Is Rowan Williams Wrong?

I have just started Rowan Williams’ charming little book, Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Westminster John Knox Press, 2007). It presents edited-for-publication “talks” that the Archbishop of Canterbury gave during Holy Week in 2005. In the talks, Abp. Williams summarizes the fundamentals of Christian faith to an era in which the long catechumenate of early Church history (which would have filled the current void in basic pre-Baptismal instruction) has been long abandoned.

Now an excursus: I would give money to have available to me such a series of homiletical lectures by a scholarly (or even remotely theologically astute) bishop. Such an experience seems to me to be what bishops and Lent and Holy Week are for. It is, to my eye, a measure of the degradation of the Church that we (and here I include most “denominations”) have allowed the office so to deteriorate that bishops are more comfortable discussing terms of 401k plans (or whatever they are in the non-profic sphere) than Christological controversies.

But back to Abp. Rowan.

In his first talk, the Archbishop sets the fundamental theme of his talks – viz., that Christian faith is trust in God. The title of the essay is “Who Can We Trust?” (OK, a complaint: Abp. Rowan is a good thinker and pretty felicitous writer, but he has some nasty habits resulting in errors of grammar and punctuation. These should have been corrected by his editors. I mean, I know that we are always to treat God as “subject” and not as “object,” but I don’t think the rule extends to our grammar. "WhoM can we trust?" – that’s what it ought to have said. And there are several other misuses of the objective case already in only the first chapter.)

At page 12, he says this:

A word of caution here: some modern thinkers have been very tempted by language that seems to suggest that God is in some way in need of having something else around in order to become more fully himself. … But I think we have to face a challenge here; we must get to grips with the idea that we don’t ‘contribute’ anything to God, that God would have been the same God if we had never been created. (Italics added.)

And it’s that last phrase, “God would have been the same God if we had never been created,” that brought me up short. My initial reaction was, “Wrong!” And the more I thought about it, the more convinced I became in my original reaction.

I readily admit at the outset that I am no philosophical theologian (I can’t even play one in Sunday School). And I am not particularly facile in the arguments surrounding the Theopaschite controversy. And I figure that with the heft of his tome on Arius, the Archbishop is fluent in the controversies of Christian polemics. But I can’t figure out how one -- i.e., he -- squares the claim that Jesus was God and that he died with the claim that God would have been the same had that not happened. Here’s my reasoning.

God is what happens among the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit. The Father is not God without the either the Son or the Spirit – and the same holds for the others. (And I think this stands up whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father or from the Father and the Son.) God is dynamic, relational -- an event, even. He is not static or reified in the way a statue or a photograph is.

God created humanity (as a part of the creation of all that we know) ex nihilo. There was something new brought into being and, thus, already something must have changed in the nature of the relationship among Father and Son and Spirit -- which is to say, in God --, because the love that binds them in their eternal perichoresis was in some sense adjusted or opened to include what had not been there before. Doesn’t that mark a difference already in God – not exactly an evolution (I’m not that daft!), but certainly a change (as in a change in the dynamic)? Admittedly, I suppose, it represents no fundamental change in the essential nature of God (if one wants to go all Aristotelian). But it does change God. Does it complete God in some way? No, but it does complicate his existence.

Take it to the next step: Only because God created humanity did Jesus become human. (Obviously, that is speculation, but it does seem naturally to follow from the Christian reading of the "Fall" which followed from the creation.) The Son took on flesh and lived, suffered, died, and was buried in both his human and divine “natures.” Now look: If Jesus was both fully human and divine, then when he died, the Son died, didn’t he? And if the Son died, God died – because God is what happens among the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. If there is no Son, there is no longer God -- at least in the sense that there was God when the Son was alive. Because of the contingent nature of the Christian narrative, are we not compelled to say that had humanity never been created, God may never have died. But since God did die, was God not different from what he would have been had he not died never created humanity?

Did God not weep over Jerusalem? Did God not mourn Lazarus’ death? Did God not revel in the wedding banquet at Cana (OK: that’s an embellishment on the pericope)? Did God not feel the scourging done to him? Did God not suffer on his cross? If any and all of these are true of Jesus, and they are, are they not true of God by nature of the infinite perichoresis among Father and Son and Holy Spirit? And were not all of these contingent on the creation of humanity?

My reading of Heilsgeschichte is that God regularly changes his mind, alters his course. These changes are perfectly consistent with his fundamental identity, which is love. But are we so to isolate God away from human experience that we can – or that we want – to say that God was affected by none of this?

Fundamentally, we I don’t see how we can continue to hold that God did not change, did not experience different things differently, did not suffer as a result of the contingent event of his creating humankind – that is, unless we want to put everything on the level of pagan myth. It seems to me, without knowing what I’m talking about, that I must be a heretic of the Theopaschite variety. The immutability of God may have served an importance at one point in history. Now it seems to be to be something better ignored.

In my defense, I think that I can find support for my position in a number of big-wig theological thinkers who are not talking through their hats: Barth, Bonhoeffer, Moltmann, and others (don't I remember something from Jenson's Systematic raising this point?) seem to be on board with a new reading of that old problem.

I suppose, from the Archbishop’s perspective in his lectures, it makes sense to stress the unchangeability of God to underscore God’s reliability (although that's not what the context suggests). But I think his assertion goes too far and ultimately undercuts the theme he pursues.

My Belated Easter Proclamation

This is overdue. I only recently realized that I had filed this in "draft" and had not posted it. But as I am an observer of the Great 50 days, it is not too late to resurrect it.

John Donne, for all his complexity, magisterially got one of the great points of Easter in his sonnet (called "Sonnet X" or "Death, Be Not Proud") which follows.

All blessings be to the Lamb who, though he died, yet lives! "And what does this mean?" Read on:

Death, Be Not Proud
-- John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

Amen!

Among the Signs of Hope

Eastertide, it seems to me, is a time to be especially awake to the signs which encourage our hope. An empty tomb, a mistaken identity set straight, a broken loaf and shared cup that set misunderstandings straight -- why not look for these in our own day?

Through the graces of my friend Bjoern (I haven't mastered umlauts on this site) comes this news report. The Israeli Knesset (parliament) changed the law to allow a foreign head of state to address the Knesset, and it did so to accommodate Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany. That the first-in-history should be granted to the leader of Germany is, I think, just exactly one of those empty-tomb signs that ought to lift us up.

Now, if we could get Abu Mazzan up there ... !

From the Land of the First Easter

Easter Message March 2008, The Living God, Bishop Munib Younan, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land

"...People ask me if I am optimistic about peace. I tell them I am not optimistic about the political atmosphere. And really, whether I am optimistic, pessimistic, realistic or idealistic doesn't really matter. What matters it that the church has not survived 2000 years since the First Pentecost because we were optimistic, pessimistic, realistic or idealistic but because we are witnesses to the resurrection. We have experienced the Light and we try to walk as people of the Light, understanding that God uses us to be witnesses for life in this blessed but often battered land. We say not, I am realistic or pessimistic or idealistic or optimistic but I have hope...Everyday here - even in the midst of the fear and the suffering - small bursts of community, hope and reconciliation are happening through extraordinary people, Israelis, Palestinians, Jews, Muslims and Christians. In our schools, programs and churches, we try to plant hope and the resurrection through our children, our people and all those whom we serve - regardless of creed, belief or political belief. In all of our ministries, we seek to express the hope of the resurrection. In interfaith dialogue, we revive the hope that religion promotes life and life abundantly for all..."

Judgment of Love

When Christ comes to judge us, what will be the criterion of his judgment? The parable [of the Last Judgment -- Mt 25:31-46] answers: love -- not a mere humanitarian concern for abstract justice and the anonymous "poor," but concrete and personal love for the human person, any human person, that God makes me encounter in my life. This distinction is important because today more and more Christians tend to identify Christian love with political, economic, and social concern; in other words, they shift from the unique person and it unique personal destiny, to anonymous entities such as "class," "race," etc. Not that these concerns are wrong. It is obvious that in their respective walks of life, in their responsibilities as citizens, professional[s], etc., Christian are called to care, to the best of their possibilities and understanding, for a just, equal, and in general more humane society. All this, to be sure, stems from Christianity and may be inspired by Christian love. But Christian love as such is something different, and this difference is to be understood and maintained if the Church is to preserve her unique mission and not become a mere "social agency," which definitely she is not.

Christian love is the "possible impossibility" to see Christ in another ... , whoever he is, and whom God, in His eternal and mysterious plan, has decided to introduce into my life, be it only for a few moments, not as an occasion for a "good deed" or an exercise in philanthropy, but as the beginning of an eternal companionship in God Himself. For indeed, what is love if not that mysterious power which transcends the accidental and the external in the "other" -- his physical appearance, social rank, ethnic origin, intellectual capacity -- and reaches the soul, the unique and uniquely personal "root" of a human being, truly the part of God in him? ...

-- Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent: Journey to Pascha, pp. 24f.

Repentance per Schmemann

The prodigal son, we are told, went to a far country and there spent all that he had. A far country! It is this unique definition of our human condition that we must assume and make ours as we begin our approach to God. [One] who has never had that experience, be it only briefly, who has never felt ... exiled from God and from real life, will never understand what Christianity is about. And the one who is perfectly "at home" in this world and its life, who has never been wounded by the nostalgic desire for another Reality, will not understand what is repentance.

Repentance is often simply identified as a cool and "objective" enumeration of sins and transgressions, as the act of "pleading guilty" to a legal indictment. Confession and absolution are seen as being of a juridical nature. But something very essential is overlooked -- without which neither confession nor absolution [has] any real meaning or power. This "something" is precisely the feeling of alienation from God, from the joy of communion with Him, from the real life as created and given by God. It is very easy indeed to confess that I have not fasted on prescribed days, or missed my prayers, or become angry. It is quite a different thing, however, to realize suddenly that I have defiled and lost my spiritual beauty, that I am far away from my real home, my real life, and that something precious and pure and beautiful has been hopelessly broken in the very texture of my existence. Yet this, and only this, is repentance, and therefore it is also a deep desire to return, to go back, to recover that lost home. ...

-- Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent: Journey to Pascha, pp. 21-22

Humility -- a Matthean "Virtue" and More

... If there is a moral quality almost completely disregarded and even denied today, it is indeed humility. The culture in which we live constantly instills in us the sense of pride, of self-glorification, and of self-righteousness. It is built on the assumption that man can achieve anything by himself and it even pictures God as the One who all the time "gives credit" for man's achievements and good deeds. Humility -- be it individual or corporation, ethnic or national -- is viewed as a sign of weakness, as something unbecoming a real man. Even our churches -- are they not imbued with that same spirit of the Pharisee? Do we not want our every contribution, every "good deed," all that we do "for the Church" to be acknowledged, praised, publicized?

But what is humility? The answer to this question may seem a paradoxical one for it is rooted in a strange affirmation: God Himself is humble! Yet to anyone who knows God, who contemplates Him in His creation and in His saving acts, it is evident that humility is truly a divine quality, the very content and the radiance of that glory which, as we sing during the Divine Liturgy, fills heaven and earth. ...

How does one become humble? The answer, for a Christian, is simple: by contemplating Christ, the divine humility incarnate, the One in whom God has revealed once and for all His glory as humility and His humility as glory. "Today," Christ said on the night of His ultimate self-humiliation, "the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in Him." Humility is learned by contemplating Christ who said: "Learn from Me for I am meek and humble in heart." Finally, it is learned by measuring everything by Him, by referring everything to Him. For without Christ, true humility is impossible, while with the Pharisee, even religion becomes pride in human achievements, another form of pharisaic self-glorification.

The lenten season begins, then, by a quest, a prayer for humility which is the beginning of true repentance.

-- Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent: Journey to Pascha, pp. 19-20.

Schmemann on Lent

We manage to forget even death and then, all of a sudden, in the midst of our "enjoying life" it comes to us: horrible, inescapable, senseless. We may from time to time acknowledge and confess our various "sins," yet we cease to refer our life to that new life which Christ revealed and gave to us. Indeed, we live as if He never came. This is the only real sin, the sin of all sins, the bottomless sadness and tragedy of our nominal Christianity.

If we realize this, then we may understand what Easter is and why it needs and presupposes Lent. For we may then understand that the liturgical traditions of the Church, all its cycles and services, exist, first of all, in order to help us recover the vision and the taste of that new life which we so easily lose and betray, so that we may repent and return to it.

-- Alexander Schmemann, Great Lent: A Journey to Pascha (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2001), pp. 12f.

Bonhoeffer Blog Conference

With gasoline threatening to go to $4 per gallon (yes, even though a certain major politician had not heard such rumblings until very recently, it is true), here's a neat way to enjoy a theological conference without airfare, driving, hotels, and the like. It's Halden's Dietrich Bonhoeffer Blog Conference. Details are at his site, here. For all of you would-be-scholars, now is your time to wax eloquently about DB's Ethics.

I look forward to reading the papers. I hope yours is/are among them.

A Good Sermon on the Mount Analysis

I usually tout my Icelandic heritage, but today I'm proud to be Danish too (only smidge, but hey ...). I came across this little excerpt from the Journals of Soeren Kierkegaard, and I think it nicely captures the kind of questioning and challenging (and draws the conclusion) that I shoot for in the study of Matthew that I'm "leading." See what you think:

Is God's meaning, in Christianity, simply to humble us through the model (putting before us the ideal) and to console us with "Grace," but between God and humanity there is no relationship, that we must express our thankfulness like a dog to a man, so that the adoration becomes more and more true and more pleasing to God as it becomes less and less possible for us that we could be like the model? Is that the meaning of Christianity? Or is it the very reverse, that God's will is to express that he desires to be in relations with us and therefore desires the thanks and the adoration which is in Spirit and in truth: imitation. The latter is certainly the meaning of Christianity. But the former is a cunning invention of us men in order to escape from real relation to God.

Once again, the Great Dane (or is that Hamlet?) has put his finger on the tenderest of spots -- a tenderness that continues to this day.

I spent some frustrating hours last week in convocations at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Robin Lovin, the renowned ethicist at SMU, spent three lectures (and I don't know how many class periods and conversations) trying to convince his auditors of the continuing relevance ("now more than ever, perhaps") of the theological perspective of Reinhold Niebuhr (RN). I mean no ad hominem insult when I note that I was caught a little off-guard by the depth of his conviction that RN was dead on and that "Christian realism" is the path to follow in our crazy world. "Christian" comes from an "anthropology" that derives from the biblical account that, while humanity is most wonderfully created for communion with God and goodwill in its structure, that same humanity is most depravedly fallen and has trouble getting up. The "realism" that is urged on the faithful with that anthropology is the description of the world gained from the social sciences (and, he failed to mention, the ideologies) of the secular world.

In a short personal conversation, I asked Dr. Lovin how it was possible to accept the world's ways and perspectives in light of the very clear words of Jesus, for example in the Sermon on the Mount. Dr. Lovin very blithely dismissed that with "Well, Niebuhr would say that when you're faced with an impossible ideal ... ." At which point I cut him off and noted that that is a pretty big assumption. His only reply was, "Yes, well, but if it is ... ." Apparently for Christian realism it's obvious on its face that the Gospels are meant for some other reason than to to be taken seriously.

Give me Kierkegaard (and, I might add, Bonhoeffer and Hauerwas), then, over Niebuhr any day.

"Imitation" is the nature of discipleship and true worship -- this is a theme discussed in David Augsburger's book, Dissident Discipleship: A Spirituality of Self-Surrender, Love of God, and Love of Neighbor. I, as you might imagine, appreciate this take on the subject -- and especially that a "spirituality" that ignores the hard work of embodying one's relationship to God in relationships with others is a false (or certainly, inadequate) spirituality.

St. Pat's Update

In his worldly wisdom Hizzoner, Richard Daley, Mayor of the Great City of Chicago has decreed that St. Patrick's day will be observed in the City on March 15. The river will turn green early this year. It is a reasonable accommodation for this city (where I once lived and so I know) that really knows how to celebrate its favorite sons' days. (Want to to talk Pulaski?) You'll notice that the official reason (no silly caesaropapism here) is that a Saturday celebration better allows entire families to participate without sacrificing time in school.

The Means of Grace?

Check out Steve Tibbetts' blog post on disposable communion cups.

I have seen waste baskets in churches filled with (sometimes half-filled) plastic shot glasses of wine used in communion. Aside from the environmental issue of all that plastic, what about the reverent disposal of our Lord's blood following the communion. I mean, you don't have to be an advocate of reservation to feel that this is downright impiety, do you?

St. Patrick's Day Moved!

OK, you have simply got to check this out: St. Patrick's Day is my birthday, so I'm partial to the good saint, even though I only have about 16 Irish platelets in my blood (and that thanks to my Icelandic forebears, from whom I claim my Lutheran heritage, having been baptized by a pastor of the Icelandic Church). And since I abhor snakes, his feast is even more significant for me.

And I have been troubled that I must forgo celebration of the day this year because it falls on Monday of Holy Week. (There's something a wee bit inappropriate about whooping it up during that week! But that's not to say that I won't treat it as a movable feast. There's more partying appropriate to Easter.)

But leave it to me Irish-Catholic very-distant-relatives to have different priorities. For the details, check out this link.

Notice, please, that this fits the general scope of this blog in that it involves the intersection of the liturgical life of faith and life in the world.

And may God have mercy on us all.

Sure and ...

"Atonement Metaphor" Contest

Now here's an interesting thing: Emergent Village is sponsoring an Atonement Metaphor contest. Here's your opportunity to exercise your imaginative spirit and talent to develop a visual, verbal, or other image, symbol, representation, or whatever for what happened in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ that has been dubbed "atonement."

