the parish

I Happen to Know that Hookers were Prominent in the Bible, Sir

Thanks to the lunatic Ohio Tim, I now have access to this information. Next time your Netflix delivery is late or the liquor store is closed due to an ice storm, check out the offerings at GodlyConferences.com. Recent edifying options:

1. Red River Bible and Prophecy Conference. I assume that is not the blood of infidels.
2. Israel, Islam, and Reality. Because I missed the Israel, Islam, and Fantasy conference with the bad ass rpg breakout session featuring djinns.
3. Upon This Rock: Biblical Christianity and Roman Catholicism. Is there a less definable concept that Biblical Christianity? 
4. The Hope That Is Set Before Us: Prophecy Conference. Caps in original.  
5. Creation Evolution Upon This Rock Conference. No punctuation in original, so it's hard to guess what creation evolution is. The web site for this one features "Creation Facts," including this little known and soteriologically helpful jewel: The earth free-floats in space (Job 26:7), affected only by gravity. While other sources declared the earth sat on the back of an elephant or turtle, or was held up by Atlas, the Bible alone states what we now know to be true – 'He hangs the earth on nothing.'" Shit. There goes my cosmology. 

 And now it's time for the new conference, which Ohio Tim is featuring on his site, because...drum roll please (hee hee)...Ohio Tim is playing drums at the conference. The web site features this helpful tidbit under the "About This Conference" subheading: The Bible, The Whole Bible, And Nothing But The Bible. So, Tim, you're gearing up for the Inerrancy of God's Word conference. Again, you're a Nazarene. You don't have to believe in inerrancy. If you do believe in that, go to a Bible Church or Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church. My friend, based on the information available at GodlyConferences.com you're hanging out with people who believe "evolution cannot explain emotions." Additionally, they are adamant that "Neither evolution nor religion offers a solution to suffering. But God offers heaven as a gift to all who trust in His Son." That's a relief. Heaven solves everything.

Dear Nazarene friends, Tim is a moron. Stop listening to him.

And if you're wondering about the title of the post, I was amusing myself by imagining the hookers gathered in and around the official Godly Conferences.

Coop Ale Works

It is with a tear in my eye that I tell you Oklahoma City has a microbrewery of which we can be exceedingly proud. Coop Ale Works, 1124 NW 51st, will start shipping kegs in March. I took a tour of the brewery last week and was amazed, genuinely amazed, at the quality of the beer.

J.D. Merryweather is the co-owner of Coop (he has two partners), and his many years in the advertising business show in every graphic Coop has put together so far. The labels, names, and graphic design are fantastic. But the beer is better.

For you non-Okies out there, it's hard to explain how absolutely average the very best of Oklahoma local brews have been. Our best known local brew, Choc, has three or four varieties, all relentlessly average, when they aren't downright bad. So you'll understand my skepticism when I was invited to the tasting last week. To brace myself for the occasion, I stopped at McNellies to have a couple Hacker-Pschorr Anno 1417s. When I tasted the first Coop beer, Horny Toad Lager, I thought I'd had too much to drink at McNellies. You know how that third glass of wine or fourth beer can taste good even if it's not? Yeah. Fortunately, friend Adam and his brother joined me and assured me that I was not shit-faced. "This is remarkably good," I was told.

I tasted a total of six Coop beers: Horny Toad Lager, Zeppelin German Wheat, Native Amber, DNR Belgian Quad, Gran Sport Porter, and an unnamed stout that is among the best stouts I've ever had. No, I'm not exaggerating. I'd like to review all these beers and probably will eventually, but for now, let me just say that there is not a bad beer in the portfolio. I thought the weakest was the amber, but others who were there loved it. The banana, clove, malt finish on the wheat is bracing and a little unusual, but I loved it enough to get another pour. The porter and stout are the best of the group, although the quad can stand up to almost any Belgian style quad I've had not made in Belgium. And the Horny Toad? It's a damn good easy drinker. 

Chase Healey, the brewmaster, gets the credit for these remarkable beers. Chase was cutting the tops off of kegs for his home brews when Merryweather met him. The two talked about beer, and Merryweather offered Chase a chance to be the Coop brewmaster. It's a nice story, and it's even true, but both parties, and ultimately the customers, win on this one. Healey seems to have a knack for smoothing out the finish of every beer. The stout is a gigantic mouthful of flavor, but just when you expect that harsh stout finish, Healey has incorporated just enough oats to smooth the finish so much that all I could do was sigh. There is a candied fruit note that ties together many of his lighter beers and it makes Coop not just a label but a distinct flavor, a sort of Oklahoma microbrewery terroir.

