The Real Natural Disaster

We like to draw stark lines between the widely-acknowledged "moral monsters" of our time -- Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. -- and "decent folk" like ourselves.

That line is really about as firm as a Louisiana levee.

I recently sat down for a viewing of Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall (in German, with subtitles) which dramatizes the last days of the Nazi leaders as they huddle in their bunker and await an increasingly-certain defeat.

Hirschbiegel isn't interested in Hitler, the comic-book villain at the end of the video game's last stage. He believes, instead, that Adolf Hitler was a human being. Writes reviewer Matt McAllister:

It was accusations of 'humanising Hitler' that saw the film become the center of a great deal of controversy when released in Germany last year. Certainly it does make Hitler a human rather than a simplistic emblem for evil itself; we see him as a complicated multi-layered man capable of moments of charm and gentleness as well as rage and hate. As Hirschbiegel has said, it is precisely the fact that Hitler was a man that makes the facts much more horrifying.

In Hirschbiegel's movie, Hitler is often, well, quite a likable guy. He enjoys kids. He can be warm and generous. And he's darn sure of himself. It's not hard to see how his followers could become so emotionally attached to him, even to the point of irrationality.

On the other hand, we have the beleaguered citizens of New Orleans. Certainly the folks left behind in the Atlantisized city can be excused a great deal -- few people would condemn looting doomed stores for survival. But then we read an eyewitness account such as this one, and it becomes very hard to keep one's temper.

Anyway we get to the city and it looks like a freaking war zone. The best visual I can give is the movie "Blackhawk Down" when all the Somalians are rushing the city. They are people EVERYWHERE, they are pissed off, and all have weapons, 2X4's, Axes, and guns. If this wasn't bad enough we are 2 white boys in a truck in a sea several hundred armed pissed off blacks. There wasn't a white person to be found. I couldn't get over the little 8-10yr old kids with weapons, I ever saw one carry a claw hammer!

These people were absolutely nuts rammed trucks (stolen I'm sure) in to jewelry stores stealing items, they were tearing apart Wal-Mart carrying out TV's, Playstations, DVD players, etc. One lady was wheeling out an entire rack of merchandise, not sure what it was but sure wasn't clothes for food. They were all laughing and carrying on like it's freaking Christmas.

The present situation in New Orleans has been variously described as "downtown Baghdad" and "Lord of the Flies II." Stores are ransacked for guns and ammo, and armed gangs roam the streets. There is no one to keep order -- even the police are participating in the free-for-all.

It seems incredible that any US city could reach a point of such chaos, violence and dissolution. It's incredible that so many ordinary citizens could be so quickly reduced to their worst instincts. It is, in fact, the nature that always bubbles just beneath the surface veneer of social nicety and affected indignation.

It's the real natural disaster.

Guilt and Judgment

Recently, I was watching a baseball game at a local pub and talking with a server friend of mine. We were talking about some philosophical issue and right in the middle of the conversation my friend threw out this question: “you aren’t trying to get me to go to church are you? Because I am not going.” I was stunned, but took up the question. “I would love for you to go to church, but not because I get another star by my name and need only three more to win a prize. I want you to come because I think you just might find what you are looking for. It’s just for one hour. And if you don’t like it you don’t ever have to go back. But it just seems to me that if you are looking for meaning and identity you ought to look in all places offering those things. Church, if it is preaching the gospel, deals in those areas directly.” “Yeah, I guess that’s a good point. But aren’t they just going to tell me I need to be healed emotionally or something like that. I don’t need to be healed from anything.”
This is not the only experience of this type I have had. Many of my non-christian friends will talk about Christianity, but they balk at the idea of church. And many of them have had, at various times in their life, experiences that have turned them off to traditional religion and Christianity in particular.
When I hear a complaint from a non-believing friend that they felt judged the last time they were in church, I hear two things. Perhaps she was actually judged by someone, and the extent to which she could feel this palpably from the churchmembers is a failure to be sure. But the other thing is that beneath her resentment and anger at the church for judging her, is real and palpable guilt.
In an attempt to be accommodating, and open, my friends and I have often been too eager to judge the church for its judgmental-ness but not eager enough to talk about the guilt that is only the flip side of that experience.
Whatever her experience was it was a part of her reaction to me, in that moment. I could sense it through our conversation and I didn’t push it. The line between felt guilt and perceived judgment is thin to the point of invisibility. And here is the rub.
On the one hand guilt is real, and it often points to a deeper truth. That we are guilty before a holy god, but on the other hand Christians, have, at various times taken advantage of those guilt feelings to extract all manner of things from people. Guilt, among many other things, has become a lever in the exercise of power and subjugation. The modern church cannot ignore its past, nor can it afford to ignore its sins, of which there are many. We cannot condone the disgusting parts of our collective past, but we cannot overlook the other either. This is the irony for the modern Christian apologist.
We must offer apologies for the mistakes and faults of the church. Yet we cannot allow our apologies and our desire to be relevant to somehow turn the gospel into mush and our message into one of appeasement. The gospel cuts two ways, into our hearts and into the hearts of unbelievers. It is only when it is truly doing both that it becomes effective.

