the parish

Baptist Sex, or How to Resurrect Political Irrelevance

Richard Land, president of the (it turns out) ironically named Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, has released an open letter to Newt Gingrich. Land is concerned that Gingrich is not polling well among evangelicals. I assume he really means Southern Baptists with whom he comes in contact, but he says evangelicals. Fair enough. He tells the former Speaker that based upon the informal polls Land takes as he travels the country, Newt polls well with evangelical men and terribly with evangelical women. What's the solution?

Land wants Newt to pick a "pro-family venue" (maybe a Southern Baptist affiliated university?) and address his marital history. See, evangelical women aren't supporting Newt because he divorced his bed-ridden first wife to marry a mistress, whom he subsequently divorced to marry his second mistress (but we don't really have the enumeration down with any degree of certainty). Land wants Newt to totally come clean. Evangelical women, Land says using his mother as an example, are reticent to vote for a cheater unless the cheater comes clean. (I'm doing my best to play it straight at this point, folks.) He concludes with this exhortation.

Such a speech would not convince everyone to vote for you, but it might surprise you how many Evangelicals, immersed in a spiritual tradition of confession, redemption, forgiveness and second and third chances, might.

You're probably wondering why I'm even posting this. It's just Land being Land, after all. Nothing to see here, folks. Right? When evangelicals, especially of the conservative variety, wonder why I don't take them seriously when it comes to ethical talk, this will be one of the examples that I use. There are (at least) three points at which Land's thinking and writing border on idiotic.

1. A pro-family venue? Why would that make the slightest difference? More pro-family mojo there? Who gives two shits what venue he chooses? This just seems to be Land shilling for an appearance at a major Baptist institution.
2. All Newt has to do is give a "speech" about his past infidelities and Baptists will rush to forgive him. What the fuck? No repentance. No reformed life. No demonstration of character. Nope. Just say the right words and it's all forgiven. After all, we have to get that Kenyan, socialist, Muslim interloper out of the White House, and right now, our great white hope is a boring Mormon, so pretty much say the sinner's prayer, Mister Speaker, and we'll vote for you. Hell, we'd vote for Klansman at this point. They're a Christian group, right? Words are magic, right, Mr. Land? They make the old new. They bring about a new creation. They convert a career politician with hands so dirty I can't believe anyone is taking him seriously into a serious contender for the Republican party's nomination. And this is the party of principles? That you participate in the destruction of the meaning of important words is disturbing, Mr. Land. What's that Bible verse? Oh yeah, "Woe to them who call evil good."
3. That Land fails even to mention the "professional historian's" work for Freddie Mac is an egregious oversight for the president of an ethical advising organization. The inference here is that Newt can take $1.6 million from a mortgage company while the mortgage industry melts down, he can lie about his affiliation with a straight face, and then he can treat us all like idiots by insisting they hired him for his history expertise, but he can't fuck the wrong person. Un-fucking-believable. Mr. Land, might I suggest you actually find a coherent system of ethics at some point in your tenure as the president of the SBC's ethical body? I'd also appreciate it if you'd ensure it's not based on political expediency, and if it's not too much to ask, maybe work a little Jesus talk in there.

 

Why God is Part of the 99 Percent, or Thoughts on Christian (Non)Activism

Occupy Wall Street is not the Civil Rights Movement. I'll go ahead and say it so the conservatives who wander by won't freak out and miss the entire point. Arguing by analogy is always difficult because analogies are difficult. One only need rememeber the ridiculous analogies offered by conservatives during the non-Ground Zero mosque fiasco. Best example was probably Gingrich: "Nazis don’t have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington." One of the dumbest things ever to leave the lips of Freddie Mac's Professional Historian...

So, this is an analgous argument. OWS is like the Civil Rights Movement in a couple areas. Two of those are in the reactions to OWS, both by middle of the road evangelicals and fundamentalists, as well as by the police forces nationwide. When the Tea Party movement rose to prominence, protestors showed up with guns strapped to their hips or toting rifles, all in support of a nebulous threat to 2nd Amendment Rights. In spite of the threats of violence—yes, a visible gun at a protest counts as a threat, and if you don't think so, ask why an invisible gun at a bank robbery counts as armed robbery...—the police forces never reacted with violence against the protestors. No one was thrown to the ground and forcibly disarmed. No one was pepper sprayed.