I'll let everyone know as soon as these beers are available. I know of a half dozen restaurants that are already reserving taps for Coop. It's a good choice, and I am, for now at least, proud of my city.

Congressional Faith

Meant to post this a while back but got busy with the refundabaptinaz tool Tim. It's an overview of the Pew Forum's report on the faith of members of Congress. It's FYI stuff, but there is some interesting info in the piece. Haven't made any extrapolations yet, but I shall.

One more name and I'm getting a damned superhero costume. I swear to Shiva, I am.

Tim Wirth, the laugh a minute host of concernednazarenes.org and nazarenepsalm113.wordpress.com and nogoofyzone.wordpress.com, or as I like to call him "the man who hates short urls," has referenced me on his blog again. Praise Ahura Mazda. In an entry titled "The Nature of Wolves" he once again excoriates me for being a bad non-Christian. And again, he goes after Jon and unfortunately Jon's dad, who is a General Superintendent of the Nazarene Church. In Tim's defense, I will say it probably would have been better for Jon's dad to leave it alone. Alas...his only function isn't father; it's also GS. So what a choice to have to make...

I wasn't sure about this guy before I read a few of his entries, but now I'm convinced that he is one of the...and this is not a kind word and you know I use it sparingly...stupidest humans I've ever encountered. At first I thought he was just ignorant, a condition that can be rectified, but it's not so. The processing power simply isn't there. This he counts as a spiritual virtue of course, since only God can ordain and qualify a person to speak the Word with power. You've heard the sermon a million times: Moses, poor speaker, burning bush, or God has not called the wise but the foolish. It's the sort of stuff placed in the Bible to ensure people like Tim feel as if they have a place on church boards. It also allowed the early Church to defend itself against the withering attacks of Roman and Greek philosophy, not to mention solid Jewish hermeneutics.

Tim is by any reckoning a fundamentalist, but he's the worst kind of fundamentalist. He's the kind who doesn't realize he's part of a denomination that came out of the Wesleyan tradition, not holiness fundamentalism; that part came later when people like Tim started pastoring churches and filling roles as district superintendents, and eventually, yes, even general superintendents. (The Nazarenes have one out of six for sure right now.) The Wesleyan tradition has a great history of education and seminary trained clergy. They have theologians and philosophers to their credit. Now they have Tim. Dear Nazarene Friends, this is not an improvement or sign of health.

Tim's other intellectual sin is not understanding the function of theology in the church. He can be forgiven for never reading Barth, but let me paraphrase. Only God's real words are primary speech. Scripture as such is secondary speech. Theology, it follows, is tertiary, which means much can be said theologically because the goal is to keep minds sharp, questions answered, and better questions coming, not to mention the opportunity afforded to resolve issues that are in the best interest and long term health of the tradition. You'll remember that we used to describe tradition as a long term conversation about the common good of a community. That's not original; I'm pretty sure it was George Lindbeck. However, much of Scripture is then up for discussion because it is secondary speech. Only the most absurd literalists believe they are God's words transcribed as sHe uttered them. We call them the plenary verbal inspiration camp. And Tim is squarely in that camp which, as a dozen Nazarenes have explained to him now, puts him in conflict with the denominational handbook and outside the tradition. At this point it would be better for everyone if Tim would just go away, but armed with the conviction that he, like Ingrid Schlueter and a cloud of idiots...er...witnesses, is purifying the church and true doctrine, he will see rebukes as a test of his faith and faithfulness. The insular and circular nature of his thinking leads me to believe he is marginally psychotic and certainly a borderline personality. Alas, I no longer have any role in the Nazarene Church, so I leave Tim to you my friends.

I did post a comment on his blog, and in case he doesn't allow it through the moderating process, I've posted it below.

"owooooo! i will be linking to this immediately! Awesome. I’d like to be referred to as “Your Lupine Majesty” from now on though. Also, thanks for the other tee shirt idea you gave me: Misguided Defender of the Unholy. I’ve had several requests for that shirt. On a more serious note, did you really say “check your walk?” God in heaven, it’s like youth group hell around here.