The church is often its best counter-argument

Jesus called us to a life of such reckless obedience, but so often lately I feel that we Christians are just winking at each other as we go about our apathetic lives. "Love your new sports car, it's really sleek." "You went on a ski trip? How was it?" "Are you going to see any movies this weekend?" "Learning to ride horses, good for you!" "Ooh, you got a tattoo. So edgy!"

What I really want to say in each case is: Aren't we clever, wearing Christ's name on our sleeves while we shake a cheerful fist in his face with our materialism and self-indulgence? We're so progressive, so "grace-oriented" and "balanced." We know it's not how we should be; but as long as I wink at you and you wink at me, nobody has to be reminded of it.

We're so pointless as the church in America. So accommodating and polite, as long as we can have our Calgon moments. It's interesting that masturbation has become a topic of debate in Western Christian circles again (among both men and women), after being a practice non grata for hundreds of years. I don't believe that's a coincidence.

But someone will say, "Don't go making lists of what's acceptable! That's legalism!" I'm not going to make anybody any lists. It'd be too depressing anyway, because you're already doing all the stuff I'd rule out on it. And so am I. I breathe the water too (and I drown the same way). I'm no more eager than the next guy to be the moral pioneer who gets all the arrows in his back.

And, it seems, neither is anyone else.

So we continue as before. "White-water rafting? So adventurous!"

Crossan and N.T. Wright

two of the dominant voices in the jesus debate are John Dominic Crossan and N.T. Wright. Apparently these two men had a debate back in march, this article might help to clarify the debate a bit as well. You can also find a number of debates or helpful articles here. I am not a big fan of the overall perspective of beliefnet, but nevertheless they do have some fascinating articles.

Starbucks

today i sat at starbucks talking with a student from a local seminary. we had set up the time to get a better understanding of each other's respective views of jesus. jesus according to my friend is someone who welcomes us into god, moves us toward god, and provides us with an example of one who has encountered god. he becomes the means to an existential end.
what of the cross i asked? the cross? that was merely jesus being true to himself. he followed the path he had to because that's the way the path went. the cross was arbitrary. jesus could have been left alone, but he wasn't left alone. instead, for whatever reason jesus threatened the establishment proclaiming his radical message of egalitarianism and equality. And because of that they had to get rid of him.

Now this argument has been around. That really, the only thing that jesus was doing was instituting a radical social program based on equality and egalitarianism. John Dominic Crossan makes this argument quite eloquently, and sadly quite inaccurately, in his work The Historical Jesus. Crossan calls him a jewish peasant cynic. but i think that is a bit tame. really what we ought to call jesus is the first french existentialist. Let’s be honest. The man was a philosophical pioneer. A fronch-man before the baguette. Quite impressive on jesus’ part. Apparently, those first century folk were quite unfamiliar with the work of foucoult, sartre, and camus. but not jesus. No. that is why it took another 1900 years before existentialism and notions of encounter entered the theological and philosophical fray once more.