Go to the site and learn the details. Participate. Then be sure to share your efforts here, too. After all, I don't get paid to refer you to other blogs!

Making Peace

When I was in seminary, the movement for liturgical renewal was in high gear -- and breathtaking, daring, frustrating, and liberating was that trip. I remember that, as would-be good Lutherans, my schoolmates and I debated the "logistics" of confession and absolution and that passing of the peace. These things were now up for grabs and seriousness demanded that we think seriously and reasonably about them. (Lutherans, for the most part, were not used to thinking about liturgy in anything but serious and rational terms -- something that has changed somewhat since the 70s, I think.)

Working on verses 21-26 of Matthew 5, that whole experience is running fresh in my mind. For one of the issues we tried to work through was the "placement" within the plan of the liturgy of the passing of the peace. Now, remember, we first had to get used to the idea of making peace with others in the pews! Reconciliation, to the extent that it figured in liturgy, was all "God-to-me." But once we exploded that misunderstanding and came to affirm the making of peace before partaking of the Lord's body and blood, the question -- of both theological and sociological sense -- was where to place it: Ought it to follow the general confession and absolution, which we held to belong at the beginning of the service -- really as prologue to the service? (We at Gettysburg were very well-informed, and our practice was set into print in the Lutheran Book of Worship that was published a few years after we graduated.) Or ought it to come later, closer to the actual communion itself, when it would reinforce the unity of the worshiping community? (We didn't arrive at consensus on that issue, but LBW placed it in the later position, after the sermon and before the communion.)

Reading patristic commentary on Matthew has suggested that it is proper to share or make peace as close to the actual time of communion as possible -- so the LBW and it's ragtag child, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, actually place it too early. Chrysostum, in commenting on verses 23 and 24, paraphrases Jesus and goes on to explain this way:

"Interrupt the service you are offering me," he says, "so that your love may continue. To be reconciled to your brother is to offer sacrifice to me." Yes, this is the reason Jesus did not say "after the offering" or "before the offering." Rather, precisely while the very gift is lying there, when the sacrifice is already beginning, he sends you at that precise time to be reconciled to your brother. Neither after removing nor before presenting the gift, but precisely while it lies before you, you are to run to your brother.

So those traditions that share the peace after the "consecration" and before the actual communing are on to something, eh?

The point of this is to be receptive to the teaching of Jesus: Liturgy done while one is at odds with a brother or sister is blasphemous. Hostility is the root problem that is addressed with the commandment to do no murder -- at least according to Jesus in this logion. To overcome that hostility is a reflection of the humility which is commended to His followers.

Alas, another reason to be discontent with the Lutheran worship resource! (That's an inside joke for my Lutheran fellows.)

On a related note, I have often criticized the passing of peace as a meaningless gesture, shared as it is usually with those sitting or stationed around one -- who are probably not the ones with whom we are fighting. But it has recently entered my thick skull, that the practice may not be so bad. I usually sit with my wife and daughter (except when any of us is serving the liturgy). We also sit in the same place every week (yes, Kate! I know how wrong that is.) with pretty much the same people around us. (So I'm not the only one who claims "my pew.")

And for me, anyway, the ones I find it easiest not to be reconciled to are precisely those who are closest to me. I am a critical and self-important lout, so no one who loves me can escape. For example, my wife and daughter and I find Sunday morning scheduling very stressful -- something that often results in harsh words. (I'll save the guilty party embarrassment by allowing him/her to remain anonymous.) It is powerfully important not to let that harsh word, that disappointment, that irritation to fester during the sacrifice of the mass. So, much as I hate to admit that I didn't "get it" before, I'll now share peace with people I love, knowing that I need them to signal their forgiveness of me in response to my act of repentance toward them.

Now sometimes the reconciliation doesn't hold: Animosity rears up again all too often in hotheads. But for the time of communion, it has been laid to rest. And that is an important fact.

Now to work on the bigger hatreds, too.

And Death Shall Have No Dominion ...

And we as Christians live by that assurance, as phrased by Dylan Thomas. But there are days that one is tempted to question it. And today is another of those days. My brother in Christ, Howard Royce, died yesterday afternoon while undergoing heart surgery.

Harold was another of those utter fine and upstanding Christian men that have graced life for my family and me at Mount Olive. He was of advanced age, but he never flagged in displaying a commitment to Christ and to His Body in Minneapolis that is commendable in every sense of the term. He is one of those stalwarts -- generous with his time and attention, regular in his attendance (regardless of weather), humble and gentle in his manner -- that all us parents who raise children in the Church want them at least to see around them at liturgy. And it didn't hurt that he was a North Dakota native --a bond we shared; something he and I both crowed about quite enthusiastically.

Please, together with the rest of Mount Olive's people and me, pray for the repose of his spirit and for comfort for his wife of decades, Evelyn, and his family.

For music appropriate to end this post and to honor Howard, I refer you to the blog of my sister in Christ, where she "embeds" a Ukrainian choir singing the Kedrov setting of the Our Father (Otche Nash) in Church Slavonic. Check it out here.

Eternal rest grant, our and my brother Howard, O Lord,
And let perpetual light shine upon him.

May his memory be eternal.

"The Golden Compass" Controversy

Just a quick note today: I have watched, and listened to, with interest the brouhaha that has re-arisen over Philip Pullman's book, The Golden Compass (original British title: Northern Lights, first in the trilogy, His Dark Materials). I have only gotten around to reading the book (which, along with some of the published screeds about it's being an assault on Christianity, was loaned to me over a year ago) and I recently saw the movie. And I've got to say that I honestly don't see what the fuss is all about. The Catholic League is in apoplexy (they've even published a book to debunk the movie); the Conference of Catholic Bishops first published a highly favorable review of the movie and then withdrew it from circulation; pastors and lay people have been denouncing both book and movie, in many cases without reading or seeing either. In contrast, as I recall, Books and Culture, a Christianity Today sister, gave the movie a glowing review, while also acknowledging the criticism in the air.

The movie is as innocuous a flick as I've seen in a long time. Some of my friends disagree with me, and I know that the producers sort of suggest that they toned down the atheistic themes of the book, but I think that the assault on the Magisterium (which many take to be the equivalent of the Christian Church or at least the Roman Catholic Church) is much more direct in the movie than in the book. (In a deliciously ironic twist, Derek Jacobi, of "Cadfael" fame, plays the "Magisterial Emissary" -- a kind of Grand Inquisitor of the movie. I wonder whether that casting was coincidental.) But even then, however, it's an assault on a magisterial group (which according to the book has been "reformed" and moved from Rome to Geneva, where Pope John Calvin presides) that is cruel, self-protecting, evil, dishonest, and all the other things that Luther claimed was true of the Magisterium in his day. The movie even changes some of the events from how they play out in the book to emphasize the evil of the Magisterium - e.g., it has a Magisterium weasel try to poison Asriel, whereas the book has the Head Master try to do so (which makes sense, given how the movie goofs around with the book's ending). But even if my view of the film is correct, it's still a sortie rather than a full-out assault.

The book is structured in a more sophisticated way, but it is still an easy read. (The reading level, after all, is a mere 5.6 -- which means that the majority of USAmericans ought to be able to read and understand most of it.) I found it quite thrilling at times, and I'm impressed with Pullman's ability to establish beyond question the intimacy of the attachment between person and daemon that he does. I think the daemon is one of the most clever creations I've read lately, and making that work is essential to creating the horror of "incision"(After reading the book, I want my own daemon. And what's with the movie's pronouncing "daemon" -- with the a and e overlapping, which this program won't accommodate -- as "dee-mon" and not as "dai-mone" or "day-mone" or even "dee-mone" -- when "demon" raises all the wrong connotations?)

I acknowledge that there are very short diatribes and jabs at religion -- which, because of other references, one can take to be Christian religion. And the Magisterium (rarely, if ever referenced as "the Church") does cause problems throughout the book both through its intention of eliminating the influence of the mysterious "Dust" and by the carnality of its servants. But I watched in vain for any sort of drawn out attack on the Christian Church that might translate into contemporary terms and situations. Instead, I found a sustained, curiously "human" (given the fact that the action takes place in a parallel universe with all sorts of un-earthly phenomenon) tone to the tome.

If I found the atmosphere to be more "human" and charming than the Narnia Chronicles, it may be due to the backgrounds of the two authors -- an Oxford-trained children's-book author versus a Cambridge don. But I also found Pullman to be less obvious a pedant for his personal perspectives on life, the divine, and the like than is Lewis. (Sorry to confess, I have never been able to read all the way through the Chronicles.)