A Letter to Some Fundamentalists on Inauguration Day

Dear "Friends" on Facebook Who Friended Me Because You Used to Know Me and are now Fretting over My Salvation and Calling Me Liberal:

I do not worship Barack Obama, nor do I believe in an American Utopia. I am not infatuated with the man, at least not as much as you were with the insidiously and stupidly evil 43rd president. I have no intention of excusing his mistakes and lies, as you did when Bush condoned torture and manufactured justification for a relentlessly evil and stupid war—this from the man who said his favorite philosopher was Jesus Christ. I do not naively believe that he is our salvation, but neither do I believe my salvation comes from a crucified Jewish rabbi. Salvation is a word best left undefined because in the defining of it, I lose friends. The president is not the leader of the country in the way that a general is a leader of a military unit, nor in the way a coach leads a team, nor even in the way a warden runs a prison; ideally, he (or by the grace of Buddha one day, she) is first among equals. The security of our freedoms does not rely on his unilateral goodwill. The prosperity of our nation does not depend on executive orders; however, our moral standing in the world and possibly the health of our environment does depend on the rescindment of executive orders from the previous "regime." These executive orders were signed by the man you agreed was one of you in the same way that Mother Teresa and Billy Graham, and yes, even Rick Warren are one of you. You who claim to believe in original sin and the necessity of accountability stood by cheering while the man assumed to himself more power than the Constitution you claim to take seriously allows. As with your Biblical hermeneutics, you are only constitutional literalists when your power base and cherished prejudices are dependent upon it.

Friends, I do not believe that all people can be friends; Aristotle's warning is probably accurate. However, I believe that the world is better envisioned as a place where people of goodwill can be friends, irrespective of their political affiliations, (ir)religious convictions, race, background, beauty or wealth. The books in your canon speak poetically and inspirationally of a utopia where lambs and lions are at peace, where vipers and children have no enmity, and where every person, from youngest to oldest, will practice goodness because it is written on their hearts. You lack the courage to believe your own books. You lack the conviction to believe in your own salvation. What if mine doesn't come from God but from the steadfast belief that we can be good because we can love? Is that a point worth separating over?

I expect things to go well and badly for President Obama. I expect to be angry with him, to be disappointed in him, to wish he had done some things differently. My primary request of him is that he be open and honest, unlike his predecessor. Much can be forgiven if honesty is the governing virtue.

Breaking in at "Esquire"

There are a few holy grails for writers: Playboy, New Yorker, Esquire, Atlantic, Rolling Stone, and a few others. Markets that pay high four and even five figures for work are rare. This week we learned that a friend has partially conquered one of those holy grail markets: Esquire. She will tell you it's no big deal. She will point out that her name does not appear in print. She will point out many insignificant details. What matters is that my fuckin' friend Leanne Cheek has her words in Esquire fuckin' magazine.

Yes, it's the "context-free highlight from a letter we won't be running" section, but it stands out from the rest of the "this way in" section of the magazine because it is set off in a pea-green square. People notice pea green.  Many in our circle of friends are dedicated Esquire readers; this is mainly because we love Tom Junod, Chuck Klosterman, and Stephen Marche, not because we have absurd amounts of money to spend on clothes that make us look like short, far less cool Benicio del Toros.

So Leanne loves Chuck Klosterman too. So much so that she writes a letter to Esquire about how she'd love to "mind-fuck" Chuck. She's happily married to John (although she is not his chattel), so the other kinds of effing are off limits. Some brilliant editor at Esquire pulled this context-free highlight from Leanne's letter: "Sweaty, orgasmic, magical Ping-Pong." I know, brilliant, isn't it? They should pay her for that shit. Leanne, we are very proud of you, and if Chuck shows up, John outght to let you get at least one romp. Perhaps with the condition that he get one with Anna Friel?

The American Anomaly

As we prepare for the inauguration and all the bitching that will ensue from the right and left after Robinson and Warren pray, it's good to remind ourselves that it is possible to live non-religiously in the world. The latest issue of  free inquiry has an article by Gregory S. Paul (unfortunately not available online) titled "The Really Big Religion Questions Finally Solved." Paul is attempting to solve the "American anomaly." The American anomaly is the persistence of religious belief in the United States to a far greater degree than in other western-style democracies.

Paul first takes issue with the "competition" theory of religion's staying power in the U.S.—the idea that churches forced to compete in a free market engaged in a "Darwinian competition with one another" in order to retain parishioners. Paul dispenses with it quickly by pointing out a coding error in the original research. Suffice it to say that even without the coding error, I'm inclined to disbelieve it.