The reaction of the police to OWS, including the possibility of collusion between Homeland Security and mayors nationwide (that should worry you, folks), has been appalling. The coordinated efforts of police forces on separate coasts marks the response as manipulated at a level above local, which is not to say Wall Street Bankers were manipulating, only the politicians who work for them. Some of my Christian friends have been horrified by the images of seated protestors being pepper sprayed, women being dragged by their hair, and unarmed protestors beaten with batons. Many unfortunately have not. It is indefensible for people who worship a messiah who innocently suffered violence to support police efforts to batter and pepper spray peaceful protestors into compliance with a status quo that supports no one but people with more money than they will ever need, more than their grandchildren will ever need.

Dr. King was compelled to write his Letter from Birmingham Jail because white clergy had taken out an ad in The Christian Century calling his protests "untimely." The clergy asked why King and the SCLC did not give the new city administration time to act. King famously wrote: 

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."

King also reminds his readers—pay attention, theology nerds!—that Reinhold Niebuhr cautions us that groups are always more immoral than individuals. Niebuhr was a Christian realist in terms of his political philosophy, especially with his understanding that the inclination of groups in power toward injustice creates the necessity for a realistic response in terms of government and Church action. It's possible for one among the bankers to have a conscience, and to his credit, Peter Schiff spent time talking to the protestors. I can't say as he did that the anger is better directed at Congress, lobbyists, and the sort of cronyism that infects Washington. I think the anger is deserved for Wall Street and Washington. However, he does make a good point that capitalism does offer more hope and opportunity for those who will pursue their goals. As someone who writes and teaches for a living, I'm pretty happy with the opportunities provided by "the market," but unlike Schiff, I have no messianic hopes in "the market." Also, Schiff is one voice in an otherwise immoral group. This group will not surrender power. Only the unwise ignores Noam Chomsky when he warns us of the media's ability to distract, and the media outlets are owned by the corporations that are targeted in the protests. If that sounds like conspiracy theory, just be patient.

Liberal churches and the occasional evangelical church supported the CRM, but the American church had two far more frequent responses: support of the status quo or, especially in the South, outright hostility to the movement. The Church tends to be behind when it comes to issues of systemic justice, and to be fair, some of the liberal churches would do well not to run so far ahead of the others until proper theological debate has taken place. It's possible to err on both sides of justice issues. My concern here isn't to say that Christians should uncritically support OWS. However, the misinformation spread by media outlets and the repetition of straw man arguments by opponents of the movement make it necessary to ask one thing in particular.

How can you oppose a movement you know so little about? Is it not possible they are right about some things? Is it possible that a system that rewards the super rich and makes life difficult on the poor is not a just system? Is it possible that crony capitalism favors the super rich in government? Is it possible your vote isn't worth as much as the millions of dollars funneled into campaigns by corporations? Is it possible that SCOTUS fucked us all utterly in the Citizens United decision? And if you don't know what that is, shame on you for being opposed to a movement that does understand the implications of that decision.

Being a person of faith at least requires a commitment to economic justice. That's not the easiest term to parse, but a bare effort would be appreciated. Surely you didn't miss every verse in the Tanakh about oppressing the poor and favoring the rich. Surely you've read James. Civil religion creeps quietly into the grammar and vocabulary of a church, and it redefines theological concepts along nationalistic and economic lines. Once the switch in vocabulary is complete, the grammar absorbs the practice and makes support of the status quo normative for the pursuit of faith. This is surely not what Jesus had in mind when he was crucified by the one percent. The Jesus of justice is rendered impotent by a Church that would offer him as a messiah who resists revolutionaries on the principle that people should just get a job and be quiet. No one gets crucified by keeping the rich rich or defending the status quo. That person becomes a bishop or a megachurch pastor.

God is in favor of OWS, not because God gives two shits about us (and I mean the concept God here, clearly), but because if there is a concept called God, she surely favors those who don't accept the status quo when it's skewed against the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed. James Cone rightly said African-Americans are right to kill a god who is on the side of the oppressor. Dr. King preferred to believe in a God of justice, and he was executed. Of course he was. Revolutionaries go to the cross; defenders of the status quo go to work.

And for you white folk, here's a familiar voice:

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Men in Miniskirts, or Why Pastors Ought at Least to be Smart

Oklahoma City received national attention via huffpost recently because of the City Council's vote to include sexual orientation as a category in the city's nondiscrimination policy. Clifton Adcock penned a local version for the Gazette, which, happily, contains photos of this post's cast of characters. This fight has been going on for quite some time, with Ed Shadid, one of the new councilmen, finally authoring a proposal that passed 7-2. The chambers filled up that night, mainly with area churchpeople, members of the LGBT community, and the usual suspects: ACLU, Cimarron Alliance, etc. 

