the parish

End of Year Miscellanea

Took an unplanned blogging vacation. It was kind of nice. I'll have been at this five years in February, and it's amazing to me how much of an obligation it feels like sometimes. Next semester will be janky as well, as I'm teaching ten sections. Still not sure how I'm going to survive it; at least none of the classes are brand new ones.

I'm finding myself more and more exhausted by conversations with theists. Three this week, two of which went horribly. It's befuddling to me how they phrase choices. My brother, who loves me and is almost always kind, feels some sense of responsibility to get me back into the fold. He used the analogy of a ball of yarn with knots at various places. He's trying to help me get the knots out. I explained that his analogy was good only inasmuch as I agreed that there is one ball of yarn to be unknotted. In fact, the more accurate analogy is that I've picked up a new skein and it is almost knot-free for now. I'm sure I will find some, but I am metaphysically content.

Another kind-hearted but poorly educated gentleman asked me if I believed in God—I had just disavowed belief in prayer, so he asked a good follow-up, I thought. I tried to get him to clarify what he meant by the question, the result of which was that he was asking if I believe Jesus is my savior/god/forgiver. No, I said. So you think we came from monkeys? sigh...

I'm so weary of this trend that I've decided I will not be pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy of religion. It's a fairly momentous choice to make at the end of an exhausting year, but I think it's the right one. I bought a Cambridge reader of PhilofRel and worked my way through it. The result? Mind-numbing ennui, except for D.Z. Phillips (r.i.p.). I just don't care. The subject doesn't move me. I find it fascinating from a mythological, sociological, anthropological angle, but that's just because I really am trying to understand what people mean by what they say. 

One of the nails in the coffin happened during the facebook chat with my brother. He asked me what it was that made me search out my childhood faith when I was in prison 20 years ago, insinuating that God was working in me. I realized, finally, that I am free of the vestiges of that faith when I was able to honestly say that the answer to that is simple. Childishly simple. A lapsed Muslim would have the same answer. Or a lapsed atheist. "My mother told me it was true and I had no other lens through which to view the world." I've borrowed a few more lenses since those days, and I'm busily grinding my own. I'm probably a bit of a sociopath still, but I do love a few people.

So I will load up my schedule for next year, teach as many sections as gregly possible, pay off stupid amounts of debt, occasionally drink a better quality wine than I'm used to, steal moments with friends to drink beer and wine, miss my friends who are scattered all over the damn world (JJ, Cheese, Tank, J.P., Natalie, Elaine, Abby Sue, Lacy, and others who will forgive me for not listing them in my haste), work like hell to get a few of them laid (you know who you are), squeeze time out of the week for the family I don't see enough of, and enjoy being the man who all my friends refer to as that guy who married up 'cause I'm still cuddling up with the hhdw. Sweet. Oh, and I will blog as time allows. 

Happy Fuckin' New Year, friends. I love you all. You make my life interesting and fun and redeemed. Grace and peace in the name of whatever god you serve.

The Craziness is not over yet.

Semester is done. Final grades are filed. I can breathe for exactly three weeks and then it's back to teach intersession. Actually will have some time to follow up on the whole violence conversation. But for now, since I'm in the middle of stories, there is this tidbit from CJR, a resource that evaluates news outlets but is becoming better at reporting the news than the outlets they cover.

The story is about the NYT failing to mention Dick Cheney's admission to authorizing torture, including techniques considered war crimes. He should be prosecuted. He will not be. No one in the administration will be. Damn Gerald Ford for the Nixon pardon. That may not have been the first, but it set a precedent we won't outlive.

Methodology of Violence

Several good responses to the post about violence and my rethinking of my formerly Christian position. I wanted to answer a couple things without sitting down to write several responses. I think it's important to note that I have amended my views because I honestly believed that the appropriate Christian position was and is pacifism; however, as I've said too many times already, I am no longer a theist of any variety. I realize that some Christian readers will disagree with that pacifism is a necessary part of the faith, but I think the position of necessary violence is a compromised form of life that ignores some of the harder sayings and ways of being of Jesus. Again, it's like my Church of Christ student who said he didn't believe in violence until it was necessary. Apparently, only those well-read or well-raised in the Anabaptist tradition are aware that Jesus never found it necessary.

