Monday, February 08, 2010 You Are Here: religion  | 
 
The Regulars
Our House is a Very Very Very Fine House
 
 
I have no great cause to love that spot of earth,
            Which holds what might have been the noblest nation;
But though I owe it little but my birth,
            I feel a mixed regret and veneration
For its decaying fame and former worth.
            Seven years (the usual term of transportation)
Of absence lay one’s old resentments level,
When a man’s country’s going to the devil.
                                                Lord Byron, Don Juan Canto X, stanza 66
                                    Also from the song “Language is Theft” by The Illicit Stills
 
 
            The birth of my child has brought into the world good music and anarchy. First, the good music. My child will effectively and eventually become the third member of my family band, the Illicit Stills. Though it will be a family band, with me on guitar and vocals, my wife on fiddle, and my child likely on keyboards, bass, or a very small drum kit, we may have more in common with Crosby Stills Nash and Young than with the Carter Family or the Mandrell Sisters. Obviously, there is the name—both band names have Stills in them. But our ‘Stills’ refers to our current locale of Scotland, home of an extremely large number of whiskey distilleries, both legal and illicit, not the name of someone in the group (There is also an allusion to the little known fact that my father used to measure the cotton of William Faulkner’s former bootlegger Moe Tee Daniels). 
 
We also have in common the birth places of the various members of the music groups. Just as Stephen Stills is from Dallas, I grew up in the Dallas area. Just as Neil Young is from southern Ontario, my wife grew up in the Toronto area. And just as Graham Nash is from Great Britain, our child was born in Great Britain (although this is where part of the comparison starts to stumble since Nash is from northern England and our child was born in central Scotland. I am very aware of the differences between the places, so if you know of another tight harmony acoustic folk-rock band with a Texan, Ontarian, and a Scot, pass the name along). And though David Crosby is from California, a very nice place indeed, I actually would prefer to have a second child from yet another country (and with less hair and fewer guns than Crosby). The reason for this has less to do with gimmick promotional opportunities for our band than theology. This is where anarchy comes in. For if my family has no single nationality, doesn’t that deconstruct the very idea of nationality?
 
Neil Young, despite living in the US for decades, has apparently made it clear that he will never become a United States citizen. I’m not sure of the actual reasoning behind this, but it may not actually have to do with differences between the US and Canada. Oh he might claim that it is because of things like gun control or public health care. However, these would be irrelevant to Young who doesn’t qualify for Canadian health care since he doesn’t live there and is in close proximity to guns in his US home (and David Crosby) despite his citizenship. It may have more to do with the fact that his identity as a Canadian might be stripped away when he has to hand over his passport. The US, as far as I am aware, does not allow for an immigrant to retain his or her foreign citizenship when becoming a US citizen. Canada, on the other hand, seems to allow it. I know several people with dual citizenship in Canada, but the majority of them were born elsewhere and moved to Canada later.
 
The latter situation is where I will find myself in the next few years. In the near future, I will qualify for Canadian citizenship despite living in Scotland and, unlike Neil Young, I am considering becoming the citizen of another country, for being a citizen of two countries puts into question the notion of citizenship at all, does it not? 
 
I would expect most people would jump at the chance to be able to carry both American and Canadian passports. There are, to be sure, certain practical advantages to having both passports, but they really aren’t that extraordinary. A Turkish visa may be cheaper to come by with a Canadian passport and a Ukrainian one may be cheaper for an American. Perhaps harassment can be averted with a careful juggling of passports between Canada and the US. These advantages aren’t really worth the hassle. I’m sure I’m missing something, but I haven’t yet encountered a situation in Canada for which my status as landed immigrant hasn’t been good enough. No, I desire dual citizenship because it is an easy way to put into question the notion of the modern nation-state.
 
As one studying to become a professional Bible reader, I am struck every time I read the Gospels by Jesus’ announcement of the coming of the Kingdom of God. Growing up I read these passages often but I must not have understood them. As far as I know, it is in every translation of all of the Gospels and Acts as well as several of Paul’s letters, implicitly in the letter to the Hebrews and it even makes it into James. Certainly this is an important phrase, yet I’m not sure I’ve met many people who take it very seriously or even seem to know about it. It certainly would not be one of the phrases people quote in everyday situations. “Judge not lest ye be judged.” “Love is patient, love is kind.” “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “Thou shall not kill… thou shall not commit adultery.” As little as people act upon these phrases, they are quoted a lot in the world. But why not “the Kingdom of God”? In the versions I checked, the phrases “Kingdom of God” and “Kingdom of Heaven” occur around 98 times in total with other derivatives on top of these. Maybe it is because it sounds too exclusivist for the left wingers. Maybe it is because it sounds too unpatriotic for the right wingers.
 
