the parish

Benedict on Conclusive and Confirmed, Sort of.

Pew Forum ran this piece about scientific tests performed on the bones from the remains housed under the Basilica of St. Paul.  Church tradition has long held that these are the actual remains of the Apostle Paul. According to the piece Pope Benedict said the tests, which dated the bones to the first or second century c.e., "seem to conclude" that they are the bones of Paul. In a longer quote, Benedict says, "This seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul."

Here finally is the reason I can never be Catholic. A series of tests conducted on bones believed by the Church to be the bones of Paul dates those bones to the first or second century, and that is conclusive when combined with the testimony of Church tradition that these are in fact Paul's remains? Because the Church has never lied about remains or relics. Because the Church has never constructed fake histories. Because dating a set of anonymous remains to within one hundred years of the historic figure is the same as confirming the story? I know the Roman Church has never been all that rational, at least since Aquinas (and even his rationalism was predicated on the assumption that God exists), but this seems to be a pretty low standard of proof. The larger question, I guess, is: proving they are Paul's bones proves what?

Get Religion Didn't Get It This Time

I've been a regular reader of GetReligion.org for a long time. Without checking, I'll assume their link is still somewhere on the bottom left of this page. I originally went over there because Terry Mattingly, one of the more interesting, conservative voices in religious journalism, was critiquing how the press covers religion news, the reporting of which has been my part-time vocation for some time now. Mattingly is Antiochian Orthodox and a damn fine journalist. I read his column "On Religion" for many years. He assembled a pretty good media critique group at Get Religion, including Mollie Ziegler, one of my favorites over there. Lately, the whole crew seems to have lurched toward more traditional/orthodox/conservative lenses when critiquing the news (and I have no idea which word to use because they are all so vague). It's possible that I've lurched farther left, and they've stayed planted, like a tree by the water...sorry. This isn't about the conservatism though; rather, it's about Mollie's last column.

I'm sure no one who pays attention has missed the Sanford debacle. And I'm equally sure that almost no one is surprised. I've yet to put together how the local news in SC knew about the year-long affair earlier than the rest of us, but that may be a matter of me not paying attention or them waiting to get their sources and facts in order. Mollie, articulating one of the reasons I have a journalism crush on her, writes that she loves a good scandal, especially a sex scandal. And who doesn't? As an independent, I get to wallow in schadenfreude no matter the party, but I confess to giggling with slightly more impish glee when it's a Christian, Republican, Promise Keeper, Conservative, etc. Sanford fits almost every category. I mean every category, including demagogue—famously refusing stimulus package funds while his state gets the shit kicked out of it. Meanwhile, he can apparently afford to carry on an affair in Argentina. Ah...Christianity as political language game and politics as Christian form of life. Delightful. Oh that Wittgenstein were alive to see this.

Back to Mollie. After her admission, she goes on to write:

And yet what struck me about the media coverage was how it seemed to miss what I found most interesting about the press conference. Sanford will get what he deserves, I’m sure, but have you ever seen such a display of real flesh and blood and torment? Usually when politicians confess to cheating on their wives, they remind me most of robots. I’m still not convinced that John Edwards, Larry Craig, Elliot Spitzer and Jim McGreevey are actual humans. All the emotion seems manufactured. If the speeches aren’t scripted by a high-priced damage control firm, I’d be shocked. But this? This was real. It was downright uncomfortable to watch someone be so honest about their horrendous moral failings. He was visibly shaken by the damage he’d caused his family.

Yes, I've seen it before. Jimmy Swaggart crying while confessing, "I have sinned..." while his poor wife and kids watched him ham it up for Jesus. Jim Bakker. Ted Haggard. (By the way, avoid Christian leaders with a double, repeating consonant in their last name.) There are others I'm sure. Agreed, these men weren't politicians, although I'm pretty sure Haggard fancied himself as someone who was important in politics. The point is that there is no reason to talk about a conservative Christian showing emotion at a press conference, even when that man is a politician. I'm not sure who takes claims of faith and fallenness seriously anymore. Christians have insisted for so long that it's a matter of accepting Jesus into your heart or believing the right doctrine that people finally believe them and expect them to be utter hypocrites. Had they been insisting all along that it was a matter of living like you believed in the resurrection or that death didn't matter or that a transformed life was the evidence of faith, then his press conference would have been riveting. As it is, it was just pathetic. The banal stories, the oblique justifications, the "I'm a bottom line guy" shit when it took him nearly ten minutes to get to the bottom line. All of it was tired theater. Like a movie with a canned plot that looks so familiar: remove actor, replace with younger actor, update set and fashions, voila.