This is, I think, a defensible position inasmuch as the early church and later the Anabaptists saw themselves as a community or nation living alongside another community or nation. And they meant it in the absolute sense, not in the way of the watered-down faux holiness of the don't drink, don't smoke, don't fornicate crowd who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. (That's in the Bible!) The kingdom of God was alongside the kingdom of the world, and the most important differences were more ethical than practical. Praxis played a role, but it was based on prior and directive ethical positions (non-violence, eschatological hope, and sacrificial love), not a list of proscriptions. The kingdom of God was portable, and so the controlling ethic of the kingdom of God was only demonstrated by the commitment of its citizens to live a certain way. (I lack the time and patience to deal with current kingdom of God as cognitive assent heresies. Suffice it to say that it didn't matter how many times you prayed a prayer; it was the demonstration of an ethical position by adherence to a form of life that mattered.)

This is, of course, an idealistic position, and its success (more on the definition later) was predicated on the willingness of its proponents to die rather than resort to violence. It was this ideal that captured me. To paraphrase Wittgenstein, I saw a picture of something beautiful, and in it was the whole world, whole way of life, whole grammar of faith, whole anchor of hope. It was the only thing that made the whole Christian story hold together. It stopped holding together for me when I decided that if there was a God, he wasn't playing by the rules of this beautiful game.

So now I come to a place where I must decide what to do about violence. God will not rescue. God seldom saves, even in Scripture. Having abandoned my commitment to theism, I am left with a world without an active god, a good god, at least. That means I rethink my position vis-a-vis violence. Is it evil as the Christian narrative read through an Anabaptist lens suggests? Yes. I still believe that categorically it's evil. But in a world without a controlling ethical metanarrative, we live on the lesser of two evils; it's how we live. I can choose to be non-violent, but my commitment to non-violence was always based on my commitment to the ethics of the kingdom of God. It seems irrationally idealistic to commit to non-violence without an eschaton. Moving from idealist to pragmatist, I'm concerned with what works in the world. Violence works. Non-violence works occasionally, and I'm not advocating a wholesale embrace of an ethic of violence. I'm advocating the necessary use of violence against a larger evil. I can't believe I just typed that, but it's kind of where I am. I say this with full knowledge that the word "necessary" begs to be defined. I haven't quite worked that out yet, but you can picture those old ethics class scenarios, can't you? I'm open to a third way. Anyone?

Prayer, again

I'm in the salon today. A friend of the hhdw has a sister in the hospital with some sort of circulatory problem. The friend, another stylist, says, "Pray for my sister." To which I respond, "I don't pray." This follows:

"Why not?"

"Because I don't believe it works."

"You used to believe it, preacher man."

"I used to believe it. Now I believe you might as well throw rocks at your problems; both methods are equally effective."

"Whatever. I'm not listening to you."

The hhdw and I had a lunch conversation afterward to discuss what we should say to someone who asks for prayer. My standard response is the one above. If that leads to questions, as it inevitably does, I answer them as kindly and patiently as possible. The hhdw has a good idea as well—neither of us want to lie. She said she tells people she will pray and then prays the following prayer:

God, I hope you're listening. I'm praying for x.

Succinct. Fulfills the obligation incurred by the promise. Maintains intellectual, principled honesty about metaphysical assumptions—she really does hope there is a god who listens but doesn't pray as if there is. I like the idea. I would just amend it slightly.

God, I don't really believe you give a shit, assuming you are there and can hear me, but I hope you're listening and that you can do something about x or actually give a shit about x.

What do you think?

The Meek Will Inherit, or not

Just finished watching The Brave One for the third time. Saw it the first time right after it came out on dvd. I am still impressed with how subtly brilliant it is, especially Jodie Foster and Terrence Howard (for whom, by the way, I would probably go gay--i'm just sayin'). I know the ending plays like something viewed by too many test audiences, and I hope there was an alternate ending that makes the movie more complex, but I do blame the writers for this one. Looking through Roderick and Bruce Taylor's writing credentials makes me believe in plenary inspiration where their writing of this one is concerned, except for the ending.

I watched it about the same time that I saw 3:10 to Yuma, which is about the same time that I was reading the most recent Pulitzer winner The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. All three experiences happened about the same time I was making my final break with Christianity. That is what some would call serendipitous, because the question raised by all three works was one of the questions that drove me out of the faith. I've been mulling this question over for a long time, and I've discussed it ad nauseam with students in ethics classes. It is this: is it possible for good to flourish in the world without violence?

