A Textual Community

Walter Brueggemann wrote a great article for Theology Today back in the 90s. He relates the Old Testament texts to current ecclesial issues in an interesting, thought-provoking and classical Brueggemann way.

He points to the difference between modeling the praxis of communities on the Monarchy experience versus the exilic experience. In the exilic experience the community is a textual community. The experience of the textual community is a marginalizination and it responds by favouring specific. particular and 'peculiar' texts.

Yet simultaneosly there is an experience of pluralism and diverse interpretations in the textual community. There is still a process of canonization and a supreme appreciation of the text as authoritative. Yet there is no single, authoritative interpretation only authoritative texts. Thus (it seems to me) there is midrash.

Brueggemann links the experience of exilic Israel as a textual community to the experience of Post-Christendom.

I wonder: is there away to be a textual community as the Church in the 21st Century? With the splitting of the Anglican communion the fundamentalist-modernist debate is returning. Can this type of Ecclesiology provide a way forward or will it lead to other dead ends?

Great Video

Found a great interview with Jacques Ellul here.

A Theology of Liberation

This is in response to what Jeremiah posted below. The question I seek to pose is how does God liberate?

I intentionally leave the question open ended. I think foundational to any Christian god-talk is acknowledging that God does liberate but how does relate to our own experiences, authorities, hopes, behaviours and general way of living in the world as individuals, communities, the church and larger political societies? I think it does but I think we really need to examine this.

Jacques Ellul writes about these issues in The Ethics of Freedom, a brilliant book that I encourage everyone to read. In it he examines alienation and shows how alienation pervades all aspects of the human experience. Christ came to end alienation and only in Christ is alienation is ending. At the time I read it I found the book interesting because I felt it successfully contextualized the gospel in the terms of contemporary socialist and academic discourse while remaining true to what I consider the quintessential Christian message "Jesus saves".

Looking back on it I feel Ellul and I differ in one main area: Technological determinism. Although I find his analysis on "the technological society" in his book fascinating, insightful and useful. What I feel is though he is correct about the dangers and workings of a technological society I feel that the Christian faith can still flourish, if the technology is used right. I differ from Ellul primarily because of Michel de Certeau's "The practice of everyday life". His argument concerning the role of the user as being distinct and not determined by the producer has influenced the way I understand technology contra Ellul. Again I feel Ellul's insights are penetrating and important but incomplete.

Thus I see the danger not in technology but it's use: thus a Consumerist Liberation Theology.

But before I can even muse on such a topic I really have to ask: how does God liberate? I believe that he does. I see this in physical healings, in conversions, in the breaking of addictions, in the stories of the scripture and even Creation itself. I believe further this liberation comes especially through the person of Jesus of Nazareth who is both God-with-us and resurrected.

The problem with some liberation theologies as I see it is their engagement with the Exodus narrative as a paradigm of liberation. Although I agree it can be I see a lack of canonical thinking when Christ has nothing to say about the situation and the church is eroded into an arbitrary institution which by sheer luck bares the message of God in the scriptures. Thus I criticize the past liberation theologies for what seems to be inadequate christological and ecclesiological thinking (I criticize here the more colloqial and non-academic liberation theologies not the kind of Boff and Guietterez) despite what can often be good praxis.

Most evangelicals seem to criticize Liberation theologies reliance on the social situation to help interpret scripture. I think this an unfair accusation. I believe that it is very important to read scripture mindful of social situation. I think a lot of the major issues the Church is dealing with today is doing this kind of reading inadequately: from the GOP-Evangelical synthesis in the United States to the odd prosperity gospel churches of some regions in Africa. I will try to expand this thought in a future blog post.

Then the reason I propose such a Theology of consumer liberation is because I believe it is absolutely essential to the orthodoxy,orthopraxy and orthopathy of the church. That is to say that our gospel is the full gospel, our discipleship is authentic and that we have the ability to hope for God's coming reign and mourn the powers of darkness still at work in the world.

Just a thought

Here's a thought: since the end of the climate change conference many have complained that it was a complete 'failure'. Although this is true it seems wrong to me that no one blames the average western consumer. It seems to me that their complacency (or OUR complacency?) in consuming way too much oil, producing way to much waste and generally living like we can have as much energy as we want (which we do not) since the end of World War II is the cause our current crisis.

Big business? PLEASE. The businesses only produce what we want them to produce because they can sell it to us.

Corrupt governments? Maybe. But an even worse self-deceiving,gluttonous and corrupt citizenry.

Experiencing Mozart

While studying for my greek exam I listened to Mozart's requiem.

The reason I tell this story is to understand and engage with how music is experienced, sometimes the same piece of music or composer, differently by different people in different contexts.

In an interview Micheal Ignatieff mentions how his uncle George Grant would listen to Mozart on records, smoking a large cigar and a singing along.

The two contexts are clearly different: myself quietly listening to Mozart ripped off Youtube and the thinker George Grant smoking and singing along to Mozart's music on a record. I can only imagine how different the context would be for the Austrian aristocracy sitting down for the first time to listen and enjoy one of the man's operas.

This got me thinking further.

I have, with the aide of the internet and the computer, access to countless digital recordings of almost any piece of music that I can listen to within a few moments of wanting to listen to it.

George Grant's choice and speed of what he listened to was both widened to anything recorded for a record and limited to owning or borrowing the record to listen to.

The Austrian aristocracy had even less choice only being able to listen to music live, and probably less at that, although I am sure the Hapsburgs would have live court musicians.

This leads me to a firm conclusion: the way I use technology shapes and fashions the way I enjoy, receive, reproduce and think about music. The three examples I gave illustrate that at different points in time depending on the technology and socioeconomic location of the listener music was experienced very differently. There are other factors but right now I want to focus on just the technological aspects of experiencing music.

Why?

I have recently been considering giving up a lot of my consumption of music both online and digitally? I do this first of all because I sometimes consume far to much of it and thus causes me to appreciate it (the music) less. If I am truly to live liberated from satiation (as my last post suggests I wanted too). Secondly I know people who play music; what a great way to build meaningful friendship with these people if the number one way I consume music is listening to their talents?

And finally most of the music I listen to is a pop culture canon (by that I mean an eclectic mixture of different musical suggestions - not the 'top 40') - whether that is Metric for Canadian Alternative, Miles Davis for Jazz or Relient K for Chirstian pop - I don't really have my own taste in music. It's a hodge-podge of digital malaise and I desire something better.

I want to experience the beauty of music. But I need to learn how to do this. Being self-aware is the first step.

Dying to write... a liberation theology

For the last year I have been dying to write a liberation theology.. for North Americans. I appreciate the Latin American and other liberation theologies but I feel there is a DESPERATE, DESPERATE need for a Liberation Theology not for the liberation of the poor/oppressed (although such a thing is still needed) but the alienated, depressed, satiated, hedonistic and tragically nihilist North American consumer (if such a group of people can be liberated it might signal the end of other contemporary oppressions - caused primarily by western Behemoths called corporation which 'serve' the needs of North America).

Anyways - I feel I NEED to write this.

Tax-deductible wine

I came upon this quotation in Illich's "The Rivers North of the Future" and I had to write in down somewhere:

"And a good tax lawyer found a way of making it credible to the IRS that a certain number of cases of ordinary but decent wine are my major teaching tool and can, therefore, be written off from my taxes."

Books and Authors that I would want to read

Here is a list, not very comprehensive, of the various books and authors I am interested in reading and probably should at some point.

Alasdair Macyintyre - Whose Justice? Which Rationality?
Charles Taylor - A Secular Age
Stanley Hauerwas - The Peaceable Kingdom
Noam Chomsky - The Responsibility of Intellectuals
Slavoj Zizek - The Parralax View
Jurgen Moltmann - A Theology of Hope
Ernst Bloch - Principle of Hope
Jacques Derrida - Of Grammatology
George Lindbeck - The Church in a Postliberal Age
Lesslie Newbigin - The Gospel in a Pluralist Society
David Bosch - Transforming Mission
Frederiech Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols
John Howard Yoder - The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel
Reinhold Niebuhr - Christian Realism and Politics Problems
John Maynard Keynes - The General Theory of Employement, Interest and Money
Rerum Novarum - Papal Encyclical issued by Leo XIII
GK Chesterton - Utopia of Usurers
Dorothy Day - Loaves and Fishes
Walter Brueggemann - Old Testament Theology
Karl Marx - Das Capital
Soren Kierkegaard - The Sickness unto death
Michel Foucalt - The Archeology of Knowledge
Fredrich Schleiermacher - On Religion: Speeches to it's cultured despiser
Samuel Beckett - collected Plays
Karl Barth - Dogmatics in Outline
GWF Hegel - Phenomenology of the Mind
Rene Girard - Violence and the Sacred
Immanuel Kant - A critique of pure reason
Thomas Hobbes - Leviathan
JP Sartre - Being and Nothingness
Gabriel Marcel - The Mystery of Being
John Calvin - Christian Institutes
Baruch Spinoza - Ethics
Arthur Schopenhauer - On the fourfold root of the principle of sufficient reason
Goethe - Faustus
Arthur Miller - collected plays
St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Theologica
Irenaues - collected works
Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics AND Tragedy
Plato - Apology
Negri and Hardt - Empire

I realize this is a very unbalanced list - oops. It's almost exclusive male, western and within the last two hundred years with a philosophical-theological bent.