Representing the Lord Jesus Christ (much to His embarrassment) were two of the city's most outspoken pastors: Paul Blair and Tom Vineyard. First Blair (photos by Mark Hancock for the Oklahoma Gazette):

Blair is on the far left of the photo. Please note the well-coiffed young men arrayed to his left. That they are standing and applauding means Pastor Vineyard or Councilman Kelly (one of the nay votes) had just said something spiritual or inspiring or ridiculous. I'll let you judge very soon. Blair played football at Oklahoma State and then for the Chicago Bears. As near as I can tell, it's his single qualification for being in ministry, except the ability to read (if not interpret accurately) the Bible. Too harsh? Listen to Blair's rationale for being opposed to granting LGBT persons employment protections:

"What are you going to do when you pass these kind of policies, and all of a sudden, you’ve got Jim in accounting that decides he wishes to wear a miniskirt to work one day? Well, are you going to discriminate against him and send him home?” he said. “What are you going to do when Officer Jones decides he wishes to take a shower in the women’s locker room because he’s feeling like a woman that day?"

Poor Clifton. The problem with being a journalist is you're not allowed to use "What the fuck are you talking about?" as a follow-up question. Would that it were allowed; the world would be a better place and politicians and pastors might actually think about the bullshit that comes from their mouths. Blair pastors Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, a suburb to the north of Oklahoma City, and he is the national director for Reclaiming America for Christ, the grassroots theocrats inspired by the late, fake Presbyterian D. James Kennedy. 

The man above is not Karl Rove's nephew, but he could totally rock the costume for Halloween. Except Windsor Hills Baptist Church does not observe Halloween. Nope, like a Jack Chick tract come to life, Windsor Hills Baptist Church eschews the devil's holiday, spins conspiracy theories, supports Israel without qualification, and gives away guns at their summer youth camp. It is one of two large Independent Fundamentalist Baptist churches in the Oklahoma City metro area. (The other is Southwest Baptist, and you can find them in Bricktown on a regular basis, black pinafores, white shirts, black slacks, posters about abortion and judgment, shitty music and sidewalk prayer abounding.) Tom Vineyard, Rove's nephew, is the son of founder Jim Vineyard, who is now listed as pastor emeritus. The son took over from his father in 2007, and very little (nothing) has changed.

Not to be outdone in histrionics or ridiculous assertions, Vineyard exceeded Blair in amazing absurdities:

from huffpost: As NewsOK is reporting, Pastor Tom Vineyard of Windsor Hills Baptist Church cited "a New York judge" in saying more than half of murders in large cities are committed by gay people. He went on to note, "Many homosexuals openly admit that they are pedophiles because they cannot actually reproduce. They resort to recruiting children. ... Folks, you're making a decision that will bring down God's judgment on your city if you vote in favor of this." Vineyard is also reported to have received the longest standing ovation of the day after his remarks.

Clifton also reported: "He read a list of statistics about rates of sexually transmitted diseases, intestinal parasites, murder and pedophilia among homosexuals." Intestinal parasites? Oh dear. All gay people are less attractive Dexters with the shits and an unhealthy attraction to children? Shouldn't a fundamental commitment to truth-telling be a qualification for ministry? Silly question, I know, but this is amazing stuff. To lie, obfuscate, bully, and grandstand to get your dubious agenda passed is shameful. Pretty sure demagoguery is too tame a word to describe men who sell out the truth as they pretend to labor for the truth.

The more likely possibility is that these two actually believe much of what they're saying because, well, not to be uncharitable, but because they're not smart enough to know bullshit when they hear it. It's possible that they are so invested in a particular set of "facts" being the case, they are closed to the possibility that the things can't be true. They practice a willful ignorance that allows Jesus to be Lord of a tiny kingdom of douchebags and bigots. Probably not what the revolutionary rabbi had in mind when he went to the cross. One nail for white folks, one nail for the KJV, and one nail for the status quo. Maranatha, Lord Jesus. What's that? You're busy. Fuck. I understand.