First, here's how the three works answered that question, in the order I've listed them. No. No. No. Secondarily, all three suggest that a transformation occurs in the perpetrator, the victim and/or beneficiary. The first suggests that the victim is transformed into "another person" or "someone else". I believe that to be true. Unfortunately, the tertiary answer given here is that a secondary transformation occurs when the victim utilizes violence in the pursuit of redemption, thereby making them another person again. Yuma suggests that the good can remain good while benefiting from violence. In that case, only the perpetrator is sullied, but they are sullied in the service of good. The transformation is only for the perpetrator. The baptism of blood does not transform the beneficiary, but it does redeem him. (I recognize that there may be a psychological transformation wrought by proximity to violence, but that proximity is still external. There is no ontological change.) Only Oscar answers the question the way Christians do. And this should not be a spoiler since anyone who hasn't read the book should still be able to deduce that Oscar dies young. (If you didn't deduce that, may I suggest Lemony Snicket or something less challenging.) Oscar is changed by the violence, although he never takes up the means of violence himself. Instead, he loves to his death. And he loves someone not worthy of his affection. And he loves foolishly, recklessly, hopelessly. It is both beautiful, noble, tragic, and insipid. Only a people who believe in eschatological justice can embrae the message of Oscar. Oh, I understand that the impact of Oscar's death sends out waves of goodness that may ultimately overcome evil, but Oscar is still very dead.

I was teaching an ethics unit for intro to philosophy last week, filling in for another professor, and the subject of virtue ethics came up. A couple Christians in the class were quite vocal in their support of virtue ethics, at least as they understood the concept to relate to discipleship. However, I decided to goad one older man with the challenge "no Christian in America would die for a principle." He of course said that if he were in the Middle East and a Muslim terrorist demanded that he renounce Christ, he would die first. I asked if this had yet happened to him. He reluctantly admitted that it hadn't. So easy to be a martyr in theory. (Christians should read Silence by Shusaku Endo on this issue, if they haven't already.) It seems not to have occurred to him that there are many ways to renounce Jesus, including but not limited to failing to care for the poor, voting for George Bush (kidding, sort of), supporting an unjust war, passing judgment on others, failing to give generously, living with too much debt, etc. I mentioned that Jesus taught non-violence, and that my point was that no Christian in America that I know will die for the principle of non-violence. He argued that I had misinterpreted Scripture, of course, and that he too believed in non-violence until it was necessary to use violence. I pointed out that his statement was the logical equivalent of I believe in violence. 

Here's the truth: I believe that good cannot flourish without violence. Sorry, Nazarene friends. It's one of the reasons I had to leave the faith. What Jesus says makes so much sense if there is an eschatological reckoning. But my inability to imagine an eschatological reality that incorporated justice, freedom, eternity, and humanity made it impossible for me to believe that Jesus' teaching makes sense. For me as a hybrid Anabaptist-Wesleyan-Barthian-Emergent thing, the whole thing stood or fell on violence. Oscar as a Christ figure does what Christ figures always do: love recklessly to the death. But the skeptic in me could not allow me to believe in something I didn't know, in the referential sense, to be true. No eschatological reckoning, no faith. Some will point to anecdotes of people who were good who also effected change without violence: Jesus, Gandhi, Catholic priests in South and Central America, African women in Liberia, etc. Great. They're dead. Just dead. The little cult that Jesus started thrived because of the violence of empire. We can't know what would have happened without Constantine. Gandhi made a difference, but that area is consumed in violence today. South and Central America are in turmoil: drugs, coups, kidnapping, bombings. Yes, the women in Liberia won eventually, but how many died, how many were raped, how many lost children and husbands and mothers? No good without violence. It's sort of where I am. I don't see another way forward. I believed momentarily in the beauty of the way of Jesus, but Christians in America don't believe in it, and I'm going to agree with them this time, but since it was one of my linchpins, I've parted ways. I'm a pragmatist it seems about this. Idealists die. Hypocrites find a way that both can be true and false at the same time. I can't go that route.

Socialism, or not.

This is the cover for the Oklahoma Gazette this week. It was one of the more enjoyable pieces I've worked on.

In Dixie Land I'll Make My Stand...to get the hell out of Dixie.

Welcome to the new heart of Dixie: Tenn., Ark., Okla. How convenient that we're in a nice, neat line along I-40.