On Word Choice

I have decided for my final blog to write about my own work. Currently I am writing a fantasy novel for my cousin for a Secret Santa game my family is doing this year for Christmas. I am a third done and need to talk about my experience writing a novel. I think that whenever I have written down stories before they have never been longer than seven or eight pages but now I am third way through a planned 100-page novel.

I think the most frustrating experience as a writer is my shallow depository of vocabulary. What I mean is whenever I am writing to say things eloquently, with precision, beauty and attractiveness. What I find instead is a group of about fifty to sixty words which force themselves through my hands and into my manuscript. It makes the creative process at worst excruciatingly nauseating and at best wickedly dull. I am sure that the reading process would mimic such reactions.

So I decided to test my self by putting my manuscript in wordle. It came out with my top used words in a creative, artistic format. Use it on your papers, your blog posts or even a favourite play for fun. I have decided to list the top used words without any conjunction or proper names. They are as follows:

- need (I tend to write from the view-points of the characters, although I am inconsistent with this, and this word is used a lot from the characters point of view. I seem to have one-dimensional characters who only think in terms of 'need')
- violence (One of the many themes of the book, I guess I can not hide it very well and use the word a lot. Now that I know this I will try to find other, more covert, ways in order to bring out this theme)
- moved (I tend to write very akwardly when it comes to physical movement of characters as the plot progresses. The frequent use of this word proves my intuition that I can not write actual events creatively or expressively)
- together (Another word related to my theme, but one better hidden. A lot of the book deals with 'Life Together' or communal living on a journey. I feel that this is a pretty standard word though and may need to find others ways in order to clearly articulate this main theme or idea running through the story. I should also find ways to indirectly show this)
- know (The plot is driven by personality, and I am finding one of my weaknesses deals with not being able to show the full contours and multiple dimensions of personality. In my writing personality seems to be essentialized in phrases like "they know" and as before "they need")
- good (This might be just laziness on my part but when I want to express something as good I should find other interesting and innovative ways besides saying in a rather dull fashion "It was good" or "They were good")
- history (This is less of a theme in the book and more of part of me that seems to have soaked through the layers of the text to come up over and over. I tend to think a lot in the terms and categories of narrative, story, tradition and history and this personal bent seems to have cast shadows in my work)
- sun (This one is simple: whenever I can't think of anything to say or any events to emerge I usually begin talking about the weather or the atmosphere, which always involves a 'bright sun' somehow)
- found (Just as 'need' and 'know' feature extensively as my own construction of personality so also does 'found' as apparently in my little literary world characters are very minimalist creatures who are driven by 'need' and desire to 'know', both of which require 'found'. As in "I found what I needed" or "I found what I wanted to know")
- people (my characters often encounter large crowds and interact with them in some way. This is either from me needing to add some action into a boring scene and not knowing how without adding a crowd or my own personal interest in group psychology seeping through the vocabulary use of this text)
- group (The characters are almost always together. I can't seperate them! But then I just can't describe well that they are in the group so I resort to saying 'group'.)
- death (As I said 'violence' is a theme so naturally the word 'death' will appear every once in a while)
- earth (At the same time I use the word 'sun' a lot to describe the atmosphere when I can think of any event to write about I use to word 'earth' to keep people, well, grounded. What I mean is that I intentionally try to describe the details of the surrounding, what colour leaves or what texture of 'earth', not so that they can imagine a very detailed picture of what is happening but in order to cultivate their imaginations and give the impression of reality.)
- houses (Another major aspect of the novel is the characters interaction with cities. I tend to be in a poverty of language when I approach urban areas in writing and end up trying to describes 'houses', their colours, make-up and shape. I hope, therefore, to lead any reader away from my lack of description of anything else in the city)
- horde (One of the themes of my book is, again, violence. What better images of violence are there than a loud, unorganized, dirty and bloody 'horde')
- attack (This is word is used a lot for two reasons. One, obviously, is my intent on displaying and considering violence. Two, my excess anxiety that I have a lack of plot. An anxiety which I fill by producing various scenes where the hyperbolic action of 'attach' is used.)

And my most used word outside of proper names?

BEGAN

I think the reason for this illustrated one of my biggest obstacles as a writer. Because of the way I think and behave in my life I have a difficulty imagining or expressing action. In my day-to-day moment by moment life I tend to experience, enjoy, participate and value conversations and dialogue over lesser-experienced, lesser-enjoyed and not very well participated in action. The closest thing I come to action is walking, and I walk a lot. But walking, walking and walking is not something very interesting in a story. Therefore I have this constant ghost haunting my work; a fear of writing inane chit-chat and long dialogue as opposed to captivating and enthralling action.
This is why, I believe, I use the word 'BEGAN' so much. It expresses an urgent desire to display action. To begin, and begin and begin and begin. Unfortunately I do not think this actually translates into more and more action with an increasingly eventful plot. Alternatively it becomes an overly abused and cruelly tortured verb which happens to return to my lexicon every so-often only to be hurt and assaulted once again.

Now where does this leave me?

I've been seriously trying to understand what is better to use: the same word used over and over again to create potency and value to the text or the playful wielding of synonyms in a thrust and parry of literary beauty? This is a serious question not only as an author (amateur as I may be) but also a reader (also as amateur I may be). I can see the strengths of both sides. The constant use of the same word can establish a well drawn out theme of idea. On the other hand the mixing of a multitude of synonyms and metaphors can help to create a genuine sense of originality and uniqueness to the text without being painfully obvious about the thematic elements within.
Then again the constant use of the same word or words can be come stale, dry, repetitive and boring, It can become unreadable and revolting. Also the use of multiple words for the same thing, idea or concept can crush a reader's sense of coherence and drown them in an endless sea of confusion and frustration. Both types of uses, then, can have very negative and unpleasant results despite the promise and potential for great use.
As for me I am still undecided. Do I go the one route and prefer a certain set of words, seeing them used over and over again for the good of the text or do I choose the road of synonyms as a road less travelled (in the sense each word is used but not too often) and hoping that it makes all the difference? As I have said, I can not decide. Hopefully for my cousin, whatever path I choose to depart on, he will enjoying reading what I have wrote. That despite perhaps poor word choices the text becomes something wonderful for him, something to curl up on the couch and read with a cup of warm cocoa on some cold, blustery winter day.

Action?

What is action?

Not in any complex, abstract, out-of-this-world sense but in real life experience. There is a difference between being passive and being active but I do not believe the difference is the defined. Because of that we have all these discussions raging about whether writting, talking, buying etc is actually acting or not.

I'm specifically thinking of a few weeks ago where someone mentioned that when people buy fair-trade coffee they "trick themselves into believing they are actually doing something". If they deceive themselves that they are actually doing something what IS doing something?