The Magician King, or How to be a Hero (Except in Narnia)

In the second book in the Magicians series (?), Lev Grossman takes us on two versions of a hero's journey, the mythological genre that includes Gilgamesh, Jesus, Prometheus, and Osiris. Joseph Campbell called it the monomyth, and it's one of the most frequent themes in mythological literature. The monomyth is divided into stages. Campbell had 17. This interesting one is shortened to 12 to work in a 3-act play format. As with his previous novel, The Magicians, Grossman is not content to work within the rules of the genre. His intent always seems to be to subvert the genre, as he did so effectively in his first novel, a masterful takedown of Narnia and Middle Earth.

In the first novel, Grossman highlights the impossibility of fucked up people not fucking up an "ideal world." In The Magician King he deconstructs the hero's journey, with C.S. Lewis's Voyage of the Dawn Treader as a backdrop. If you aren't familiar with the book, it's the third in Lewis's odious Chronicles of Narnia, a collection of theocratic, racist, sexist fantasy allegories for children. There's a good idea. That might be a bit strong, but as I revisit them more than 25 years after my first read of them, and 15 years since I read them in an undergrad lit class, I'm struck by how simplistic, formulaic, and offensive they really are. When I lived in the evangelical world, the offensive parts were merely the assumptions we lived with, and so not offensive to our sensibilities. 

Voyage was the most adult of the Narnia stories. All one had to do was reflect for a few minutes on The Island Where Dreams Come True to know how horrific, pornographic, hedonistic, and torturous such a place could be. It was truly Lewis channeling his own fascination with BDSM into a book for kids. Of course, he relied on them being afraid of the monster under the bed or the Nazis, not the sadistic monster inside us. The grandest fiction of Voyage was the method by which the Pevensie children and King Caspian came upon the necessary swords. Whichever island they landed on, well, there just happened to be a sword there. The plot hole is filled with a neat etiological tactic: the navigators "miraculously" know which island the seven lords must have visited. Grossman has great fun with this device in The Magician King. Quests are seen as simply questing and expecting to come upon what's necessary to complete the quest.

The primary character development in Voyage is worked on Eustace Clarence Scrubb, a boy so thoroughly annoying that his character flaws can only be explained by his attachment to science and materialism. (Insert sincere theistic tsks tsks here.) If you haven't read the book or seen the movie, here's the spoiler (it came out in 1952, so this hardly qualifies as a spoiler): Eustace is turned into a dragon and then converted and transformed by Aslan to be one of the heros of the book. Oddly enough, the transformation in King is worked on Julia.

Julia is a minor character in the first novel. She fails the exam to get into Brakebills, the magician school, and so becomes a hedge witch. We never know the full extent of her story until this novel, and Grossman is to be praised for the Julia narrative of the second novel. It's brutal, unflinching, and utterly compelling. This is the antihero's journey told in the story. Much of the novel feels fragmented and underdeveloped; it literally could have gone another hundred pages if he'd developed Quentin's or Eliot's storyline more effectively. That's a minor complaint, though. The story is worth the price when we get to Julia and her friends summoning the old gods. There is a spoiler here that I'll avoid. Suffice it to say that Julia endures much, and much darkness and violence, to earn her withcraft bona fides, and Grossman never flinches. The Julia narrative helps keep the novel sufficiently dark, as most of Quentin's story (he's the real hero of both novels) is too light and thin. 

The denouement is where Grossman really deconstructs the hero's journey. In Narnia, the kids needed seven swords. In Fillory, the magical world of Quentin and Eliot, the characters need seven keys. (There's a metaphor hiding there too, but I'll let you read the book.) When their task is complete, the remaining characters receive their reward. The hero's journey in mythology is always about the transformation of an individual to a different kind of person. This is accomplished through facing fears and limitations, overcoming obstacles, and entering (and exiting) the land of the dead. At the end of the journey, there is transformation and reward. Grossman prefers to talk about transformation and cost, though. It's a nice move. The Jesus story, for example, is brutal for a chapter, but the reward is massive. So for the Buddha. Only Prometheus bears the cost for his heroic success: he has his liver eaten by an eagle every day. Quentin becomes Prometheus. Without giving too much away, he takes from the old gods and gives to humanity. His "reward" isn't Promethean, but it's not what he'd hoped. Julia is tranformed too, but she loses her humanity in the process.