I should point out that Paul is concerned with external causes of the anomaly, not internal ones. He readily admits that no one can explain why someone persists in belief; only that person can explain it, and their narrative is usually very untrustworthy—boiled down to its essence it's usually some form of "because I want to."

Paul identifies three factors that have reduced the practice of religious belief in most democracies around the world: 1. Modern science, evolution, and education; 2. Economic and societal security; and, 3. Corporate-consumer popular culture. These three factors combine to form a "triple threat" to the survival of theism. Paul's charts, graphs, anecdotes, etc., are compelling. One of the more interesting conclusions he draws is that the U.S. continues to have the highest income disparity among western-style democracies, and as such, the economic injustice combined with the absence of the critical safety net of government health care militates against factor number 2 in the U.S. Families are often one check away from economic disaster.

Here is Paul's concise observation: "For the majority, religiosity appears to be a superficial, fear-driven psychological means of alleviating chronic stress and anxiety created by an insecure societal environment. It is readily and normally cast off when socioeconomic conditions are sufficiently benign...It follows that most who claim to serve God actually want God to serve them, a truth they and their leaders are loath to admit for fear of exposing mass faith for what it really is."

The article is worth reading in its entirety, as the graphs provided by Paul do much to reveal the United States' odd place in the world. I expect that many Christians will find much to disagree with, especially because of the persistence and non-reflective nature of internal faith, but Paul's research and conclusions certainly deserve their attention, and possibly a response.

Intertextuality

I've been puzzling over Tim's responses, as well as some of Dallas Tim's old responses (although he was always a hell of a lot kinder than Ohio Tim has proven to be), in light of the last thread. A professor friend was bored at an appointment yesterday and sent a text asking what a few of us were thinking right at that moment. We had to respond in thirty words or less. Since I was still thinking about the previous thread, I organized my thoughts like this.

Tim is a fundamentalist. So it follows that Tim is a literalist. Tim shows no capacity to think other than literally, except when his cognitive structure is challenged, and then he thinks literally but in ways that do violence to the texts he claims to follow. He sees no correlation between life as text and Bible as text; only one is a text and that text is to be applied to life. Life, not being a text, requires conformity to the real text not a laying side by side of two texts and trying to extract meaning according to certain filters. In other words, the Bible is the only text. It is in that sense the metatext; all other texts (books, writings, films) are either in agreement with the metatext or are simply wrong. My life is not a text, which is to say that it cannot have truths that are in conflict with the metatext, so my call is to conform my life to the metatext either literally or to convince myself that I have conformed by reading the metatext in ways that justify my beliefs and behavior. This process eliminates all grammatical and metaphorical nuance, unless of course I need the nuance to justify my violent read on the text, but then the nuance is subsumed in a faux literalist read.

This led me to the following statement, which seemed a bit tautological after I wrote it, but it really was a bit of an epiphany for me. Of course literalists have no grasp of intertextuality or intertextual irony—that's what makes them literalists. Is anyone following this?

I think the book is better...

Let me do a little lateral writing today. These two things will mesh eventually, I promise.

I started teaching a World Mythology intersession class on Monday. The class was so full I had to sign overrides for a half dozen students. By the next morning, I lost seven students. Seven. Two Muslims. One Baptist. One evangelical. Three of unknown faiths, but they probably dropped for different reasons. As is typical, six of the seven went quietly. The Baptist called the school to complain that I had mocked Christianity, singled out Christianity for mocking, and had called Christianity a bunch of lies. She also complained that I had referenced Nickleback's song "Something in Your Mouth." I am guilty on the last complaint, but I only did that because a student told me she loved Nickleback and mentioned that song. You just have to make fun of those students. It's a moral imperative.

I know why the Muslim students dropped. We begin the class with Genesis 1-3, and the way I talk about it, including God as a "character" in the story, troubles Muslims deeply. I get it. It may also have something to do with the brilliant, outspoken Jewish student in class. Who knows.

As for the first three complaints against me, they are largely untrue. I mock all faiths and no faiths. But not as a system of belief. I tend to mock the people within a system who are unaware of what they are supposed to believe or are unable to understand the implications of what they believe. I also mock people of faith who mock the myths we read because the stories are so absurd. The refrain I use to do this is, "But you believe in a talking snake." Most people get it. The more you're around your story, the less absurd it sounds. The goal of a mythology class is to find the commonalities between people groups, and the commonalities are there irrespective of the content of the stories. Fundamentalists and literalists cannot survive this sort of climate. It requires too much flexibility of the mind, a well-honed sense of humor, an appreciation of irony, and a healthy dose of humility.