A piece of bread, a matress and a candle wick

Currently I am reading through Ivan Illich's "The Rivers North of the Future". It is a quasi-biographical work with an emphasis on the nature of Illich's activism and thought. In the first chapter Illich relates the story of an Asain pilgrim, just prior to the second world war, who after conversion decides to hold a pilgrimage to Rome. Throughout the east he is let into every house he comes to, and the locals show him hospitality, after he explains he is on a religious pilgrimage. He was given food, a handout and shelter. In fact, it does not matter that it is even a specifically Christian pilgrimage, they let him in anyway once they found out he was going to a sacred place.
As he comes closer to Rome he arrives in Eastern Orthodox territory and something changes. Instead of going to a strangers house the parishioners pointed him to the Parish house, a place designed for guests and visitors. This is a big difference; an act of hospitality starts to have a form institutionalization. Instead of being able to allow guests into their home the Christians in those land organized themselves in such a way that they built a house for the stranger.
This trend became stronger when he arrived in Catholic Poland. Here people put him up in a hotel. It moved from a choice of the villagers in Asia, to a parish culture of support in Orthodox lands to a fully developed form of a hospitality industry in western europe (that is; the parts of Europe that grew underneath the influence of Catholic Christianity). Illich criticizes this entire trend by explaining how "a gratuitous and truly free choice had become an ideology and an idealism".
According the Illich this developed around the time when (a) Christianity was becoming a dominant force in the Roman Empire and (b) the Empire was collapsing. With the social upheaval at the time the emperors began legislating strict rules in relation to homelessness. In order to deal with homeless refugees the empire gave major financial support to Churches who were already showing hospitality to these people. Thus, in order to deal with the huge influx of money and privelege, the churches institutionalized hospitality.
This is what Illich calls "the perversion of the best is the worst".
At this point Illich seems to be completely lost. We have a socialist government which runs our electricity companies, gives us education for thirteen years, helps fund post-secondary education, funds our health care and medicare,helps set up pensions, finances the disabled, builds our roads and funds social workers who work with homeless and poor with programs such as homeless shelters and soup kitchens, WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT? Aren't all these things intrinsically good? Yes, yes: bureaucracy sucks sometimes being inefficient and wasteful. Yes, it is not perfect. Nothing is. What right does he have to call it "the worst".
Following his discussion about what has happened to hospitality he turns his attention to one of the earliest historical record of Christianity. Outside of an old brothel in Rome there is picture of a man on a cross with the horse of a donkey. Underneath the words "Anaxemenos adores his God". One of the oldest records of of Christianity is some who mocked a person for worshipping a crucified God. How foolish!
It is this sense of foolishness which is lost in Christianity, at least western Christianity, according to Illich. The Good Samaritan parable in Luke is what Illich based his analysis on. According to him "the way of the Samaritan is - pure folly if you really think it through". It is pure folly which is the ultimate duty and can not be normalized in institutions as it has been without being perverted from the ethical duty of the individual.
Illich goes on too talk about the first two generations of Christianity. With the first two generations each Christian community had a prophet, as can be seen in the New Testament records. Yet no longer where they prophets awaiting the coming of the messiah, for he had already come, nor were they bringing the word of God to the people because the word had already come through Jesus. So what did they do? They warned about the antichrist. The antichrist, a mysterious figure, was somehow meant to emerge from the church itself.
For Illich the idea of the anti-Christ is a type of evil opened up only through the revelation of Christ. In a sense that it is a thing which directly contradicts what Christ means. Christ, for Illich, opens up the opportunity to see the potential of others to be redeemed. Sin is the denial of this dignity that Others can have through Christ. It is something completely new. This seems to be an aside, but is utterly important for what Illich is discussing. For this type of treatment, treating people as those who can be redeemed, is "radical foolishness". This freedom of being loyal to someone as if to be loyal to God is the heart of the matter. For Illich "the idea that by not responding to you, when you call upon my fidelity, I thereby personally offend God is fundamental to understanding what Christianity is about."
Christianity then opens up a new possibility. The possibility is that "[we] can encounter God in Chris and Christ in the unknown one who knocked at his door and asked for hospitality." Now this is what Illich means when he says "the best". By "the worst" he means a situation where it is thought that"charitable institutions can do much better than a bunch of individual Christians". That is the central perversion. The loss of the original purity of the gospel. The cause of all the stress, all the corruption and all the evil coming out our western bureacracies today comes from this way of using the gospel.

On the Noam Chomsky Lectures (a play)

When I first saw "the Noam Chomsky lectures: a play" I was intrigued. What could this possibly be about?

I was subsequently disappointed. I went in assuming some interesting themes to come about concerning how the media operates expressed in how the play was written. All there was some of this it was not enough to leave me satisfied. I'm deep discontent with what I read.

First of all the authors play themselves in the play. It is two characters who are modeled after the writer/actors who created them. Maybe this was an attempt to make some sort of point to how characters are represented in literature versus the news media: if so I completely missed that. The characters are really just mouth-pieces for a fairly long history of Canadian involvement in American atrocities in the American proxy wars and oppressive policies during the twentieth century. Other than that there was narrative, personality or genius to either of the two characters.

Secondly there is no structural critique of the media. I was expecting that that way the play was written and set up what be critical about the way the media operates. Although on occasion the play experimented with this (one particular scene involved the characters asking the audience for bribes regarding what should be discussed in the later half of the play) over all it was generally disappointing. I would have been more entertained with the play had an element of Chomsky's criticism of the media's propaganda model within the play itself. Perhaps having the characters mirror the different steps.

Again, I saw a little bit of this. A brief reference to the CIBC ownership of the theatre and sponsoring of the company, some references to Flak and anti-ideology but overall the play had a creative poverty in relation to this. It seemed to have potential in the very idea about making a play based on Chomsky's activism but if fell short; horrifically so.

Finally I would like to point out a few positive aspects of the play as well as some of it's challenges to how we perceive literature and theatre as a whole.

First, reading the play was geuinely educational. I found most productive how the play focused on the naive and hypocritical idea that Canada is a nation of peacemakers. It points to the Canadian involvement in the Vietnam war, making nearly three billion in weapons manufacturing and manipulating data at an international level to make it seem that the war was not illegal by Geneva standards.

The play also gave a fascinating history into the US involvment in South America, Asia and Africa and questioned the policies of the various presidential administrations in relation to their liasons with big business. It is genuinely frightening but nevertheless interesting list of the terrible offences our souther neighbour has been involved with; along with a record of our sheepish complacency with their foreign policies.

Also it gave some interesting insights for me about how literature is produced and received.

First of all I wonder how much literature is political in someway or another. This play was obviously political but how many of the plays and novels and poetry we read has some sort of ideological current flowing underneath the textual surfaces? What have you read for this class that is somehow political? Whether antiracist, feminist,marxist or what have you.

Secondly, and this is related, how does the literature we receive and work through simply add to the maufacturing of consent? Although Chomsky's target is the mass media how do the plays and novels we read fit into the larger landscape? I think about the 'deep' novels we can read with 'meaning' haunting every page: how much of those really just distract us from real issues? Or on the other hand how do 'political' works of fiction make us believe we are actually doing something, contributing to the causes of human rights when really all we are doing is sitting back, drinking a cup of tea and reading a book printed by a publisher connected to big media?

I think the last two questions are the most important?

How much of we read is 'political'?

And, then, how much of what we read 'manufactures consent'?

On the US vs John Lennon

I had the opportunity rececently to view the documentary the US vs John Lennon. I will leave my personal response and opion of the film aside and instead focus on an image in the film that to me manifested all the political power was, is and can be.

The image is of Richard Nixon looking out the window in white house, presumably at a collection of anti-war demonstrators connected Lennon's peace activism. Nixon seems to be both anxious and preoccupied with it.

To me this seemed absurd. Why would the President of the most powerful nation on earth be afraid of a group of people who are young, without much financial power, and had no intention of violence? The film tries to make the point that 26th Amendment, which lowered the suffrage age by three years, perhaps caused this. I found this to be a weak argument as the number of voters would have been in the millions, but not a threatning number.

Yet Nixon was still afraid.

The point of the film is to show that somehow Lennon was heroic in his activism and that he made a substantial difference. I do not doubt his sincerity but I do doubt the amount of credit they give him for his influence. I blame, rather, the US government, for actually being afraid of him. The evidence of this is CIA documents leading up to Nixon himself which showed the agencies survellience of Lennon.

For the rhetorical sake of repition: I find this absurd! Lennon had little geopolitical influence yet the US accredited him worthy of suspicion. In the middle of the Cold War, during the end of the Vietnam war and all the other major geopolitical events going on in the 1970s it seems incredibly foolish to hunt a popular musician - despite his activism.

This got me to thinking about the way the world works: there exists a great degree of unpredictability and chaos to what happens. I'm not talking about the externally human world, such as the environment or the spiritual realm, but what happens in human society.

And this is not neccesarily negative.

If Lennon, who has only a small amount of power, can be perceived as such a threat by the United States, that has fantastic ramifications. It seems to give much more agency to us as historical actors - that is, as people who live, work and create change in history. If Lennon could become something analgous to a national threat what can we do?

