub, all of it, the money you pay your pastor, housing allowance included, the money for the ridiculous electric bills so the coffee shop and bookstore can be open, the money for donuts, the money for your "minister of technology," the youth ski trip, all of it, every dime, is taxable. If you're not feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or making provisions for the marginalized, not making a substantive, material difference in the lives of the poor and powerless, you pay taxes on the money. I think it's a nice compromise. Sorry, churches, time to render unto Caesar and start trimming the fat.

Sin, Part One (for Dino)

I don't like this topic; it smacks too much of the fundamentalism in which I grew up. It conjures images of smoking, drinking, profligacy, and the greatest KJV word of all time, concupiscence. Yet some of my still-evangelical friends are concerned that I don't take the idea of personal sin seriously enough. Most regular readers know by now that I tend to view sin as systemic and corporate, and I also tend to eschew the term when it applies to personal behaviors usually prohibited by conservative churches when discussing sin: smoking, drinking, dancing, cussing, sexing, etc. This is not to say that I don't believe sin is personal: it very much is, but not in the way my fundy church family understood it when I was a good/bad Assembly of God boy.

One of the primary problems in this discussion is the lack of clarity concerning how even to define the word. I steadfastly refuse to consider alcohol use, tobacco use, and profanity as sin. If people believe they are sins, then I'm not sure anything I'm going to say will convince them that I'm orthodox. Alas... How do we define it? We can trot out the ten commandments and talk about theft, adultery, covetousness, etc., but it won't move the discussion very far. We end up mired down in atomistic talk about specific behaviors. Might as well start your list now if that's how you view it because you'll be at it for a while. There is simply too much ambiguity in the word to have a reasonable conversation about its meaning, effects, and solution. This is not to say that I don't believe in it, just that it quickly becomes too large to manage, especially since much of evangelical theology is tied up with the crucifixion as a solution to personal sin, and therefore much of what they consider orthodox is tied to accepting their categories, definitions, and hamartiology.

Let me start with a definition and then a question. The definition will of course be subject to your protests, but it's where I'm starting. Sin is any behavior that militates against the formation of a community in the image of Jesus. (It's also a principality and a power and a system, but I've treated that at length previously, so for now, let's say the following statements are addressing personal sin.)

Here's the question: (I'm not starting with Scripture. Sorry. It just seems pointless to start there.) Why should God care if I sin? How does it affect him/her? I grew up believing that sin, defined as bad behaviors irrespective of their effects on the community, offended God. I'm not sure what it means that God is offended, but you can introduce all sorts of Old Testament language to justify the position, so I was convinced that dropping the occasional minced oath offended a Holy God. Add to that the reading from Isaiah about filthy rags and whatnot, and your normal, lustful, hormonal, foul-mouthed Pentecostal boy is suddenly Torquemada. But why should God care if I engage in behavior that harms no one?

See, I'll go ahead and assert that behavior that creates victims is in fact sin of a very personal sort. Lying, slandering, gossip, physical abuse, molestation, rape, adultery, theft, racism, (you can find a longer list at mysecret.tv) etc., all create victims. It's not hard to see why they should be prohibited. Additionally, I think they are destructive of community and hinder community formation. At the very least, the community they encourage is broken, hurtful, and fear-laden. This is also the sort of sin that makes clear why God would be offended inasmuch as I believe God takes up the cause of the weak, poor, broken, and powerless. Those who abuse those people not only destroy the community of peace, they engage in behavior that is antithetical to the character of God and harmful to creatures God loves. Just as I'm offended when I hear a story about some schmuck who swindles an old lady out of her savings, God is most likely offended at the same sorts of offenses. That sort of makes sense to me. If we can define personal sin that way, then I can go with it. If you want to define it as behavior that offends God because it's naughty, I'll have a little more difficulty with that.