What would have been fascinating would have been for a reporter to say, "Enough of the God's law nonsense. You broke a promise to your wife. We needn't introduce your absentee God, nor his tawdry preoccupation with sex, nor explanations of sin and grace or human frailty for you to say very simply that you fucked up." It is time for reporters to stop acting like Christianity has anything to do with Christian politicians who adopt the culture and values of White Dixie Fundamentalists and can't list the ten commandments, no matter how many granite monuments they approve. I may be cynical, but this has nothing to do with religion, except as a cautionary tale for those who actually do use some god's name in vain.

Racing for the Lost

Dear Northview Community Church (of the Nazarene):

Thank you so much for having the race cars in front of your church on Sunday. My son, Joe Dirt, Jr., and I were driving by on our way to get chicken fried steak and eggs for our normal shabbos fast breaking when we saw the Avalance Racing truck in your church parking lot. Junior said, "Daddy, is that NASCAR?" I said, "Shit no, son. That's not even Busch Series." Then we saw the cars! Beautiful race cars. Four of 'em. I did a U-turn in the middle of Northwest Expressway--drove over the median--I hope God forgives me for not obeying the law of the land. But the race cars!

I wish you coulda seen Little Joe's face. The light of the lord, or Dale Earnhardt (tell me it's a coincidence his number was 3, just like the Trinity, and I'll call you a damned liar), was in his face. We were a little nervous walking in to your service, and I'm really sorry we were 20 minutes late, but I couldn't get Junior away from the beautiful race cars. (Good thing they ain't got titties or I'da never got him inside. Me either, if I was to be honest...)

Anyway, we were saved this morning thanks to your race cars and Pastor Tony's admittedly disjointed and rambling message. I still don't know what race cars have to do with Christianity, but if they're allowed, I'll feel closer to Jesus. So will Junior. If other churches cared as much for the lost as y'all did, they'd have race cars out front too. Or Hooters girls. Maybe some Bassmaster guys. That would kick ass, just like my old Trans Am. Man, she was beautiful: black with t-tops and a gold bird. I used to crank Molly Hatchet and smoke weed til I...Oh, sorry, Jesus.

If I might offer a word of advice in addition to my thanks, I'd recommend that next time you give Hot Wheels replicas for each person that accepts Jesus as their lord and savior. That would kick ass!

Thanks, Northview
Joe Dirt, Sr.

After reading that beautiful letter, I visited the church website and found this promo paragraph:

Fathers won't want to miss Dadpalooza on June 21st at Northview. Muscle cars and motorcycles and breakfast just for the men provided by our youth department. Don't miss it!

Alas, I missed it.

Solid Analysis on Twitter: Finally

I was a little weary of the media hype about twitter. I was trying to listen to Mike & Mike on ESPN radio this morning (the oily Eric Kuselias was sitting in for Greenberg unfortunately--the man is almost as annoying and arrogant as Colin Cowherd), and Golic was tweeting back and forth with Chad Ochocinco Johnson. No. I'm not making this up. They were reading tweets on the air. Note to ESPN: sports radio is a difficult medium in which to deliver a good product; it's only made more difficult when reading tweets from the completely inarticulate Ochocinco. Yesterday someone was saying on another XM station that Lindsay Lohan tweeted her boobs. I'm being followed on twitter by life coaches and motivational speakers I've never heard of, and even if I have heard of them, who the hell pays a life coach? Talk to your mom or your friend or the guy that hates you the most. Their input will be useful. Companies are trying to spam me on twitter. Celebrities and pseudo-celebrities want me to the follow them. I don't care. I have a network of friends on there, and I follow some journalists and editors I think are worthwhile. I also follow good wine bars here in town as well as good restaurants. I've asked for contacts for stories on twitter and received excellent sources. I like the medium. It's young. It has issues. It can be better. But I like it.

Until this outstanding article from American Journalism Review, I had only read good analysis of twitter that focused on technology or business model. This focuses on demographics, journalism, and ethics. It's solid analysis. It's one of the reasons I subscribe to AJR and CJR. I read enough hyped up bullshit about whatever the next thing is. Twitter may be one of the next things, but you may be surprised what AJR thinks it's going to be useful for and who the primary users will be.