Grossman does an excellent job of constantly reminding readers that mythology is, well, mythology. Introduce a human to the narrative, and you get the problems of humanity: weakness, selfishness, greed, etc. Julia behaves like most of us would behave if we desperately wanted something. We'd exchange money, sex, and lies for the promise of something better. We'd literally sell our souls to gain power. We'd compromise our deepest beliefs, and ultimately, become enslaved to a god or goddess and think of it as blessing. Ugh. He also does a great job of lampooning the idea of an ideal world. What do kings and queens do when the earth is at peace? Most of the task of ruling has to do with judging between parties, keeping the peace domestically, fighting off foreign enemies, and producing civil ordinances to make life harmonious. What would we do when all is already done for us? Die of boredom, I suspect. The novel leaves off with a hint of what's to come, and although I first hoped Grossman wouldn't write a sequel to the first, I now look forward to a third, because that would hopefully mean a takedown of the third novel in Tolkien's series: The Return of the King. Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you that Quentin is left...

How to have Sex with Yourself, or Why Mark Driscoll is a Closeted Perv

Second subtitle would have been "Why not to Trust Pastors Who Speculate on what the Bible Means about Things it doesn't Mention." Driscoll got some (un)wanted press recently for his masturbation chapter in the laugh out loud funny Porn-Again Christian. The money shot...er...quote is:

First, masturbation can be a form of homosexuality because it is a sexual act that does not involve a woman. If a man were to masturbate while engaged in other forms of sexual intimacy with his wife then he would not be doing so in a homosexual way. However, any man who does so without his wife in the room is bordering on homosexuality activity, particularly if he's watching himself in a mirror and being turned on by his own male body.

This is only the first disturbing quote among many in this chapter. Here's the thing about qualifiers and examples; they're usually based on experience or common lexicon. If I'm illustrating something in class, I'm likely to draw on Eminem, Jay-Z, Family Guy, South Park, or a recent film. It's shared language and experience. Absent those options, I have to draw on common human experience, like initiating a new relationship before the old one is over, especially in the form of inappropriate texting, conversations at work, or flirtation that goes too far. Most students can identify with something in those examples. Driscoll offers a qualifier that is beyond bizarre, and quite frankly, probably drawn from his own bizarre experience. "...particularly if he's watching himself in a mirror..." Um, you know, in all honesty, most of us have tossed one off or rubbed one out from time to time, but watching in the mirror, well, that's just a special case. It seems Driscoll has reached into his own box of darkness here and found himself guilty of that common human error: everyone beats off like I do. Okay, maybe it's everyone thinks or does like I do, but still, it's hard not to see Driscoll (aka Maximus) in a pleated Roman skirty thing tossing one off in front of a cheval mirror. Helmet? Maybe. Sword? For sure. Ha! That's a Bible double entendre.

As for the assertion that masturbation borders on homosexual behavior, it's just idiocy. Homosexual behavior requires another person of the same sex to be present and participating (even voyeuristically) in the act. All Driscoll offers here is another reason (amongst the vast catalog) for young Christians to feel guilty about masturbating. Even after admitting that the Bible doesn't mention it, he goes on to offer "Practical and Theological Reasons not to Masturbate." Oh, little beater-offer, beware the pastor who uses theological as a euphemism for "it's not in the Bible but here's why God thinks it's important."

Another dead giveaway that Driscoll is both full of shit and a perv? His shitty interpretation of Song of Songs. Driscoll insists that Song of Songs 2:3 permits oral sex. Now, before we proceed, you should know that the Mosaic law expressly prohibits sodomy, and sodomy, dear beater-offers, can be oral or anal. Against all evidence to the contrary and all solid exegetical practices, Driscoll, because he likes blow jobs (and who doesn't?), is going to insist that this verse permits oral sex:

As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

Most Biblical scholars, especially of the Hebrew expert variety, will tell you that euphemisms, idioms, and figures of speech are critically important for understanding a text. The use of a word idiomatically in more than one location is critical to understanding it as an idiom elsewhere. Fruit is nowhere else in the Tanakh used to mean testicles, penis, dick, cock, trombone, skin flute, nuts, jewels, pecker, etc. That Driscoll believes fruit here means dick or balls only means he's relentlessly American and a huge fan of bjs (and who isn't?). If you want to plumb the depths of his weirdness, check out his justification for cunnilingus, and yes, he uses the word in the soon to be banned in 84 countries chapter.

The most egregious example of his hubris, though, is the list of questions and answers in their entirety. Just read through and see how freely he interprets the text while ignoring or fucking the text in the ass (that's bad, by the way). I've seldom seen sexual preferences and peccadillos so clearly writ in exegesis. Enjoy, kids, but take a tissue along for the ride...