And finally, lest I be misunderstood and be taken for being even more obtuse than I am, I fully acknowledge that the Pullman book (perhaps the series) does indeed promote independence, self-awareness, free and critical thought. (If these are counter to the Christian tradition, then we're in trouble from the beginning. It is only when free will is freely turned to obedience to God that faith exists.) But it also promotes resistance to evil, commitment and love, compassion for one's fellows, courage, problem-solving, service, and self-sacrifice -- and these are qualities that I do not discourage in my daughter. If that somehow undermines her commitment to the Christian Church, then there is more wrong than her reading this book!

Guns Blazing and the Left Hand of God

Uwe Siemon-Netto directs something called the “Concordia Seminary Institute on Lay Vocation at the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod seminary in St. Louis. He is trained as a journalist (he was once the religion editor for UPI), but he is also listed as a “lay theologian” (he holds a Ph.D. from Boston) at the foot of an article he wrote for Christianity Today, “Work Is Our Mission” (which you can read here). In the article, he sets down a lucid and very brief outline and analysis of the esteemed, objectionable, misunderstood, wrongly interpreted, necessary, wrong-headed, ever-current, and/or outdated Lutheran doctrine of the Two Kingdoms. He does some nice summarizing, but his analysis highlights, in one wrenching phrase, the problems many of us (even devout Lutherans) have with the doctrine. (In what follows, all the words, phrases, clauses, and sentences in quote marks are the original author’s.)

Siemon-Netto points out that, on the Lutheran understanding of life, Christians are dual citizens. They live – and will dwell forever – in the “kingdom of the right” hand of God. This is the realm of salvation – of “the spiritual” – and it is the “redeemed realm of Christ, the gospel, and the church. Here we remain inactive, resting and feasting with God and freely receiving his grace because here he has revealed himself to us in Jesus.” (My question: Is this a “real” realm? How can one, e.g., point to the liturgy and claim that living in the realm of the church is inactivity or resting?)

But the other citizenship we live out is the “secular reality” – the “left-hand kingdom.” (As a self-defined leftist Christian, I find that this is both confusing and disparaging of lefthandedness, by giving the favored position to the right, but that may be reading it through too idiosyncratic a lens, I suppose.) This, “too is God’s realm, and must therefore never be disparaged.” (For a journalist, even one who may have come later to English, he plays fast and loose with sentence structure and punctuation, I think.) But in this realm, God works from behind a mask and governs “through earthly rulers who are his ‘masks.’” Key to operations in this realm is not revelation, but “natural reason – a gift from God enabling us to find our way around this place.” (I know nothing about the place of natural law in Lutheran theology, so I’m giving this claim pretty wide berth until a later time.)

In the so-called secular realm (the left-hand one), all God’s people are priests – “equal to the minister serving at the altar.” And it is the duty of people to live out their jobs, vocations, and professions with as much competence (and, I expect, care) as possible. Believers engage in priestly work when we employ natural reason and all the skill we can master to keep the world and its structures operating. Thus, “[a]s masks of the hidden God, we perform our priestly duties by going to the polls and running for election, by cooking for our families and doing the bookkeeping, by cutting someone’s hair and issuing speeding tickets, and by storming with guns blazing an enemy position in Iraq.”

Now hold on!

I was with him up to his last phrase. I do indeed believe that one need not become a monk or pastor to do God’s work. (I wish more monks and pastors realized that and didn’t feel the need to be ordained in order to be holy administrators, financial planners, politicians, counselors and therapists, and the like. Since many pastors seem more comfortable in those realms than in presiding at liturgies and at parsing the canons of the Council of Chalcedon, they ought to have been theologically trained to pursue those other vocations with as much sense of the holy as the ministry, as it is often called. But I digress.)

As a lay person, I understand my daily work to be priestly. I try to act in Christly ways – which is what I understand to be a priest’s duty – when I examine real estate titles, when I teach a class, when I try to help my daughter master graphing “slope” in her math homework. Of course, I believe that pastors are most necessary to the life of the Church, but I claim equal dignity and importance for lay people who bring their life in Christ into interface with the rough and tumble world. Furthermore, there is as much dignity in barbering or being a janitor as in running a corporation or teaching from an endowed chair in a university or running a theological think-tank. In all these areas and others, we, most of us, may legitimately hear the call (i.e., the vocation) of God to be his servants, his priests, his manifestation in the world.

But I must seriously wonder whether anyone is priestly if she or he storms anything with “guns blazing.” And therein lies the fundamental issue I have with the two-kingdoms doctrine. Are priests truly called and encouraged to act, and justified (in the non-technical sense) in acting, in un-Christly ways as an aspect of their lives on earth – even though they have been baptized into the Body of Christ? Are we blessed to be killers or cheaters or insulters or liars, so long as we limit that to the left-hand kingdom? For Christians, who by virtue of their baptism are integrated and transformed into the Body of Christ, why do not the counsels of Christ (by which I mean his teaching of what it means to be his disciple – as, for example, in the Sermon on the Mount) override the counsels of the world and “natural reason”?

With respect to the Sermon on the Mount, I know that there are commentators (many of them in the Lutheran lists of genealogies) who claim that Jesus never intended people to try to live the life he outlined in his discourse. They claim that Jesus was merely setting forth an impossible ideal that would require faithful people to recognize the futility of trying to live a holy life so that they give themselves over and just “rest and feast with God and receive his forgiveness” in the right-hand kingdom – while they go on acting like Satan in the left-hand kingdom.

For all my hearing this, I can’t buy that there is this ontological division between the life we are called to live within the bounds of church and the life we are required to live on the basis of natural reason in the world outside the church. If something violates the intention of God for life, is that not to be avoided in both kingdoms? Can I really go about murdering, if such is mandated by natural reason, and then take solace in the general absolution occasionally uttered prior to the Eucharist? How do we square that with what Jesus said about serving two masters?

For all its grounding in Lutheran teaching and its congruence with even some of what I hear from theologians I deeply respect, I think Siemon-Netto’s secular-culture-baptizing interpretation of Luther’s doctrine (whether it accurately reflects the teaching of the Reformer or not) is fundamentally a cop-out that has the effect of keeping Jesus in his place and letting us have our own way in the world. It is a kind of culture-pietism that divvies up life into God’s sphere and not-quite-God’s sphere. It fails to take the transforming power of the Gospel – most especially as that Gospel is worked out in the sacraments – with radical seriousness, restricting it to only some of life. And as such, it is a fundamental denial of the truth of the Gospel. For if “one does not live by bread alone,” but we are encouraged (as in the realm of capitalism) to act as though one does, are we not denying the truth of Jesus’ teaching? And if we deny his teaching, do we not deny him?

Might it not be more in keeping with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to see the right-hand kingdom as the seed of what the left-hand kingdom must – and will, by God – become (I say must, because God’s going to make it that way)? Hauerwas and Willimon, for example, describe the church as God’s outpost in the world, serving to incarnate life lived as God intends and to illustrate on the frontier of the wilderness where God’s will is not heeded – i.e., in the world – what will be. Should not we understand that these two realms (right and left) are not essentially unrelated, which I think they must be by Siemon-Netto’s analysis, but rather paradoxically related in the most pressing and troubling way? And are they not related in such a way that the right-hand kingdom is the school where we learn how to work in and transform the left-hand kingdom?

If I am a priest in my day-to-day life, then I am so as a priest of the One True God. And to organize my so-called weekday life around the cares, the values, the structures, and the means of a so-called unredeemed world, even if governed by a so-called natural reason (which seems to be the servant of the unredeemed world and so is itself unredeemed) is to sin most egregiously by backsliding right into pre-baptismal paganism.

So to address the lay-theologian’s points: I am called to be the best baker I can be – BUT as a Christian baker, I must do so without cutting corners on the quality of the flour or the sanitation of my bakery, even if the market dictates that I lower my price by doing so, because to do so is to sin against the health and well-being of those who will ingest my bread. I may be called to issue speeding tickets if I am state or local cop, but as a Christian I may not participate in profiling, in racial discrimination, or in any of the multitude of ways of treating some differently from others, even if that is the naturally reasonable thing to do. For such activity violates the principle of the Gospel that such divisions as race and class are overcome in the lives of Christians. (Such an erasing of boundaries cannot be restricted to my involvement in Christian liturgies, because if I share the peace with a black person on Sunday and then watch for young black men to pull over for supposed driving infractions based on racial profiling, then I am the most miserable of hypocrites.) I may be called to do bookkeeping, but I am under the Gospel’s power and mandate to be honest and above-board. So I may have to quit and even risk violating client confidentiality if I am an Enron attorney or accountant and know of the efforts to mislead and defraud hundreds of thousands of investors and employees.

And I most certainly may not manifest the love of God – even from behind a mask – by rushing in anywhere with guns blazing. For the status of “enemy” has been eliminated by the cross, where even willing, state-employed murderers were no loner counted enemy, let alone killed as enemies. To say that we fulfill the law of Christ by killing someone is an example of the kind of faulty logic (I might say, world-infected logic) that brings scandal because of its perversion of the Gospel. There is in that nothing of the skandalon that the preaching and living of the Gospel in its purity may engender in others.