This idea that we have an untapped, unused potential for historical agency really intrigues me. As someone who desires justice on a global scale I can see potential in the future. I can also see grave danger.

What happens when people awaken to this agency, one that is both powerful yet uncontrollable?

Milbank on the Incarnation

You know I like an author when I make my own category for him..

Anyways I was reading part of his book "Ontology and Pardon" when I came upon this quotation: "In this way a single suffering became also a sovereign suffering, capable of representing all suffering and of forgiving on behalf of all victims."

This is something rather new to me, or at least he presents it in a way that is rather new, for I never considered that the forgiveness that comes from the cross might relate to Christ being a victim of the world. It is weird to talk about Christ this way - our normal language talks about him offering himself which seems very different from being a victim. But perhaps looking at Christ as being a victim - of the cruelty and apathy of the Roman regime, of the second-temple religious establishment, of the violent nationalism of his people and of the cowardice and abandonment of his disciples - can give us a whole new understanding, a whole new way of looking at Sin and Forgiveness.

This new, or at least different, way about looking at Sin is that it a thing, a force, that victimizes. Forgiveness, the alleviation of the guilt and responsibility, can only be offered by a victim. God being supreme could then only offer forgiveness on behalf of the victims if he himself became one. And he did so in the person of Christ on the cross.

I have to say this idea is absolutely stunning. It threw me off. I think the other way of thinking about the Cross, as Christ offering a sacrifice, is still valid. Now though a whole other dimension is added. It really effects our theologies, ways of talking about Christ and the way we do ethics.

Churches as Microcredit lending groups?

Andrew Jones recently posted on his predictions about the church in the next ten years here.

This relates directly to my previous posts on co-operatives and facebanking. It got me to thinking: how can the Church financially aide it's community? How can we back this up theologically or, maybe, missiologically? I know that this is a very similar idea to what the Mennonites are doing, a institution I will be attaching myself to when it opens its membership to non-members of Mennonite churches in May.

I wonder how this look like in Evangelical or mainline churches. I can see Evangelical churches becoming interested out of a desire to reach people and so to fund their member's entreprenuership if it relates to evangelism. I can also see that Mainline churches would fund different types of social justive iniatives, although what kind I am not sure.

Then there are megachurches. Churches with a thousand(s) of people might utilize this, if they do it can be an explosion of creativity. Of course it could also cause the churches to change focus in a negative way and will also force some churches to change their legal organizational structure but it could really make an impact.

Finally there is the question of denominations. These churches who choose the route of ministering through micro-finance have the choice of either doing so with a denomination or doing it at a local level. Both would have their advantages but both would have their disadvantages as well.

What do you think? Good idea, bad idea? How will it play out? What opportunities would this give to the church?

Very Elemental

When asked to describe "Waiting for Godot" the playwright answered that it was very "elemental". There have been a multitude of diverse interpretations of the playing including a historical parable of the second world war, Freudian psychoanalysis, Jungian psychoanalysis, Catholic purgatory, generic Christian, homeerotic, late modernist, posmodernist etc etc. It seems like Becket was correct, it is very elemental as shown by the diverse interpretations, readings and understandings of it.

I have decided instead of having an over-arching thesis to the play I will rather analyze a series of quotations taken from the second act alone and extrapolate some of the 'elemental' themes, images and ideas that float around the play. Part of the reason I have decided to this is that it seems that the text really does not allowed for any final or definite meaning, if there was a final and definite meaning Godot would have arrived. Instead since Godot does not, in the end, arrive no major discourse or idea can really capture the play. It is uncapturable, just as Estrangon and Vladimir can not capture Godot's arrival.

"What do we do now, now that we are happy? Wait for Godot." - I choose this first quotation because it seems to me trying to express a base dissatisfaction with satisfaction itself. Somehow, whether it is universally human or culturally constructed, happiness is utterly ellusive and when it comes there seems to be a deep, unconquerable sense of moreness. A sense that people, even after being happy "still haven't found what they've been looking for."

It seems also that the waiting, the waiting for the more and the waiting for something which or someone who never comes, saves us from the incompleteness of happiness. Sure this being happy comes, but it's elusive and vagrant character is always terribly surprising and unsatisfying. It is almost as if we need salvation from the normal and everyday, and we receive that through waiting.

"He's forgotten everything!" - Like happiness memories are also dangerously elusive. The second act begins in the same place but a day after. Despite being the next day the characters can not really remember what happen and whether what they though happened could quite possibly be a dream. This strange relationship with memories, and thus the past, brings out frustration and deferrals but can express something quite profound. Something extremely important we can forget, something tedious and meaningless can stick in our minds. Thus is memory.

Memory is not something we can control. It is a force. It is a strong power that gives and takes away from us in our day to day lives. The nature of memory is that of happiness, we can not control it's comings or going, it's here and theres. It's presence, like happiness, is elusive.

" It's better if we parted.
You always say that and you always come crawling back." - This expresses the very fundamentally human relationality. Many a times, whether for good reasons or bad, we have the small or large temptation just to END a relationship. Whether that is with a friend, significant other, family member, someone in the same association as you there is almost always a trace, a small trace, a whisper of leaving. But almost always there is a return. A return to the relationship. A return to liking the relationship. A return from the world of fantasy where you leave to reality where you stay. It's a return.

Once again the elusiveness of something is challenged, or at least wrestled with. First it was happiness, then memory and now relationships. It seems like all human experience is overshadowed by a threat of absence or leaving. Absence of happiness, memory and friendship. A leaving of satisfaction, an always returning memory and a friendship that sometimes desires being alone.

"I've puked my puke of a life here, I tell you!" - Here is an excellent feeling of disgust with one's own existence. It is likened to puke, to a sickness which rejects whatever you take in. This has a tragic element to it. The idea that one's who existence was not made or influenced by rational, moral or spiritual decisions but rather just came out. The sense that one's growing up, ones adulthood and one's old age can simply come out without any control.

Again the substance of the elements of life being operated by a distant, elusive force is present. Puke is not something one decides, it just happens and it is uncontrollable. It is a disgusting mess and undefeatable.

"To have lived is not enough for them." - Once again the frustration that simple existence is not enough is expressed in despair. In the particular context of the quotation Estragon and Vladmir poetically consider the ways of nature, which insatiable. Just like happiness, it is not enought. Not enough. To simply exist is not enough there needs to be more.

"Say something! (in anguish) Say anything at all!" - The fear of silence, of no communication, no connections with the outside is utter terror. It is ultimately like the fear of death, for in death it seems like there will be only silence. Silence eternally. And in that silence being completely and utterly alone.

"Let's go.
We can't.
Why not?
We're waiting for Godot." - The elemental frustration desire of movement. There seems to be no movement. Why? Perhaps in waiting, perhaps in patience, one can really understand why. Or maybe patience is not the answer why but is still required anyway.

"Let us not waste our time in idle discourse! Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed... To all mankind they are addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment in time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not." - Besides the elements of human life such as happiness, memory, relationships and waiting there is also this deep impulse to do good and not waste. You can not really separate wanting to listen to the cries and wanting not to waste. Again just like with the other elements this sense of responsibility is so utterly human, and yet elusive as the quotation suggests. Often times we consider the cries are directed towards others OR we waste time with 'idle discourse' when can be doing Good.



"We are not saints, but we have kept our appointment. How many people can boast as much?"

Already I have discussed five elements found in waiting for Godot that are both essentially human and, due to their nature, essentially alienating. Happiness, memory, friendship and morality are all things in human life that are beyond humans, beyond their control. I would also add waste into that mix. They come and go almost as they please, leaving us frustrated. So where do Saints come in?

I would suggest that all people have saints. Saints are not simply a specifically Catholic religious phenomenon but are found wherever humans accidently construct a civilization. What are saints? Saints, using what I already have written, can really be those who can flow, flux and be with the forces of happiness, memory, friendship, morality and waste with ease. The rest of us non-saints can not so we look to the saints in order to be like them. We want to flow with those forces and not against them and this seems almost impossible.

Thankfully we are waiting for the impossible. Or Godot. Or God. And while waiting we have that ability to be, to both strive and give up on being like the saints. It is an endless dialogue and dialect.

SPOILER ALERT:

At the end of the play Godot never arrives, and the two characters really do not change. Primarily "Waiting for Godot" is not a play or a story but Beckett's attempt at putting humanity on the page. That sounds like a bit much and it is. Pay careful attention I did not say Beckett succeeded only attempted.