Prohibitions aren't arbitrary. Which is to say, I don't think God forbids the use of tobacco because she doesn't like second-hand smoke or prefers chew to smoke. Nor does he just pick some things that we should stay away from. There is an embodied ethic around which we are to build a kingdom, and that embodied ethic looks like Jesus. If you can identify behaviors that prevent the building of the kingdom, then I will probably agree that they are sin. If however you simply want to introduce a "thus sayeth the Lord" with no projections of how the behavior will legitimately harm the community, then I'll have to disagree with you. For example, and this will get me in trouble, but I'd like a real answer, how does homosexuality damage the community? If two people covenant to live together and be faithful to God and one another, what harm does that do to the community? I guess I'm thinking that sin is something that has detrimental repercussions in a real world, not in "heaven." I don't think God is that sensitive. I also recognize that some amount of causistry (in the best sense of the word) will be required. It's unavoidable, but I'd like it to be based on an embodied social ethic, not on arbitrary prohibitions based on some revealed and often misunderstood notion of God's holiness.

Dino's other question had to do with sin and atonement. That's next time. Grace and peace.

Godspolitics Blog

For those of you who don't know already, Jim Wallis's new blog launched this weekend. The first installment will be a debate with Wallis and Ralph Reed. Not sure why anyone wants to take Reed seriously anymore, but once upon a time he was the architect of the Christian Right.

On a perhaps more interesting note, a friend and former classmate of mine at SNU, Kevin Lum, is busy working with Sojo as well. One of his projects is the newly launched faithandjusticechurches.net. I just got his email this morning so I haven't had a chance to browse the site yet. Let me know what you think.

Oh Dear, the Man is Really Crazy

Caught a few clips of Matt Lauer's interview with President Bush on the Daily Show tonight. Did anyone see the actual interview? When Lauer asks about secret prisons and torture, Bush did his typical Bush stuff: dissembling, avoidance, bullying, etc. However, at one point he talks to Lauer about Lauer's family. The look on his face when he tells Lauer that "these people" want to kill his family is somewhere east of normalcy. I'm serious. I'm genuinely afraid that the president is completely insane. If the interview is available online you might watch it and see for yourself. Crazy, I'm telling you. Gone. Crazy. Nuts. Is it possible that a rigid ideology leads to insanity?

Boot Up Your Ass Music, Part Two

Toby Keith was on the Colbert Report tonight. Have I mentioned how embarrassed I am that he represents Oklahoma? Anyway, Colbert was pretty nice to him, probably because the man is huge and scary. The lowlight of the interview came when Toby said "bald-headed eagle" not once, but twice. Not a bald eagle, folks. Nope, not America's bird. Rather, he was referring to the far more rare, far more patriotic, far more redneck bald-headed eagle. He said he was going to stick a bald-headed eagle up the asses of Hollywood producers. Ah, to be from Oklahoma now that Toby is our spokesperson! The only mercy of the evening is that our wonderful state's name never came up.

Pronunciation Anyone?

Kristen has a fantastic post over at the McCarty blog about Beguines. We don't know how to pronounce the word though, so read the post and then tell us how to pronounce it.

Happy Birthday kaleo

kaleo turned one year old tonight. We started on September 11 last year. I don't know that I have any profound reflections, just thought I'd say happy birthday and thanks to everyone who has helped. We did have to have two cakes because the hot, cake-eating hairdresser wife and I disagree about icing: she likes butter cream; I prefer whipped cream. I try to tell her the "butter cream" is really lard and powdered sugar, but she is undaunted. She's perfect in every other way.

A Microcosm of the Issue

The LA Times did an excellent piece on the growing rift between Chuck Smith, Sr., the founder of the Calvary Chapel movement (new paradigm churches) and his son Chuck Smith, Jr., the author of The End of the World as We Know It, a decent, clear-eyed primer on ministry in a postmodern context. Chuck Smith, Jr., has moved farther "left" since writing the book, so much of it is dated. The LA Times consistently delivers excellent religion coverage, and this story is one of the best examples I've seen of informed, fair reporting about a complex issue.