Lutherans have to come to grips with the requirements – yes, requirements – of the Gospel for those who claim the name of Christ. And a good place to start would be with a hard-headed and repentant-hearted examination of the Lutheran doctrine of the two kingdoms. If that doctrine is anything as suggested by Siemon-Netto, I don’t know how we can have anything more to do with it.

R.I.P.

Greece's Archbishop Christodoulos has died. I don't know whether there is a special commendation for an Orthodox episcopos, but here we treat them all alike (believing that so does God):

Eternal rest grant him, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine on him.

What an awesome name: Archbishop the Servant of Christ. May we all aspire to that name.

A Couple of Red Flags

A friend led (as organist/choirmaster) vespers last evening at St. Olaf College. (It was in partial fulfillment of the requirements for M.S.M. degree through SO and Luther Sem.) The order was pretty much Evangelical Lutheran Worship, which once again showed that its collectors (or whatever they thought of themselves) deem familiarity with a rite something to be despised and made just enough changes to the vespers rite to make me constantly not sure what was happening next or what the musical tone might be. (Way to go, ELCA boys and girls! The changes were clearly not really necessary, since a lot of the music came directly into ELW. But at least a few “Father, Son, Holy Spirit” references were avoided – especially “Father.”) But aside from that an one or two other oddities, my friend designed a really nice office, with a cute children’s choir (not especially effective – if only because of the acoustics in the chapel) and a terrific, small adult choir (formed by invitation of people whose voices blended beautifully).

But what really got me was the recently remodeled Boe Chapel in which the office was prayed. There were two big errors, to my eye, that distracted me throughout the office. First (and probably less serious compared to the second), the organ console has been moved from the balcony/loft to right down front and center behind the free-standing table/altar, placed so that the organist faces the choir which sits between the console and the back wall, with his back to us. The result is that we are given more insight into the busyness of an organist during a worship service than I care to have: When prayers were going on, when we ordered into silence, and the like, the organist had to prepare the next piece of music, so there was rustling of pages and moving of books and checking of bulletin. In a school with a strong music program for church musicians and for an event of the Master of Sacred Music degree, this showed all the wrong touches.

Now I know that organists must be busy; that goes with the territory. But when the organ console is behind the worshippers (or as was the case at Gettysburg Seminary, where the console was integrated into the split choir, perpendicular to the worshipping community and more or less blocked by half the of the choir), he or she is able to do the busy work without distracting the pray-ers. To the contrary, when the console is front and center (and especially when it is oriented in the same direction as the worshippers), all that busy work is magnified and made to compete with the rest of the “business” of worship.

Lord, help congregations, design teams, and architects understand that.

The second thing was the magnificent display of the flags of many nations, which display hangs from the top of the walls at either side of the nave. Now I imagine (I didn’t even bother to ask) that the flags are meant to represent the nations from which Oles come to study at “Princeton of the Prairie” (my disdainful moniker for this Lutheran school). And, God knows, Lutheran colleges are all about affirming diversity and people’s good feelings about themselves and their preconceptions of how the world is structured. Campus pastors can claim lots of support for being “sensitive” to the needs of the students – which needs probably include being affirmed as SOUTH Koreans or “Americans” (by which is meant USAmericans, since Mexicans and Canadians have not claimed the entire continent for themselves) or Norwegians (as though the Dale sweaters – on sale for several hundred dollars each in the college Bookstore – were not evidence enough of that).

But that doesn’t change the fact that it is wrong to display national flags – or any other flag, for that matter – within the nave. While it is common practice, and especially among Anglicans and “conservative” evangelicals, I guess, it is still theologically and ritually and liturgically wrong.

Flags represent divisions in the world – and in most cases, artificial divisions, at that. (What, for example, calls for dividing North Dakota from Manitoba, when the landscape is the same, Icelanders live on both sides and commune and commute back and forth regularly? Or what is the logical reason – really – for the boundaries of “Iran” or “Iraq”? You know the answer to that – Western hegemony and arrogance.) The divisions are human-inspired and human-configured. And they give the lie to Paul’s interpretation of the Gospel that in Christ, there is no East or West, Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free.

As Bill Cavanaugh so convincingly explains in “World in a Wafer,” (which you can read here), the liturgies of the Church – the Eucharist preeminent among them – are the enactment of the God-driven end to such earthly divisions. As God is One, so is the Body of Christ one – no longer defined by national identity, gender or sexual identifiers, economic status, or anything else. So when churches mount nationalistic banners in the worship space, one of two things happen: Either they disregard the importance of images and artifacts in the forming of people’s culture or they sanction (in the sense of validate) the very supposed reality reflected in the images and artifacts.

When churches hang or otherwise display national flags, they baptize an us-versus-them worldview that is incompatible with the Gospel. That is blasphemy, in short – the same as mounting statues of Shiva or the Buddha in chapels around the nave represents a return to the worship of Baals. (I can imagine that there are places that do that, but I pray that my imagination is overactive.) No god is more demanding of sacrifice and subservience than is the god of the nation (see another Cavanaugh article: “Killing for the Telephone Company,” here), and consequently no service must be more strenuously and tirelessly resisted than that directed to the god of the national culture.

Civil religion is a religion in competition with worship of the One True God, in other words. And for a congregation to give in to symbols of that civil religion is false worship, regardless of the touchy-feeling reasons given for excusing or justifying it.

Campus ministry is fraught with difficulties. But one can reasonably expect that colleges of the Lutheran church will think seriously about the implications of their curricula, their academic and student-life practices and policies, their sanctioned activities, and the designs of their spaces – most especially their worship spaces. On this, I think St. Olaf has failed the test.

Death Penalty?

It seems that Muslims are not the only religious tradition in which one can find unsavory references to the justifiability, if not the necessity, for killing someone who causes religious offense. (We Christians have made a fine art of parsing the more troubling death sentences out of the Old Testament, in order to avoid the taint of seeming foolishness, and we would never call for killing someone for religious bad acting. But at the same time we encourage a penal system that often uses death to extract revenge for heinous crimes, whether the accused is the perpetrator or not.) Well now, courtesy of Forward, the long-long-time reporter on things Jewish in America, comes this report that a Jew in Los Angeles has plea-bargained to a reduced sentence for himself by, at least in part, turning in some other Jews who were defrauding the US Treasury of lots of tax revenues.

The story would be unremarkable but for the invocation of the Jewish doctrine of "mesira" -- i.e., the unacceptability of turning a fellow Jew over to the government. It seems that under certain circumstances doing so can result in a death edict against the informer. That, too, would be of only academic interest but for the article's report that some Jews apparently will not concede that such a doctrine and punishment should not apply to Jews in the American situation, where to cooperate with the government is not tantamount to bringing one's fellows to death (as was and is the case in many countries where Jews are oppressed -- either officially or not so formally).

I guess the lesson is an odd one: Sharia law is inhuman when and if it allows for death edicts against heretics, but mesira is not when it is applied to people who turn in other bad actors. Will this result in the kind of generalized gabble about Jews the way that some talk of Sharia does about Muslims?

Surprising: No religious tradition has a corner on blindness! We're all denouncing slivers in each
other's eye, but ignore the railroad tie sticking out of our own!

So read the article ... . And while you're there, check out this one.

Love Never Ends

Of no particular theological significance, but touching and of interest is this item from Al Jazeera (yes, I do read Al Jazeera regularly; it's informative and professional -- what more need I say?

If it's exciting for an archaeologist to find, it's exciting also for us romantics!

The "Fullness" of the "one, true Church"?

[Note: A friend informed me that my link to Fr. Stephen's blog misdirected the reader to a porn site. I don't know how that link got changed (I checked it after I posted), but I've corrected it (with hopes it will stay corrected) -- and I apologize to anyone who got caught by that. I'm checking into whether I was hacked or what might have gone wrong. But for now I can only be chagrined.]

Caveat: As has been all-too-apparent from my previous postings, I am pretty unsophisticated in ecclesiology. I know that it’s important, and I’m trying to get my mind around the issues. But I have a long way to go: I am a Lutheran, after all, as we Lutherans are not notable for our contributions to a theology of the Church. Nevertheless, with an attitude of “fools rush in,” I offer these remarks.

In a touching and thought-provoking essay (here), Fr. Stephen, at “Glory to God for All Things,” has written about his preference for calling the Orthodox Church the “fullness “ of the Christian faith over asserting that it is “the one, true Church.” Of course, it’s not that he doesn’t believe that his Church is “the one, true.” But, as he says:

I believe it is the one, true Church, but how I understand that as an Orthodox Christian is quite different from how such a statement might be understood by a non-Orthodox Christian. Thus, I prefer the term “fullness.” It says the same thing (in a way) but also says it in a way that allows someone to ask questions and not just have an argument. The Scriptures (Eph. 1:23) describe the Church as “the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.” Thus it is a Scriptural description of the Church.