And would Beckett even want to succeed/ believe he can succeed. For success would mean Godot has arrived, and he doesn't. Happiness never arrives, memory never stays, relationships are constantly in the process of leaving, waiting is endless, so is waster and no one is ever canonized.

The fact that the characters are still waiting for Godot is then the defeat of Nihilism, or at least the postponement of nihilism. In my last post I suggested that the play seems to oddly reject Nihilism in favour of waiting. I really do not comprehend what I meant but I think basically Nihilism is not allowed a victory. The waiting is an endless hope that Godot may arrive. There is a fear of nothingness, loneliness and all else but never do the characters doubt Godot will arrive. There's is a "hope against hope".

Happiness will go, memory will fade, life will morph into death, goodness will be delayed and relationships will falter. But Godot will come. Perhaps suicide, but not yet because Godot will come. The forces will remain forces, saints will be saints and sinners, but at the very least you have kept your appointment.

CHAOTIC CONCLUSIVE REMARKS:

I honestly loved this play. I think the simple scenes, lack of plot and yet pervading sense there is something going on behind the scenes drew me towards what the play was about(or not about). I found humour in some parts and oddly placed biblical references and others, and it was this interplay that drew me. I thought: is Godot a typological representative of God? What does it mean that he never comes, or at least what does it mean for someone who has lost faith in God coming as a late modernist like Beckett likely did?

I also loved Beckett's narrative treatment of nihilism: he does not answer it he simply ignores and defers it. It got me thinking about how people in general attempt to counter the threat of nihilism. It also made me consider what a 'hope against hope' and an eternal patience could really answer to nihilism. Can such a thing actually counter nihilism?

I also considered my faith: how would I place in relation to the faith of this book? I think I could only do this by writting the play backwards if you will. What I mean is that I would need to right the play in a sense where Godot has come, but will come again. This is the essence of Christianity: God has come AND will also come again. This is unique to Christianity and is found nowhere else. How will this re-writting of the story change it's themes, characters and purpose?

In previous posts I commented that we read all literature, in some sense, historically and we also read history through the eyes of literature. So how does "Waiting for Godot" correlate with this? Perhaps we can read "Waiting for Godot" up against both Fukuyama's 'End of History' and Lyotard's Collapse on Metanarratives. It can also help understand the social and psychological conditions of those who have lost their faith, whether in Marxism, Christianity, nationalism or some other religious ideals.

Co-operatives

I am always perpetually in thought about how to organize societies better. All I have really been able to come up with is oranizing the economy along the lines of worker's and consumer co-operatives.


These thoughts come from a reality I perceive: that the distinction between left and right economically and politically is false. Historically they both arise out of the enlightenment era and the french revolution. The right at that time did not want to seriously change societal structures (the monarchy) but agreed with the basic philosophies of the Enlightenment (first classical liberalism). The left tried to match philosophy with policy by having a revolutionary policy (but moved, unlike the right, to embrace the succesor of liberalism in the various forms of socialism).

Not much has changed.

The left was seriously set back by the Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet and Maoist regimes, thankfully, as some have already said, the end of the cold war was a sort of victory for the left.

Unfortunately the left has been degraded in the generic keynesian strategies and has a lost what once their attempt at creative and revolutionary policy. Not to say the revolutionary policy is inherently good, it was this thrust of revolution that caused the Reign of Terror in post-revolutionary france and some of the dictatoral tyranny in marxist lands.

The left (and by that I mean a specific organizational politics, where philosophy meets policy) must rejuivante itself. The right has never really existed as distinct from the left, and as the left was co-opted by a beuarocratic keynesian ethos the right has been co-opted by the interests of a very specific group of businesses, specifically certain financial institutions, oil companies and large scale manufacturers.

So let us move in the direction of co-operatives. Where we own what we produce and consume, or at least have a say in how it is produced and consumed. This can severely break-down financial class positions and increase production and equity in our societies.

Facebanking??

Occasionally I like to take two concepts and, for a lack of a better word, breed them. Thus this little thought, this small theoretical experiment.

Social networking (Facebook etc) meets finances (banking).

Imagine:

- If you join a cause on facebook, you could also donate to it there and then
- you could, out of the joy of your heart, give all your friends on facebook .50 cents each
- on 'marketplace' type apps you could order things
- you could update your status: need 20$ for concert this saturday... and maybe might lend you or give you money
- perhaps some sort of application where you can also invest in businesses or even friends ideas
- perhaps create between a group of people a 'war chest' type of thing

WHY?

- easy way for charities, grass roots politicians and other causes to raise money
- great way to be a support/ find support from friends
- finances beginning looking more like Village Banking and other microfinancial institutions.. which would be an interesting experience in the west
- finances are based more and more on friends and community then on big banks and credit institutions

OF COURSE it might be difficult to set up but I think if it was it would be a pretty interesting and very experimental as well as fruitful ground for building relationships and practicing generosity and experiencing creativity.

Waiting for Godot - Part I

"Nothing to be done." pg 2

"Nothing to be done." pg 4

"There's nothing to show." pg 4

"Suppose we repented.
Repented what?
Oh...
Our being born?" pg 5

"It's not the same thing. Nothing to be done." pg 5

"Yes, but while waiting.
What about hanging ourselves?" pg 12

"One is what one is.
No use wriggling.
The essential doesn't change.
Nothing to be done." pg 17

"I don't like talking in a vacuum." pg 29

"Let us not speak ill of our generation, it is not not any unhappier than it's predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all." pg 32

"Will night never come?" pg 33

"He can't bear it. Any longer." pg 34

"He subsides. Indeed all subsides" pg 36

"Time has stopped." pg 37

"Finished! it comes to rest. But - but behind this veil of gentleness and peace night is charging and will burst upon us - pop! Like that! Just when we least expect it." pg 39

"In the meantime nothing happens.
You find it tedious?
Somewhat." pg 40

"But is it enough, that's what tortures me, is it enough?" pg 40

"Do you know what he calls it?...
The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net." pg 42

"Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" pg 43

"who from the heights...loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers" pg 45

"I hear something.
Where?
It's the heart.
Damnation!
Silence!" pg 49

"I don't seem to be able.. to depart.
Such is life." pg 50

"That passed the time.
It would have passed in any case.
Yes, but not so rapidly." pg 51

"Let's go.
We can't.
Why not?
We're waiting for Godot." pg 51

"I'm unhappy.
Not really? Since when?
I'd forgotten." pg 54

"You don't know if your unhappy or not?
No sir." pg 56

I choose the above quotations to illustrate the general mood which pervades "Waiting for Godot" a play I picked up written by Samuel Becket. The play is completely dialogue and the action, if anything that happens can be considered action, is only built as a deferral to more conversation. The whole premise of the play, of two men waiting for someone who never arrives, seems to point to the absence of action in the play.

Let me go further to explain. But I cannot. Why not? (see above quotation, pg 51) The structure of the dialogue does not allow for an interpretation of a mood. I want to call it despair, but it is not quite that. I also want to call it lost, but it is not that either. When reading the play whenever something is about to be decided or stated they do not. Take for example the quotation above (pg 54) where one of the characters states he is unhappy, the other asks him to clarify by telling him when to which he respond that he has forgotten.

Or take the quotation (pg 56) when one of the characters asks another one "You don't know if your unhappy or not?" to which the other character responds in the negative.

Near the start of the play the phrase "Nothing to be done" repeats itself several times. It seems that from the very beginning Becket is refusing to allow us to say what this play is about. The characters express a frustration at this pervading absence and one of the suggests that they repent, but neither of them can really express what they should repent off (quotation pg 5) except perhaps of being born, or existing, which itself makes no sense.

Now I would not necessarily call this position nihilistic, for even that is a decision on it's final meaning. In a sense it goes beyond nihilism, beyond nothing (or maybe before it??) into undecidability. What I mean by this is that the characters themselves can not really decide on the meaning of their own times, histories, societies, generations and even there own lives. Take (quotation pg 32) the monologue from Pozzo, one of the characters. First he says we can not speak badly about our generation, then he says we can not speak good about it. He pauses and then decides that he can not really decide whether to say anything good or bad and therefore chooses to say nothing.

The threat of having to decide and to live with that decision pervades the text. Although in context Pozzo refers to leaving the countryside in order to go to the market "I don't seem able... to depart." (pg 50) is an expression at the frustration not to be able to decide to go either way. Pertinent to this statement; (pg 43) "Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes, it's awful!" which helps to enlightenment Pozzo's later quotation.