Okay. what of the resurrection i asked?
the resurrection? he supressed a giggle. do you really believe in the resurrection; do you find that you need it for your faith? he returned.
yes i do.
why, why do you feel like you need it? he asked.
first it seems to me that the early church took it quite seriously, they seem to think it really happened.
but it's not in paul. paul never mentions the resurrection. (i think what he meant here was Crossan's argument that paul never mentions an empty tomb - the prototypical reason why i think crossan is a bufoon. Paul spends nearly an entire chapter explaining the importance of a bodily resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, so if you have a bodily resuurection that more than likely means the tomb is empty. I don’t see how not explicitly mentioning the “empty tomb” is an argument when it is stated implicitly with his discussion of a bodily resurrection. anyway.)
“yes he does”, I said. “1 corinthians 15.” paraphrasing i said “if christ has not risen bodily from the dead than our faith is in vain and we are to be pitied above all. Paul clearly speaks of the resurrection really happening. it seems to me that if your starting point is, dead people don't rise from the dead, and then you decide whether or not the resurrection happened, you have cooked the results and your investigation, far from being objective, isn't even honest with itself. regardless of what your conclusion on the resurrection is, the least one ought to do is suspend judgment on whether or not it could have happened.”
yeah i understand, but see paul, paul had his experience of god through jesus. and he was telling all those people, he was saying, see get rid of your paradigms and your social stratification and your roman citizenship. there is a new kingdom, and you can experience this jesus who is resurrected every time we remember him. he called us to meet god through him. all you need is that encounter that existential moment of experiencing god.

At this point I must digress from my retelling of our encounter and tell you that I really enjoyed my conversation with my friend, despite being utterly bewildered by how he has come to his decisions. At one point he told me that we all make decisions. In other words his decision and my decision on how to take a passage of scripture or on how we view god are equally valid because they are equally volitional. I had to disagree, gently. It is true that we are all engaged in interpretation. I am not so naïve as to think that I come to scripture without any preconceptions. But it is not even good logic to say because we both make decisions, both of our decisions must be valid. It is entirely reasonable and rational that one of our decisions is better than the other, or more accurate, especially since we are making decisions regarding the same material.

articles on Jesus

here a few articles culled from the infinite depths of the internet on what people think of Jesus. Here is a link for an article by John Dominic Crossan, a PBS series , and two Newsweek articles on Jesus.

ideas have consequences

there are a million things i could begin this blog with, but it seems to me that the central starting point for christianity is with christ. for most americans jesus is a punch line. a familiar name that reminds us of sunday school and people with bad haircuts. Jesus has become easy to ignore because he has become a caricature of what he really is.

so who is jesus, and why does it matter. there are many different ideas about who jesus is, holy man, prophet, sage, son of God. christianity has claimed for two millinnia that Jesus was the son of God become human, and it really mattered that this was true. they also claimed that the cross was a real event and that he really did rise from the dead.

recently a friend asked me if all that was really necessary. and my response is yes. it is necessary. you can say all manner of things about jesus, about who you think he was, and if it isn't real, if it really didn't happen the way christians have thought then it really doesn't matter. but...if it did happen then, to quote Richard John Neuhaus, "it is the truth about everything."

the gospel claims some very simple things, and they can be a starting off point for us. number one, we are sinners. this is quite a distasteful idea to the contemporary mind, yet Christianity has always maintained that we are, by nature, guilty people. yes, there is goodness in the world, and we humans perform wonderful acts of kindness every day. but there is also great evil, one doesn't have to look far to see that this is true. it is because of sin that we are in a state of seperation from God.

of course i am making a large assumption that people want to be in a relationship with God. for many that's not the case. people make all kinds of requirements for the kind of God they will choose to believe in. so they say something like this, "I won't believe in any God who lets innocent children die." There are many versions of statements like this and i don't want to ignore the force of such statements but it seems to me that declarations like that are really just a postponement of any type of serious consideration of God.

in light of humanity's separation from God, Jesus came.

christianity is so culturally weighted down it is often difficult to know what the real thing is. is christianity Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, is it The Passion, it is George W. Bush, is it priests molesting children? because of such things it might be easy to think that Christians believe a bunch of ridiculous things that have no basis in fact, on par with aliens at Roswell. or perhaps that in order to be a Christian you have to believe something that no ordinary person would believe in, or that even the manner of belief for a Christian is a fundamentally different thing than it is for someone else.

Quite simply i believe that the nature of christian belief is basically no different than ordinary everyday belief. the manner in which a un-believer comes to know things and to believe in them is no different from the way in which i come to know them and come to believe them. the difference is the content of our belief, not the method of it. and as the title of this post indicates, what you believe really matters.