He goes on to describe what “fullness” means to him. And I find that I resonate to his preference for usage and to his description of “fullness.” I think he’s correct that, e.g., we Lutherans experience an urgent desire to post some theses when we hear the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church assert that the RCC is “the one, true Church” and when he, even in the most ecumenical of statements, points out the ecclesial deficiencies of other bodies which claim the name “Church.” So, to my eye, “fullness” avoids much of the surface reason to raise hackles. Openness to questions, rather than a fighting stance, is a churchly posture (despite the Lutheran willingness to “take arms against a sea of [theological] troubles and by opposing, end them” – with apologies to The Bard).

But it is precisely because the term “fullness” biblically expresses “all we are meant to be” that I take issue with his or any Christian’s ascription of the term “fullness” to his or her Christian tradition, denomination, or congregation. I suppose part of my objection roots in my Lutheranism – and here, I hope, Brother Paul takes heart (for he fears, at times, that I strain against the boundaries of Lutheran understandings). We confess that all that is necessary to know to identify the Church is that the Gospel is preached there (“in its purity”) and the sacraments are ministered in a way congruent with the gospel. My reading of Lutheran theology suggests that we’ve been a lot better is saying what that does not mean than unpacking what it does. But I digress.

Part of my objection, however, also roots in a hard-headed ecumenical stance that I commend to every Christian: Because the oneness of the Church (which we Christians confess in the Creed is a reality) is too close to a gnostic dream (i.e., true in some deep spiritual reality, but far from true as far as “facts on the ground” are concerned), I deny that Orthodoxy or any Lutheran tradition or the Roman Catholic communion or any other can rightly claim “fullness.” We may claim that adjective or noun only were we to be working our uttermost to reconcile in deep, committed, formal, and Eucharistic fellowship with all other Christians – and (here I’m tentative) maybe not even then, until we have reached a state of such fellowship). The moment any tradition claims that “we are the one, true and you are welcome to join us on our terms,” we have lost fullness and substituted something else, something less.

Now, know that I confess the oneness of the Church as it is mandated by the Creed, and I do not do so in some kind of precatory or hope-filled or Gnostic way only. But that confession is also judgment on the ways the Churches have of denying their oneness on grounds of theological terminology, ethnic or national genetics, structural arrangements, or what have you.

And by these comments, I do not mean to buy into the whole “throw open the doors” approach to Eucharistic fellowship (which, lamentably, seems to be the ELCA’s posture). There are some things worth Eucharistic fasting over. (“Eucharistic fasting” is one of my polite terms for “close” or “closed” communion.) But so long as there are such issues (and I admit the dilemma inherent to my arguments here), the fullness of the Church rests in none of its incarnations.

The Church is the Body of Christ – literally, metaphorically, spiritually, economically, and all the rest. But it is a bruised and battered body – no more the “fullness” of God’s intentions for her than was the dead body of Jesus the fullness of God's intentions for him: Jesus' body -- even dead -- was most assuredly the divine-and-human Christ as confessed in Article II, but that body was not all that Jesus Christ was or was meant to be. Not until God worked the Resurrection and Ascension can we speak of the “fullness” of the Christ in the sense that Fr. Stephen wants to speak of the “fullness” of the Church, even in these "in-between times" – or so, at least it seems to me. (See: My Christology is as weak as my ecclesiology.)

I don’t have alternative terminology to suggest: What I ask, however, is terminology that preserves the dialectical tension, the eschatological sense that inheres in such pairs as “already/not yet” and “simul justus et peccator.” The mixedness of the Church's reality requires that at this time.

A Theologian in the Race?

I really don't have a dog in the race for the Republican nomination for the presidency: Frankly, I can't see that much good will come from the election of any of the people now running. But I have my questions about anyone the Democrats can nominate, too. In short: I have no partisan interest, and in support, I also point to the fact that I am a member of no political party.

But the fact that one of the candidates seems to claim that his surge in the polls is directly attributed to divine intervention (film clip here) and that he is better qualified than others because he holds a theology degree gives me reason to enter the fray.

Now I don't claim to be an expert in seeing miracles, so I'll let that one rest.

But M.Div.-student (at Fuller, hardly a bastion of liberal worldliness) and blogger Patrick McCullough (here) has checked the facts and raises some question about the directness (if not the honesty) of this most-religious-of-all candidates.

I'm sure the facts can be ascertained, but I'm not going to bother. I already know all I need to: He has not stated his case with an "aye" or a "nay," but instead has danced around and given the lie to his original claim. That doesn't look like honesty to me, and it is simply unacceptable that one who touts his Christian credentials should so blazenly not tell the truth. I know that that is a nasty thing to say about a fellow member of the Body of Christ, but I think he asked for it. So there.

I will also so say that, while many candidates seem to feel the need to give voice to their religious bona fides, Huckabee has made it central to his campaign (witness the Christmas ad). The others may not be any more straightforward about themselves, but Huckabee has set himself into a special category. And I think it's fair game now to judge him on the basis of his own-claimed credentials.

Death Penalty goes before the Supreme Court

This tidbit from National Public Radio this morning:

The State of Kentucky is going before the US Supreme Court to argue, contrary to claims to the contrary, that its use of the "three-drug cocktail" for lethal injections in administering the death penalty is just fine, that there is nothing wrong with either the mixture or the administration. (As a Christian and lawyer, I'm interested that this case is "pure" in what it's facing: Here there is no question of the defendant's guilt or innocence; he has confessed. And while I can't imagine that he's going softly into the good night, the only point of contention in the suit before the Supremes is how he should die. We should all be aware of the distressingly high number of cases where the death penalty is imposed on innocent defendants -- or at least on those who are not legitimately found guilty.)

The State's legal (and moral) arguments must be read in the context of findings and decision by the veterinary profession in this country: Veterinarians have abandoned the very same cocktail, which was once standard for for euthanizing animals, because it caused excessive and inhumane pain to the subject animals. They use a different mixture that avoids the pain.

So, the way I read it, the State of Kentucky (I suppose along with the 35 other states that use the same cocktail -- which by the way, has not changed in formulation since it replaced such other forms of killing as hanging and the electric chair) is in the position of arguing that what is cruel and unusually painful practice for killing animals is fully justified in killing human beings. We can only wonder about the physicians who are complicit in the use of the cocktail and the medical personnel who administer the drugs (always from a different room than the death chamber)!

And some pooh-poohed Pope John Paul II's chagrin at the twentieth (and twenty-first) century's culture of death?

Kyrie eleison!

What follows is far from a new thought, but it nevertheless bemuses me, I guess, that many of the same people who argue so strenuously for the "right to life" for fetuses completely abandon the argument when it comes to the death penalty. There are, of course, often differences of "fault" in the two situations. But I regularly hear that, even when the fetus poses a threat to the mother's life, there is no justification for abortion. (See, for example, the number of proposed statutes that make no provision for safeguarding the mother's life.) It is a consistent, no-just-war posture toward fetuses. But once the child is born, all bets are apparently off. At that point, state-sponsored terrorism against living people is fine. (And you will note that this line of logic operates in reverse among so-called liberals: Forget the fetus, but defend the convicted murderer.)

Once again, we are brought face-to-face with the failure of the Church, with the exception of the late and latest Popes, to be the Church in the face of the world's policies: The Church is called to an life of nonviolence; for Christians killing is not an option. We Christians need to speak more clearly about this -- and more importantly, we need to refuse to participate in state-sanctioned murder. I think that means, in addition to filing for conscientious-objector status with respect to statist warmaking, that Christians do not perform or assist in abortions, do not prescribe or administer lethal cocktails (I haven't decided whether this sanction extends to veterinary practice, where I think there are differences from human medicine -- not the least of which is that animals are not and/or cannot be considered candidates for being baptized. Animals are, thus, not fellow or potential fellow members of the Body of Christ), do not participate in police work that involves shooting others, participate in research in to any means of making death.

That's a hard line to hold: "What will happen to society?" I am asked. "God only knows," I answer, implying thereby that that's not so bad. If we are a people who fulfill our identity as the Body of Christ, will we not hunger and thirst for righteousness -- i.e., as one friend puts it, for life congruent with that of God's life and intentions for our lives? Can we hunger and thirst for righteousness if we place whole chunks of our lives outside his reign?

"Roman" Catholic?