This determinancy of indeterminancy is found elsewhere in the play. While describing the favourite dance of his slave, Pozzo says (pg 42) "Do you know what he calls it?... The Net. He thinks he's entangled in a net." That perfectly sums up the themes I see in the play.

It is not nothingness but the inability to choose and decide meaning which the play's dialogue centres upon. It is 'waiting' and not 'dying' (or perhaps 'waiting to die' and not 'dying') that seems to be the main preoccupation of the plays two main characters, Estrangon and Vladimir, who even contemplate hanging themselves out of sheer frustration about waiting.

"Will night never come?" pg 33

"Time has stopped." pg 37

"In the meantime nothing happens." pg 40

Just some research I did

Here is the end-product of some research I did on Yahoo Finance regarding who owns what...

It's interesting, somewhat frightening and disillusioning, all at the same time.

UPDATE: The six also have major holdings in all Canadian banks

SOCIAL INNOVATION IDEAS

Here are two ideas I came up with today:

THE GIFT ECONOMY - For lack of a better name this idea involves having a regular space and time for a neighborhood to give away things. It's the same idea as a farmers market but instead it is a kind of freecycle. You bring furniture, food, electronics or whatever to give away for FREE. Also you can come and receive for FREE.

VIDEO CO-OP - This probably exists already but what I'm thinking is a co-op where you would pay an initial 200$ membership fee and then be able to take out whatever you want, whenever, for FREE since you are an owner of the store. This can create serious competition for Blockbuster but it would be an interesting experiment.

Histories and Literature

Recently I have begun reading "Jesus and Marx" by Jacques Ellul. The book promises to be an interesting reading although this is completely in my own bias since Ellul is one of my favourite writers and has been for a few years.

The beginning of the book discusses four issues where marxism challenges the complacent situation of Christianity. Specifically what I picked up on was the Marxian (which he picked up from Hegel) emphasis on history. Not "the history of historians" but history as "we find it in the Bible: history filled with meaning, moving in a revealed direction, and culminating in a 'apotheosis' but with everything situated in history."

This intrigued me. Ellul continues,

"Christians had completely forgotten that the bible relates events, not reasoning; they had become immersed in metaphysics." Ellul expands on this by saying: "God enters the concrete life of his people and does not withdraw them from the world. He participates in history."

And again, this time more powerfully:

"Thus Christianity has utterly betrayed the very essence of revelation by transforming it into a religious spirituality."

Using Marxist theory he criticizes Christianity for loosing historical memory; for reducing the essence of faith and revelation to 'metaphysics' and 'religious spirituality'. The two things are connected: Christians loose a sense of history and thus become hyper-spiritualized (which makes them forget about real issues, how the real God lives and acts in history).

This is a forceful criticism and valuable insight; surely the neo-gnostic tendencies to make Christianity into a feeling and a knowing rather than a group of people called by God through Christ who act in real history has been influential. Ellul himself points to the marxist critique that "This unjust society results from twenty centuries of Christianity."

What does this have to do with literature?

Ellul shows that Marx (and Hegel) restored the idea of meaningful history, the type of history that the bible records and contrains, into popular consciousness. He further shows that it is this meaningful history that has been lost by Christianity and needs to be recovered.

What is this meaningful history?

Literary history. Or rather history written as literature, as a story. History that has a beginning and an ending, it has conflict and consummation, it has events and peoples that are meaningful to end result. It is not a chaotic dance of meaningless facts, records of horrific suffering and utterly pointless death. Rather it has a point.

This literary history has nothing essentially in common with "the history of historians". This history is a story. Up till now I have used arguments from Ellul to set up my introductory point: that Christianity is historical in nature, and that history is primarily literary.

BUT what does this mean for literature;what does this mean for the way we teach, learn, understand, use, theorize and speak about literature? Specifically how do we teach, learn, understand, use, theorize and speak as Christians who know about the history?

I have a few suggestions:

First it means that the we will be inevitable be reading the bible into whatever text we read. We can be reading Marquis de Sade (please do not, but that's my suggestion) and somehow read the Bible into it. It also means that unconsciously we will likely pick up on allegories and allusions within various texts, both classical and popular, that relate to Christianity. Whether this be Faust with the spectre of Solomon haunting your reading or R.A. Salvatore with possible memories of the more mythic-like Biblical stories.

I do not believe Christians can read a text without reading it WITH the bible. If they do not admit this, they must read both unconsciously.

Secondly, if we recover historical consciousness, we can begin seeing a literary text both within it's historical period as well as somehow being placed in the larger metanarrative of Christianity. Reading Tolkien for example one can (as the makers of the film series do) draws parrellels between Sarumans destructions and mechanization with the current ecological crisis as well as the effects of industrializations.

Primarily my thesis is this: Literature is not read alone. It is read with something. As Christians naturally we read it with the scriptures, and as theologically minded Christians (who know that God acts IN history) we can also see literature in the terms of a historical meaning.

The ideas in the post were various: I explored the Marxist critique of Christianity slightly, the importance of history in the sense of literary history, and the impact of being Christian readers: both in using the bible and and realizes that God is in history.

Some of the ideas I did not explore in this post were: the full extent history can play in literary studies, how the role of Scripture in reading literature can be inverted so that we read Scripture through other literature, how both of these things can lead to a fresher understanding of literary textuality.

My question to you would be: what ideas did you see in my post? What ideas do you want to explore through it?

A different way to look at the same thing

Recently I began discussing how the ethical impulse towards the Other, towards the person who is different, is something completely lost in democracy. I examined some of what Levinas, the Jewish talmudic commentator, had to say about such an issue and used the follow quotation:

"Modern philosophy viewed subjectivity as a clash of egos, in which competing drives ultimately find themselves at war... [and because they are at war they] are together. And this view understood peace as that condition in which reason reigns. Thus, modern philosophers believed reason [would stop the war]." and because of this "Rather than maintaining the alterity of the other, [that] peace assimilates the stranger into the Same." And another quotation:"This pursuit [of peace] violates the alterity of the other, in the name of the needs of the community".

I got this as a response to my discussion:

"You do a good job of identifying a specific point to discuss, but you could discuss this quotation a little more closely. Get in there and talk about the words and the ideas that the quotation raises as specifically as possible."

I began to wonder if I could discuss this quotation "more closely" and "as specifically as possible". I commenced in trying to work through what that might mean in a blog post, or in a piece of writting in general. How can we get more specific? What does that mean? How does that look like?

It reminded me of two things:

First on the blog planet Dave Humphrey posted a piece of "reading up against a text" rather than "reading against a text". Perhaps I have actually "read up against" and not "read against" his post enough to understand what he means but it seems to me to be pertinent to what I am discussing here. Reading "up against" is a method which is "less decided" and "more tennative". The meaning, and the role that we as readers have in sharing in the construction of such meaning, has the presence of uncertainity with in it. It is unlike reading against which "forces" the reader to come at the text from a fixed position, a solid way to understand what is being said which lacks being able to be "circuitous instead of straight", it lacks the ability to be close by but not there.

That idea of "reading up" has a strangle correlation to something in Katz' book about the Jewish midrash. The jewish practice of retelling and reframing epic biblical stories is explained. Exhorted if you will.

"But the midrash is not simply rabbinic commentary on the Torah.. not simply a tool for reading a story. The Bible is a holy text, and the rabbis believe that through midrash - that is, through their interpretive process- the holy voice of God as alterity open itself up to us... Midrash opens up the voices in the Torah that are muted in the text.. Midrash lifts these voices out of the text and then brigns them to bear on the narrative. By enabling our access to these others, midrash brings us closer to the ethical and, thus, closer to God." (pg 18)

So not only is reading up against a text something which is possible but the Jewish rabbis bring this further by saying that through reading it differently, in a variety of ways, you open up the possibility of hearing the marginalized and the different. You are listening to the voice of the other. And this practice is so good, so saturated in ethics, so close to love that we are, in some way, close to God. Closer to God. Simply by reading differently, reading "up against" rather than "reading against" we open the possibility of hearing other voices that we never heard before. Voices of the other. Voices, maybe of God.

This brings up something neither the academy (by that I mean all the university institutions, guilds, guidelines, journal editors and anyone in the industry of making knowledge) nor the church (by this I mean something which is individual congregations, theologies, pastors... not an 'industry' as such though occasionally acting as one through publishing houses, seminaries etc) want to admit. The interpretation and understanding of a work of fiction or non-fiction, literature or trash, novel or shortstory, philosophy or fantasy, pop stuff and scripture is not controlled by one source.