Painter of Light, Indeed

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds $2.1 million judgment against Kinkade's company for fraudulent business practices.

Reason, Faith, and Revolution. Grrr...

I am growing increasingly frustrated with Eagleton's book Reason, Faith, and Revolution. I said in the last post about it that his argument suffers a fatal flaw in the first few pages. I'm reconsidering that as his goal was far less grand than I expected. The flaw is not fatal, only annoying since the most Eagleton argues for in Part I, The Scum of the Earth, is that the Christian narrative he relates is not stupid. Since it's a mixture of good Anabaptist theology, good Yale post-liberalism, and bad liberal Christianity, it is mostly not stupid. He wants to make the point that Dawkins and Hitchens overstate the stupidity of Christianity (theist faith, really) in their anti-religious tomes The God Delusion and God is not Great.

Here's the money quote from page 6:

Dawkins makes an error of genre, or category mistake, about the kind of thing Christian belief is. He imagines that it is either some kind of pseudo-science, or that, if it is not that, then it conveniently dispenses itself from the need for evidence altogether. He also has an old-fashioned scientistic notion of what constitutes evidence. Life for Dawkins would seem to divide neatly down the middle between things you can prove beyond all doubt, and blind faith. He fails to see that all the most interesting stuff goes on in neither of these places.

So, after misunderstanding what Dawkins is saying, Eagleton then proceeds to offer theological assertions without evidence to show that his version of Christianity may not be provable, but it is not stupid. Bravo! Except that less than one percent of Christians believe anything like Eagleton articulates. Christianity is largely practiced by evangelicals and fundamentalists. Mainstream Christians are next, and finally liberals, and under them the Anabaptists who are a blip on the theological landscape. People as diverse as John Howard Yoder and Brian McLaren would have very little to critique about Eagleton's grand narrative, but how many Christians wouldn't find Yoder to be a raving heretic and how many already do believe McLaren is one?

To say that something isn't stupid does nothing to address the critiques of Dawkins, Hitchens, et al. (Many statements aren't stupid and aren't provable, but who bets their life on them?) Their critique, and it still stands, is that if a faith group is going to make outlandish claims about who God is, what God expects, how governments should be constructed based on God's will, punishment for sin, what constitutes sin, where we go when we die, who is in and who is out, the roles of women and men, etc., then those faith groups ought to play by the same rules of evidence as people in the scientific fields who make claims about how the world works. Note that Eagleton uses the pejorative scientistic to make Dawkins's methodology look religious or ideological, not scientific. If a scientist says something about physics or chemistry, she is expected to provide testing data, evidence, lab notes, etc., and be able to recreate the experiment when asked to do so.

When a theologian makes a claim about what God has said, that claim requires little more than an appeal to a sacred text combined with the exercise of insular logic from within a closed system. How exactly does one meaningfully appeal the ruling of a theologian? With a prooftext? A different theological system? An appeal to a broader understanding of reason? By finding a new church? Given that none of the first principles of theology are demonstrable, Hitchens and Dawkins are right that these people ought not be allowed to dictate what is moral from a position of epistemological certainty, a position the evangelical and fundamentalist churches believe is theirs by inheritance of a faith tradition "once for all delivered."

Next time, Eagleton's bizarrely misstated claim that atheists don't know theology.

The Reddest Place on Earth

I suppose there is some irony and a bizarre coincidence in Oklahoma being the reddest state. We grew up hearing that the state's name is derived from two Choctaw words meaning red and person. Also, we're the home of Woody Guthrie, and at one time had the largest agrarian socialist movement in the U.S. Over the next couple months I'm working on a series of stories about what the Oklahoma legislature has been up to since Obama's election. I won't be able to comment extensively until the stories are done, but I wanted to post a few articles here in the interim, in addition to the usual rants, to give you outsiders an idea of what is happening in the areas of abortion rights, stem cell research, immigration, and establishment clause issues in this reddest of the red states. Let's start with Slate on Oklahoma's new ultrasound law.

Because the original didn't suck hard enough?

One surefire way to make things worse: add a religious element. Thanks, Jared.

Dear Thomas Nelson, must you be such money-grubbing whores?

I have much to say about this but I'm pretty sure I've said it all before.