That Lutheran spitfire, Martin Marty, takes on his (I think) friend, Andrew Greeley, in his Sightings column this morning. (Sightings is a twice-weekly e-mail-by-subscription offered by the Marty Center at the U of Chicago Divinity School. Once a week Brother Martin contributes a column, and once a week someone else offers thoughts. They deal, in the broad sense, on the issues of Church life and life in the world.) I think his response to Father Andrew is manifestly correct. See what you think (I think this constitutes fair use, but if I violate any copyright provision, I will remove the reprint immediately upon my being notified):

Sightings 1/7/08

The "Roman" in Roman Catholic

-- Martin E. Marty

Friend and neighbor Father Andrew Greeley, sociologist, novelist, and columnist, reminded me in a recent e-mail that he liked to be called a "Catholic," not a "Roman Catholic." In his January 2nd Chicago Sun-Times column, he elaborates: "My crowd has been calling themselves 'Catholic' for 17 centuries. The adjective "Roman" added in the American context is a slur, sometimes unintentionally conveyed in the tone of the one using it. It hints that we are somehow foreign and perhaps subversive. It came into use when the 'publics' started to recite the Nicene Creed and their leaders had to explain that the 'one, holy, catholic and apostolic church' of the creed wasn't us." He then goes on to comment on how the media have allowed some "Evangelicals" to preempt the space once labeled "Christian."

There is no question that Protestant meanies in America once spit out variants such as "Roman" (without "Catholic") or "Romish" or "Romanist" or, worse, "Papist" or "Jesuitical," with purely pejorative intent. Turn over a plank and you may still find some creepy-crawly critters, anti-Catholic to the core, who speak or write that way. But I would argue that today, "Roman" is used neutrally or even positively. First, it is not an "American" usage; as shown in almost all ecumenical documents involving Roman—oops!—Catholics with the World Council of Churches. There, "Roman Catholic Church" is standard, as it is when there is dealing with the distinct Eastern Catholic Churches. (There are also "Anglo-Catholics," and others who have some sort of identifier.) "Roman" also appears in some papal and conciliar documents issued from Rome. And we "publics" did not "start" using the Nicene Creed in recent America. "My crowd," Evangelical Lutherans, have recited, professed, and I hope lived the Nicene Creed with the "catholic" phrase in it for centuries.

Names are important, as I had to remind a friend who thought discussion of names was insignificant compared to cosmic events like " Iowa" and "New Hampshire ." Wars start over pejorative and sometimes even innocently used labels. "Catholic" and "Roman Catholic" are not the only complexities these days. More urgent, most urgent, is the task of dealing in a fair way with the many, many brands of Christians who get lumped together as "Evangelicals," especially in political discourse, where they get miscast simply as "the Christian right." More examples: Luther and Lutherans did not choose their name. None of us liked being label "ecclesial communities" instead of "churches" by Pope Benedict XVI, but we'll live with it. "Mainline Protestants" didn't and don't like their name, which is usually used pejoratively by non-Protestants, most of whom never liked and few ever use the accidentally applied term "Protestant" itself. But hang around inter-faith and Christian ecumenical crowds and you will find that today "Roman" before the word "Catholic Church" is used mainly by its friends. You can tell by the tone, which is never condescending or motivated by suspicion of another crowd.

Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, upcoming events, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.

Film Reviews

Here is a wonderfully positive Books and Culture review of one of the best movies I saw in 2007, The Lives of Others. I concur in everything that Professor Cantor writes, and I encourage you to read the review and (either before or after reading it) to see the movie.

I haven't seen the special features on the DVD, but I was simply swept away by the movie, which I saw on the big screen. I did not know that Ulrick Muehe (the actor playing the Stasi "listener") had died, but that saddens me terrifically. His portrayal was note-perfect to convey his eventual "salvation" (as Cantor calls it).

Now, while I'm on it, I must commend two more recent movies. Once and Juno should both qualify for nominations for 2007 Oscars, and I trust both will garner several.

Once is a story of music-making. It involves a rather heart-broken singer-songwriter in Dublin (known throughout only as the "guy") who meets an emigre with musical talent (known only as the "girl"). Together they tentatively explore a friendship while working together on writing songs and working to get the guy into a recording studio so that he can record a demo CD to show around London to get himself placed as a songwriter. I'd like to spell out the details, but some of the charm of the movie is wondering what's going to happen. Suffice it to say that I found it the most charming movie of 2007. The actors playing guy and girl are, in fact, not actors and have never acted before. He used to front a band in Ireland and the two have known each other as friends for years. Perhaps as a result, the chemistry between them is stunning. They also wrote, individually or together, most of the music in the film. (The music is very exciting.) So in terms of "back story" and of film technique, the entire thing comes off feeling like a very well-made documentary (which it is not).

Juno is more well-known, I think, even though it is a kind of small-scale movie, too. It concerns a sixteen-year-old girl who gets pregnant after one half-planned sexual encounter with her sort of clueless nerdish boyfriend. When she decides to give the baby up for adoption, rather than "ending her pregnancy," she gets the support of her family, friends, and the audience. She finds a couple with whom she wishes to place the child (finding them in a shopper's flyer featuring personal ads -- one of innumerable wry and funny issues in the movie), and much of the tension in the movie grows out of her efforts to personally connect with them.

The movie is smart, wry, lol-funny at times; it is touching and nearly heart-breaking at others. The reserved support and affection that Juno gets from her parents is almost too touching for words. The ending is pretty much a happy ending -- tear-jerking and charming.

My wife wondered whether the film paints the troubles of teen pregnancies as too easy to bear -- i.e., that it is unrealistically romantic about Juno's situation. I don't think so: Judged on its own terms, which do not include sending "messages" to young people, it is a hope-filled story of how resourceful young people can wend their way through even extremely difficult times -- with the help of their friends and family (terrifically played by two actors I really like, J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney). (I didn't like Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner, the would-be parents, but I'm not sure we're really supposed to -- until the end of the movie, kind of ... .)

Oh, did I mention that Juno was written by Diablo Cody, who wrote much of it while living in Minnesota and who based the movie here? (It was produced with aid from the Minnesota Film Commission, but it was filmed in Canada -- for heaven's sake.) She was named artist of the year by the Minneapolis StarTribune, another sign that we'll jump on any bandwagon that travels through the state.

I don't claim to be a movie critic: "I know what I like." But since I have the password to this blog, I get to put on it even the most mundane panting.

A New Year's Miscellany

Herewith a couple of things I'll put in print to get off my mind -- of no particular importance or interest, I acknowledge. Consider this your "Happy New Year" card.

First, politics:
I don't usually find myself quoting (or even reading, for that matter) Chuck Colson, lately of Prison Fellowship Ministry (but famous for less uplifting activities). But I ran across links to this short commentary, in which he judges character to be the most important quality to consider in choosing a president. I think, much to my surprise, that I agree with him. Of course, Brother Chuck doesn't explain how we evaluate the "content of their characters" in choosing among candidates, but I think it's worth considering for oneself.


Second, editing:
From this morning's newspaper's obituary section. "She was a faithful, loving wife and friend to many." OK, I know that many will say, "Of course she wasn't a wife to many," but that's the reasonable way to read that lamentably un-thought-through, and hence amusing, sentence.

Third, resolutions:
I know better than any how futile (as opposed to "feudal"*) it is for me to make lists of intentions. I simply do not have the focus, the self-discipline, or the external helps to stick to things like that. Nevertheless, I am beginning a new practice of list-making. (Friend Jeff says that he's an inveterate listmaker and commends the practice, so I'm going to check it out.) Lamentably for the budget, that will require a new notebook (moleskin cover would be nice), but I'll look to pay for one with the B&N gift card (in a generous amount) that I received from my in-laws for Christmas. (They regularly give me such, and it's utterly amazing how they're always the right color and the right size for me!) And among my lists will be "movies that I've seen," "books that I've read," and oodles of "intentions." That I might succeed in getting a little order in my life, Ora pro me!

Among my intentions:
On New Year's Day, public radio featured a language professor (and linguist) who spoke about various word-y things -- e.g., Merriam-Webster's choice of "w00t" as new word of the year (huh?), the inability of Midwestern USAmerican's to detect any difference in pronunciation among "Mary-marry-merry" (IS there a difference?), linguistic change, and the like. In short, it was the kind of program I couldn't tear myself away from. And it made me more committed than ever to try to speak correctly and to employ (as opposed to "utilize") vocabulary carefully and appropriately. (I suppose that that means that I'll have to try to drop "like" from my standard speech, but it's a long-overdue corrective.)

Finally, a great start to 2008:
Friends hosted a New Year's Day open-house party yesterday (afternoon into early evening). And it was a treat! Now Kathy and I don't ever (anymore) go out on New Year's Eve. It's way too much of a hassle to face crowds, to find a quiet restaurant, to drive safely for us to leave the warmth of home, with its champagne, movies, music, and early bedtime. (And that was this year's routine.) But the first day of the new year is, then, frequently anti-climactic, with nothing to do but straighten the house in anticipation of returning to work. But this year, D & D invited us for some wine, snacks, and conversation, and it was anything but anticlimactic. We met new people, got to know acquaintances better, re-met friends whom we haven't seen for a long time; we conversed about the economy, movies, books, music, theology and the Church, "fate," a bunch of other things. And by the time we got home (having stayed longer than we expected), 2008 had begun brilliantly!

I pray God's blessings, patience, humor, and aid throughout this new secular-calendar year for all of us -- you and your circle and my circle and me.