Usually what is objected is that such a thing will take away from the "real meaning" of text (whether that be the Bible, Lord of the Rings, Lewis' books, Shakespeares plays). This critique leads me to add to my argument using (pay attention to that word) an unconventional source: a work of old french sociology from the sixties I found in a friends cultural studies text book.

The work is called "The Practice of Everyday Life" by Michel de Certeau, a jesuit and sociologist who shows a fascinating prejudice in the way we talk about things economically, culturally and even historically. He says his study intends to examine 'users' "whose status.. in society is concealed by the euphemistic term 'consumer' ". What he is proposing is that economically and culturally we look at two classes: the producers and the consumers. The producers make the product (be it a car, a television ad or a book) and the consumers, well, consume it. They eat it (not literally), they take it all in. In thus model "they are assumed to be passive and guided by established rules". Not true says Michel. Instead we are users, we do not just take in but we fiddle and manipulate (as users) what is given to us (by producers). Like the indigenous peoples using the catholic rituals for their pagan beliefs after that Spanish conquerors tried to force them to convert. They did, outwardly, but used Christian objects and texts in a very non Christian way.

Michel brings his ideas of users (not consumers) and producers back towards literature and reading.

"In reality, that activity of reading has on the contrary all the characteristics of silent production... he insinuates into another person's text the ruses of pleasure and appropriation: he poaches on it, is transported into it.. A different world (the reader's) slips into the authors place. This mutation makes the text habitable, like a rented apartment. It transforms another person's property into a space borrowed for a moment of transient."

I am pulling on three quotations together now. In order to read and discuss "a lot more closely" I would have to give up reading "up against". And in doing so I claim, in some ways, to be a producer and not a user. I am a user of the text I am reading, not a consumer and certainly not a producers. The thing is not mine, yet I can use it in away that is in some sense uniquely mine. And If it is some how unique to me, perhaps I can practice some sort of Midrash. The book I am reading is no sacred text. Therefore the best I can hope for in practicing midrash is an interesting idea, a different reading of that text, maybe hearing the voice of a marginalized, a specific group, or the marginalized in general. In that way I am doing the ethical, or at least searching for that.

Now returning to the original quotation, the one about clasing egos. It seems to me through reflection that perhaps this clash, resulting in difference, is not solved by trying to eliminate difference. Rather perhaps we can apply harmony and not discord between the differences. Harmonious difference.

How?

Perhaps by reading "up against" a text. Maybe by using, not consuming or producing, what is there. Possibly by practicing midrash. Perhaps we can get closer to responding to the other. Closer to harmonious difference.

I say this very tongue-in-cheek but maybe reading and discussing "as specifically as possible" is not the only right way to write and think.

the Other and things we like - things like democracy

I picked up the book "Levinas, Judaism, and the Feminine" from Old Goats the other day simply out of name recognition. I have heard of Emmanuel Levinas before but was unclear what he wrote about (Wikipedia does not reveal everything) so I wanted to find out. I discovered I could use the text for the class so I had no second thoughts about purchasing it. The book itself seems to be part of a philosophy of religion series from Indiana University Press and thus a lot more specific and focused than I hoped, but alas I did find something to blog about with in the text.

I do not know whether one can be a 'fan' of a Christian theologian who most people outside academic theology circles know nothing about, but if you can then I am a fan of John Milbank. Specifically I found fascinating his reading of modernity being founded on the notion of original violence. No wonder the following quotation from "Levinas, Judaism and the Femonone" drew my attention and produced an abundance of reflection on my part:

"Modern philosophy viewed subjectivity as a clash of egos, in which competing drives ultimately find themselves at war... [and because they are at war they] are together. And this view understood peace as that condition in which reason reigns. Thus, modern philosophers believed reason [would stop the war]." and because of this "Rather than maintaining the alterity of the other, [that] peace assimilates the stranger into the Same." And another quotation:"This pursuit [of peace] violates the alterity of the other, in the name of the needs of the community".

What is being said here is essentially that in order to have peace, stability, justice etc etc one needs to make sure that any difference needs to be eroded, consumed or destroyed. For example, to be part of high school clique one must be like the other members of the clique in someway and hide or change the part of you that is not like them. Levinas is saying that this is in reality the way our modern state government and culture functions because it is based on "reason" which looks for the best way to rule and is not based on the ethical impulse to take care of the stranger.

Originally 'we are elected to responsibility' and we do not choose this responsibility. Instead it is the first thing that is required of us to be human. At one point the author points out that for Levinas ethics is always 'Anarchical' because it is based on our responsibility to the other, the stranger, and not to the commands of rulers. On the surface this seems contradictory, but that is not the case. Instead what Levinas means is that our human-ness is not defined by 'natural rights' as in the case of politics (American, French, European, Canadian and A LOT of modern states) but by our natural responsibility to the other. Natural rights focuses on what individuals deserve and can demand from others, where as natural responsibility demands that you take care of the other who deserves your aide .

There is a world of difference between the two understandings.

Of course in the discussion of the responsibility to the other Levinas brings up a host of different stories from Torah, being a practicing Jew and Talmudic commentator. His focus is the command "thou shall not kill" as the fountainhead for the practice of responding to the Other. He expands this through an exposition on the Stories of Adam and Eve, of Cain and Abel, Abraham and Isaac, and the book of Ruth. He even interprets the creation story as an element of this theme. In my next post I hope to explore his use of the biblical text in his discussion of "the responsibility to the other" and to ask how he can be both a philosopher and biblical commentator, how he reconciles what he calls "the greek" and "the hebrew" in his work.

Literature

Here are the books I will be reading:

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Becket
The Noam Chomsky Lectures:a play by Brooks and Verdecchia
Levinas,Judaism and the Feminine by Katz
Jesus and Marx by Ellul

I have not decided about the last one

Sacrament and Symbol

What is the difference between sacrament and symbol?

I've been thinking about this a bit lately, specifically in relation to communion but also in regards to other thing. A lot of continental philosophy talks about symbols and culture, and the interplay between the two is interesting but I'm wondering if Sacraments need to be add to the discussion.

I am not talking about 'official' sacraments here, but the idea that presence of the sacred can be actual in the physical.

Why doesn't continental philosophy starting talking about a sacramentality? In a sense it has already begun with the work of Derria and the Deconstructionists in an apophatic way. The critique of the metaphysics of presence has the flavours of a via negativa project. But what if we viewed that critique as more of the return of sacramentality?

I'll be honest, I do not have academic background on deconstruction but it interests me what I know or think I know and understand.

Anyways that's my incoherent rant. If this makes sense to you please tell me.

This space

So I have decided to use this space for my Literature class as well, which means I will be blogging mainly on the five texts I choose tomorrow morning for class. I have no idea what they will be but I am hopeful that somehow these texts will inspire thought and interest in me, if not you the hypothetical reader (if one exists at all..).

Anyways I am sort of afraid that I will look at the text in some uber-philosophical matrix, a hybrid of various continental philosophies picked up through reading and some narrative theology. I am afraid because this is a very specific way of reading, and I wish to have a broader way of reading texts.

I've been thinking I can also read it through the lens of ethics: what ethical maxims is the text setting up and/or tearing down? I think this would be a very interesting way to read the text and some will produce some very provocative ethical and political insight or idea that might make a great conversation starter.

Isaiah

How do Newspapers still exist?

How do Newspapers still make money? The fact is you can get more information and sometimes more reliable and better quality information from Wikipedia and other internet sources such as RSS. Then why do Newspapers still make money? What's the point?

Christendom and Kingdom of God Part II

So if the Kingdom of God is the new focus of post-Christendom Christianity what does this mean?

I have a proposal: where as the old Christendom paradigm was based on a Roman Imperial M.O. ("Constantinian") the new paradigm is not post-Christendom but rather a new Christendom paradigm based not on the Roman Imperial M.O. but a liberal-socialist model (not quite marxist or anarchist but a stange blend of the two, with classical liberalism on the side).

Why?

Usually the language of KoG is used to associate the notions of social justice and politicial ciritque with the gospel. Although I believe that justice and critique are part of the gospel (even the word 'gospel' contained political connotations in the first century Roman world) I wonder if such a strong association between the KoG and a radical socialist Christendom has potential. Potential to change paradigms and potential to expand a often highly individualized gospel based on justifying phantom sins (by phantom sins I mean preaching forgiveness without going into the depths of what we need forgiveness for or the outcome of forgiveness).