I talked to friend Jon yesterday. The witch hunt from the dark, ignorant corner of the Nazarene Church continues. Tim Wirth, who has now made me a tag on one of his three web sites, is still promising an upcoming DVD "exposing the Emergent Church." Apparently Tim is unaware of D.A. Carson's shitty book that does the same thing, probably a little more effectively if Tim's use of grammar and spelling are any indication of the quality of the upcoming release. As part of his expose, Tim will name names. I'm assuming friend Jon and other Nazarene friends will be named. And because Tim can't find his asshole with two hands and a flashlight where theology is concerned, the accusations will be based on out of context remarks, a poor understanding of Biblical interpretation, and a gross ignorance of the Wesleyan tradition. (Tim has yet to figure out that he is a fundamentalist, literalist, four-point Calvinist. He actually defends the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy even though the handbook of the Church of the Nazarene does not use that statement.) In his magnanimity, and because he recognizes the world won't give a shit otherwise, Tim is making his DVD available free. I can't wait to get a copy.

Here's what I think—about Tim and the literalists who drop mythology classes. They will say it's because of the truth. They are defending it, standing up for it, championing it, something. Or they will say they feel mocked, made fun of, singled out, even in a class where everything is singled out. Really though, it's an issue of power, especially for Tim. Tim wants the Church to think like he thinks. He's uncomfortable with a community that challenges his overwhelming ignorance. He prefers to remain ignorant while pointing to anti-intellectual verses in the Bible. No one glories in stupidity like a fundy. Friend Jon believes, to his credit, that it's about the identity of Jesus Christ. It's not. Not unles you're a liberal Mennonite. It's about power. Those who control doctrine control the Church. Anyone who challenges doctrine challenges the power base. (It's no coincidence that virtually every denomination arose from a doctrinal conflict leading to schism.) Love him or hate him, Derrida was right about this. The Church strings together words to maintain a power base. They can't begin to tell you what half the words mean, especially the Tims of the Church, but they insist you agree that whatever assertions they make are truth. I've never met worse theologians than men in the pulpit, except for the guys, like Tim, who sit in the pew and read their Bibles selectively.

For those who call the school to complain about anti-Christian bias, they actually believe that in a class that is concerned with religion and mythology, their particular faith should get a pass. Why? Because their faith is true; others are false. Their doctrines are right. Their god is the correct one. Their stories aren't insane. Did Muhammad fly to Heaven on a horse? I just don't care. But we're going to talk about it if it comes up. Did Cain and Abel procreate with their sisters? Again, don't give a shit, but it's fair game in a class where Christians will happily make fun of Native American spirituality or Hinduism. I'm encouraged that 26 students stayed in class, many of them people of faith. That tells me that fundamentalists really are the minority.

I am hopeful that it will always be that way, but I'm afraid for my friends in evangelical churches. With rare exceptions there is no such thing as an evangelical interpretation of the Bible anymore. Fundamentalism is winning in evangelical churches. It will continue to win because its practitioners are willing to play power games whereas redemptive evangelicals are content to redeem the world without regard to the doctrine of those helping out. So, to my friends who are in or who are considering full time ministry, I wish you well. You will find yourselves less and less welcome. The Church is ever more afraid of a world that has marginalized it to the point of scorn, and instead of asking "what is wrong with us?" they have chosen to demonize the wide world. When you try to make sound arguments, they will accuse you of being too intellectual or, worse, of being a heretic. When you try to reach out to the heretics, they will accuse you of compromise. When you insist that things are complicated, they will offer you dualities you simply can't swallow. Enjoy.

So Much for the Peaceful Part...

CJR has a report on Al Jazeera's coverage of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, and yes, I called it an invasion. The line that struck me most was this: "These are images seen by few in the West, as there are few foreign journalists inside Gaza." I'm not sure it would matter if there were foreign journalists in Gaza; these images aren't making American television, and not because I believe in the Jewish conspiracy theory about media. (However, along those lines, this is worth reading; it stirred up no little controversy at the end of last year.) We're not going to see those images because we don't want to see those images. The mainstream media has been complicit in our mass denial for decades now: the world is a simple duality between good and evil, problems have easy solutions, we're the good guys, and don't show us images that complicate that formula.