Second Day of Christmas

All blessings during these Twelve Days of Christmas, the celebration of the Incarnation of God in human form and substance!

Today is the Second Day, and according to Fr. Alexander Schmemann of Blessed Memory, the earliest observance on this day was not that of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, but a celebration of the life of the Mother of Our Lord. This was, as I read him, the first Marian feast (the Synaxis of the Most-Holy Theotokos), apparently long before other Marian feasts appeared on the calendar. But I'm going to have look more deeply into this, because my recollection is that, for example, her "birthday" was celebrated very early in the Church's history. (That seems to be reflected in the Protevangelion of St. James. But I know next to nothing about that, too.)

In any event, light an extra candle before your icon/s of the Theotokos. From Western usage: Hail, Mary, full of grace: The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.

HYMN OF PRAISE
The Synaxis of the Most-holy Theotokos

At the border between night and sunny day,
The dawn is rosy, pink and dewy.
The crimson dawn thou art, O Virgin given by God,
Precursor of the day, rosy and glorious.
Thou didst correct Eve and restore her to Paradise.
Do not withhold thy help from us sinners.
Israel crossed dry-shod over the Red Sea;
A cool spring flowed from the rock in the wilderness;
The bush burned but was not consumed-
As the dawn resembles the crimson eve,
So thou, O Virgin, dost resemble those foreshadowings.
O thou whom the Church calls the Mother of God,
Unknown to sin, not given to sin,
O Most-pure Mother of our Savior,
Because of thy purity thou wast chosen by God,
To bring down the Eternal Creator to earth.
That is why thou hast authority to pray for us,
And we have the joy of hymning and glorifying thee

I have written before about my sort-of-not-very-"Lutheran" view of the Theotokos, so I won't go over it again.

I will, however, note that the coincidence of two observances of martyrdom is not insignificant to the Christian proclamation: Mary was wounded by the suffering of her son and, undoubtedly, mourns the sacrifice of every one of her son's followings, beginning with Stephen. It is, I think, during Christmastide that the theology of the cross becomes easiest to explicate (especially when coupled with the Slaughter of the Innocents), and yet in my experience, it is during this season that such a theology is last in evidence. (I don't mean to invoke the memory of the "Sad Danes," but the shadow of the cross lies darkly across the manger -- if manger there was. And we ought not to forget it.)

It is our sublime joy (we are makarios) that the Word became flesh -- the divine became human in order that the human might become divine. But that happy exchange came and comes at a cost. Have we abandoned counting that cost, to the detriment of our ultimate well-being?

A most blessed Christmastide to you!

On the Subject of Movies

Since I have entered into the real of movie criticism, let me scream one thing. Soundtracks are important to me. I am easily manipulated by the movie score, background music, and the like. I am also easily put off (see my comments in the last post about the annoying typewriter thing). One thing that really gets my goat is the failure to be cautious in the use of music not composed for the current movie.

In "The Year of Living Dangerously," for example, (one of my favorite movies in the '80s) took place around the year of 1965 (or is it 1967?), when Suharto seized power from Sukarno in Indonesia. In the movie, there's a great scene in which Billy/Linda Hunt (the only performer to win an Oscar for playing a character of the opposite gender, which portrayal was not of a cross-dressing sort) is bandaging a wound Mel Gibson has sustained during a riot. S/He puts on a well-used vinyl disk and asks Gibson to listen to the power. (It's mystical and haunting scene that is the center of the movie for me.) And the recording is one of R. Strauss' "Four Last Songs" (the best music ever written for voice -- specifically, soprano -- and orchestra) sung by (to me, the then-unknown) Kiri te Kanawa. I fell in love with the voice and music and rushed out to find the recording. (Years later I met and was hugged by Dame Kiri, something that may never have happened but for hearing her in "Year." We remain good friends to this day -- oh, wait; the hug happened, but the friendship is "in my dreams." Alas!)

Well, lo and behold!, the te Kanawa/Andrew Davis recording had not yet been made in the year of the Suharto coup. I think it came out the next year (1968). Well, now that sticks in my craw every time I see the movie.

Unfortunately, the same thing happened in "Atonement." In one mooning-love-sick scene, Robbie/McAvoy re-plays a famous duet from "La Boheme." Per the credits, the singers are Jussi Bjoerling and Victoria de los Angeles, both sublime singers (on what is arguably the best recording of the opera). Well, that recording was not made until years later than the period portrayed, either. So here's another anachronism that will jump up to bite me whenever I see this movie again. It's great that they didn't use a contemporary divo and diva, but come on, there are older recordings they could have glommed on to.

Internet Movie DataBase lists "goofs" apparent in movies. I wonder whether I ought to suggest this on both. (As it is, they highlight that the credits misattribute which Song te Kanawa actually sings. Maybe I should add to that.) A little research won't cost a studio/filmaker that much in the scale of things. (Can you imagine showing a car that hadn't been produced until years after the action-period? No one would let that pass. So why the music problems?)

For curiosity's sake: Anyone know of similar problems with other movies? I tend to stick to the opera-like repertoire, of course, so I'd be pretty much deaf to other anachronisms.

"Atonement"

I don't write many movie reviews. (As I've indicated before, I see quite a few movies these days -- new releases in theaters and not-so-new at home, through the satisfying service of NetFlix.) I'm not equipped to analyze movies, nor do I see theological themes under every credit. (Yes: I know that all of the cosmos is theological. I would have to push, however, to draw out the theology or the theological problematic in "Michael Clayton" -- no matter how ethereal I think Tilda Swinton is!) But once in a while, a movie requires attention from a theological perspective -- usually when it doesn't want to be analyzed that way.

Such is the new movie, "Atonement," which friend Brad and I saw on the "big screen" last night. And I recommend it. (I have some personal reservations, I guess, but they relate more to how I match up a movie with the book on which it's based. In this case, I think I'd have enjoyed the movie more had I not already read the book.) It's a troubling movie. But it is troubling in a very good, Christian sense (even though neither the book nor the movie, so far as I can discern, makes any religious claim or pretense.)

The movie is a study in perplexity or ambiguity: Is perception reality? Is there a "reality" that exists behind what we see and convince ourselves we see, whether we understand it or not? What is real? Can mistakes -- willful or accidental -- be "atoned" for or the consequences undone? Who dies and who doesn't die? What is autobiograpical fiction (which only comes as a question at the end of the movie)? Can James McAvoy shed his identification as Tumnus, the Faun in the first Narnia movie (something which was a little problematic for me, even though I've seen him in other things since then, but it's apparently not a problem for many people, since he's getting pretty solid reviews).

To be honest, Mr. McAvoy's performance is really moving and believable (at times, annoyingly so). Kiera Knightley is gorgeous and probably right for the part (though I'm not a great fan of hers, this was a pretty good performance). Saoirse Ronan is spookily effective as the little b... -- er, -- brat who precipitates so much pain for so many. (The somewhat-older Nurse Briony is less appealing, even though the characterization seemed pretty consistent.) And the ever-phenomenal Vanessa Redgrave is a most convincing old-age Saoirse/Briony -- in looks and manner. So casting works very well. (There is a most annoying musical theme that features an ancient typewriter -- which made me think of the more entertaining LeRoy Anderson band piece,
The Typewriter -- which was only hamfisted and not effective. Thankfully, it is gone by the end.)

The movie has to contend with point of view issues, crucial to the novel, and it does so by re-play -- not flashback: It sets out a scene involving Briony's seeing and interpreting something, and then it goes back in time to play the scene out in a supposedly objective, third-person view (what "really happened"). For some reason I found that irritating; I kept thinking, "I wish they'd get on with it." But, of course, that is what is to be gotten on with. And while I knew that intellectually, I couldn't relax and get into the early part of the movie.

Still, I encourage people to see the movie and to reflect on the Christian themes that resonate through it. I'm not sure about the religious orientation or conviction of the author of the book, Ian McEwen, and I really don't care. But the movie (for me, more so than the book did) concentrates questions about "atonement" that are worth considering.


I think the movie sets up these questions, inter alia, which may be good for Christians to ponder especially during this season of Advent, that mixture of looking back to the Great Atonement and looking forward (not to "Christmas" -- which is in the past -- but) to the final Denouement: What is atonement? Is it restitution (as it portrayed in some Christian theology)? If restitution, can it ever happen -- except in some kind of abstract and forensic way? Is forgiveness (from the one wronged or from ouselves for the "evil we have done") the same as atonement? Can the "sinner" atone for her sin and to the ones sinned against? (The movie answers this in a most scintillating yes-no way, and in the process doesn't answer the question -- which is the major interest I find in the movie.) If we parse the word as AT-ONE-ment, mustn't we acknowledge that atonement can come (or at least must initiate) from the side of the one/s wronged? Doesn't it require the desire/intent of both "sides" to achieve at-one-ment?

When I think about it, this wasn't a bad way to spend the last Thursday in Advent.