And is this the right potential anyways?

I think there is more to say about this new Christendom paradigm, which draws from the radical reformation but is distinct from it by rejecting it's two-worlds dualism.

Christendom and Kingdom of God

Recent missional and other Christian writers have attacked a church paradigm called 'Christendom'. This cultural paradigm for the church assumes that the church should have some sort of cultural control on state and society. The critique of this view has long been part of the traditions of the radical reformation and has since flourished in certain evangelical-glocal Christian circles.

Now I have to say I agree with the critique almost entirely, at least the parts I understand of it. I totally see how being ecclesial-centric can actually harm both our ethics and seriously damage any worthy christology. Yet what I find interesting is how often in these anti-Christendom literatures they speak about the centrality of the Kingdom of God (KoG). The KoG, a term founded heavily in the synoptic gospels and sparsed through the New Testament is a term referring, clearly in study of the gospels, to a non-spatial political-spiritual entity where the entire Cosmos is put under the reign, or rule, of God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. I make this distinction from a view of the KoG being a nation-state type entity rather than it being a 'religion-with-out-religion' (Caputo) and politics-without-politics that it truly resembles.

My point here is how spot on these new writers are when they contrast Christendom (which essentially is a Imperialist way under the guise of Christianity) with the Kingdom of God (which is a biblical idea about the anti Imperial community of Gift which comes through the work of Christ).

My rant is now over, but I will flesh these ideas out in the future more.

Slavoj Zizek as a commodity fetish.

Next time you're in a chapters look at how many Zizek books there are in the philosophy section. He's become a cultural commodity, part of pop culture philosophy (or philosophy of pop culture). It's interesting the ways he's described by reviewers. Just go to Amazon and read some of them. He's called things like 'scandalous' and 'counter-intuitive' and any other word under the sun made to present as the Rock Star of Philosophy. A regular marxist commodity fetish.

Interesting Video

More on Dead Denominations

I was thinking about this whole dead denominations thing a bit more and I think I can explain what's happening better. Younger people see God's work as more holistic than older generations. What I mean by that is they see the work of God in things like taking a friend out for coffee who is going through a rough time as giving to God, they see sponsoring a child through World Vision or Compassion as giving to God, they see personally giving money to missionaries (or through agencies like Gospel for Asia) as giving to God. But giving tithes on sunday morning? They don't see that as so sacred as the older generations do because they see giving as being a way the live not something they do only at church. Sure they might throw in a couple bucks here and there, but certainly not 'ten percent' (which is not really a biblical eccliessiological thing anyway).

This will certainly lead to denominational break downs within the next few decades.

Shiny Things

Two bigs things in the history of Money happened in the 20th Century. The end of the supremacy of the pound, and the beginning of the supremacy of the American dollar. But even bigger than these two things is something that happened in the 1970s when Gold parity with dollars lost it's momentum. Now I'm no historian, but the fact is Gold has been a motivating factor behind human behaviour and politics for thousands of years. People who had gold in the past always had access to food and land, or the potential access to food and land. Gold was extremely valueable.

Why? Why is Gold so valuable? Why has gold become the cause of the deaths and lives of millions, the recreations and destructions of whole civilizations?

Why?

Because it's shiny!

WE LIKE SHINY THINGS.

It's absurd.

Expecting Life

The average age expectancy worldwide is 70. In doing research for a few posts ago I discovered that for most of human history the life expectancy was very low. For instance in ancient Rome it was between 20-30 years, in the Medieval Caliphite it was up to 35 and in the early 20th Century it was still very low at 30-40 years. Suddenly by today it has doubled. How? Well, lots of reason. Disease eradication. Low infant mortality (before the Industrial revolution the infant mortality rate was over 75% meaning 3 out of every four children would not live past five).

Our life expectancy is nothing short of a miracle. Yet to not know that shocks you when viewing the history of human life.

Check this out for more info on some health related stuff. Or the wikipedia article.

Ikonic

On the total opposite end of Peak Church is something like this: Ikon

It's an interesting little church-which-is-not-a-church in Ireland, influenced by Poststructuralism. Check it out: its a website that lets you edit it. It's a wiki! I can't really explain more of it, but if you check it out you will see the cool stuff they are doing. You probably have seen nothing like it.

Dead Denominations

I was accidently reading a book today when I came upon an interesting fact. The largest denomination in the US, the Southern Baptist Convention, gets 80% of it's money from those who were born before 1946. Oy Vey! That means, if the life expectancy of the US is 78 by 2024 the SBC will become basically bankrupt. How will they pay for seminaries, churches, missions etc? No money!

Then again I can understand why this might happen. I am someone who sees giving as something good, virtuous and also neglected. Yet I do not view tithing (AKA giving money to the church) this way, as I feel God could probably do more with my money if I gave it to people to feed the hungry, clothe the needy than by paying my churches electricity bill or to buy and new and better computer system. Thus I will give, but to do good, to give where I feel God would want me to and therefore NOT church.

Now I have a confidence that God can do the impossible, but that doesn't mean that he will not does this mean he will save denominations. Perhaps denominations are at an end, or near end.

Ironically 2025 is when Peak Coal is supposed to hit. Maybe we will simultaneous reach Peak Church!

African Authority

BREAKING NEWS:

Only a few days ago the African Union agreed to create the African Authority, an executive branch of the current AU government. This might have huge ramifications on how we do politics with Africa.

'Reports say the creation of the Authority is seen as a stepping-stone towards achieving a Federal Government for the Continent, which is the ambition of Libyan Leader Muammar al-Gaddafi' - GBC, July 3, 2009

AU to Become African Authority

Jesus and His Wife

When I was in Montreal last summer (beautiful city - beautiful time of year) I was sitting in a park when a guy came up to me and sat down. People usually do not come up to me like that so I was surprised. Not as surprised as when he asked me the next question:

"Do you think Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene?"

Now to me the question was quite hilarious. First of all it was not 2005, and I thought people would be over it by now. Secondly because I had done some research into conspiracy theories discovering how many of them come from an anti-semitic, anti-liberal text called "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", a poor excuse for a plagiarized text by the Tsarist secret police in the early twentieth century.

Now this year I realized that such weirdness happens more often than you think. In fact it has always happened. Take Acts 17, where Paul explains the Christianity to some of the people of Athens. In the end some of the Athenians reject Christianity on the basis that it puts it's hope in the resurrection. An interesting thing I found out is that the Greeks, confused about what Paul had meant, believed that resurrection was in fact the consort, or wife, of Jesus (a la Zeus and Hera).

It seems like these types of confusions have a long history.

Suburbia

The American creation of the 20th Century has been excessively praised as the fulfillment of the American Dream and a goal for all nations to create. Simultaneously it has been accused of an almost idolatrous individualism, shelterness and a hotbed of materialism and consumerist values. To some it is the a great humanist endeavor, to others a crass commercial creation of the bourgeouis.

But are both approaches to simplistic to describe the reality and effects of suburbia?

What do you think?

Canadian Maglev

A few years ago researchers in Japan set the world record for fastest speed for a high-speed train at over 550 km/hr. Liberal leader Micheal Ignatieff has suggested that if he go elected he would build one of these high-speed trains (maybe even Maglev) from Quebec-city to Windsor, Calgary to Edmonton and maybe even one from Victoria, BC. to Edmonton.

Now this idea is at the root of my recent posts dealing with Canada, that and Canada day a few days ago, so I've been chewing on it a lot.

What do you think about? If it regularly goes approx. 500 km/hr that would mean you could get from Windsor to Toronto in about 45 minutes.

Is it a good idea?

A Fair Country

I watched an interview by John Raulston Saul today about his book A Fair Country. In it he argues the way Canada functions is more a kin to the Metis and Aboriginal traditions than the European and American ones. He cites our language as being misleading and suggests we need to rework our cultural mythology to acknowledge how Metis we actually are.

What do you think?

Pale of the Settlement

Doing some research into Jewish history and found at that during the last century (give and take about 2 decades) of the Russian empire Jews were forbidden to settle beyond something called by historians the "Pale of the Settlement". The region, which corresponds to what are the most European of the former soviet republics, at it's height was home to over 5 million Jews (apparently 40% of the world population of Jews at that time). Near the end of the 19th century reforms allowed nearly 2 million of the Jews living on the Pale to migrate to the US.

Today the American Population of Jews is over five million, and New York City has more Jews than any other city in the world.

Interesting.