When I was growing up, I remember pledging my allegiance to the flag of the United States of America every morning in school. This never bothered me at the time, but it haunts me now. Perhaps it seems benign to most people, but does it not throw into question one’s dedication to the Kingdom of God? I have heard of conservative Christian schools that add on a pledge of allegiance to the Christian flag, but this does not escape the problem that allegiance has already been pledged to the American one. What happens when allegiance to one means a betrayal of the other? Add to this another problem I’ll likely encounter, and I’m not sure how I’ll get around this yet: I will have to make some sort of pledge of allegiance to the Queen of Canada when I qualify for citizenship there (I do know a couple who immigrated to Canada from Germany and mumbled under their breath anything in the oath that had to do with the Queen). But how valid is my oath to the Queen if I remain a US citizen? Can I retain any allegiance to the flag if I have a Canadian passport? There will be times when my allegiance to one of these three ‘nations’ will be threatened by the actions of another. 
 
So why retain citizenship in a nation at all? Would the addition of another country onto my political resume really strengthen my dedication to the Kingdom of God? I have thought about this. But there doesn’t seem to be any good way to relinquish citizenship to all manmade political nation-states. Not to mention the problems The Illicit Stills would have trying to tour when the patriarch has no passport. I take some heart in the little story in the Acts of the Apostles where Paul announces his citizenship of Rome in order to escape corporal punishment. It’s likely that Paul found the Roman state nothing really more than a means to an end.
 
This is all getting quite complicated with many hypotheticals and unusual circumstances that don’t apply to many people other than a few tight harmony folk-rock acts. The fact is that I don’t believe that my personal situation is any different theologically than what it was before I met my foreign wife. The difference now is that I am forced to think about these problems for the sake of domestic harmony, whereas before I could just let things slide and not think about problems.
 
For instance, I now see both sides of the War of 1812—as an American and a Canadian. To review, an American generally sees the War of 1812 as the coming out party for the US—we showed we could stand up to the evil empire of the United Kingdom when they dared enter our capital. Canadians, on the other hand, generally bring up the war of 1812 to try and rile up Americans—it was the time when we fended off the ambitious “Yanks” from increasing their land into Quebec and Ontario (they tend to use the word “Yank” to rile me up further no matter my insistence that it could not possibly refer to me, a Tennessee-born Texas-raised Southerner. And I understand the irony of me—one who questions the idea of identity with a nation—still being irritated at this use of a misnomer but I cannot shake my distaste for that slur). It turns out that there is probably truth in both of these myths. But neither side likes to tell the story of the slaughter of thousands of natives at the hands of Americans because the British/Canadians decided to renege on their promise to help them out when it didn’t suit their own needs anymore.
 
It’s hard to decide who the bad guys are here. And I’m not trying to shirk my own responsibility by my claiming the citizenship of some heavenly political body. I’m merely suggesting I may be more willing now in my divided loyalties, to see the uglier aspects of my respected nations than I was in my former single nation state. That is, I find it easier to love my enemy when I am my own enemy. So I hope that my loyalty to the multinational Kingdom of God will help me live toward the betterment of all nations and not just my own. And I pray that my family/band can work on this together; that I can teach my children well.
 
Note to readers - Culture Voice may be going away but Goddard isn't, you can read more of his work at: http://ivangoddard.wordpress.com/  

 
Fall tomatoes
 
Have you ever planted tomatoes?
 
I am relatively new to the practice, this being my second full season. But I am an avid convert.
There is nothing like the taste of real, home grown, fresh, tomatoes right off the vine (and those overpriced “vine ripe tomatoes” at the grocery store don’t even come close). If you haven’t experienced them, you really must. Seriously.
 
The season for tomatoes, at least here in the northern hemisphere, is summer. This requires planting in early spring, about March. Depending on the type, March plants start bearing fruit in late June or early July and baring any pest related issues, bear fruit through the summer and into the fall.
 
For the past two years, as fall approached and the days shortened, I tried my hardest to salvage what I could of the remaining plants, not wanting to relinquish them to the coming ‘winter’ (a word that, when used in the context of Southern California, really has to be put in quotes). I figured that if the plants started to look a bit bleak it must be due to something I was doing or not doing.
 
Maybe I should have fertilized them. Should I cut them back? Are they getting enough water?
 
No matter what I did, nothing seemed to help. Both of the previous winters I finally gave up, realizing that the half-ripened vestiges of tomato were not exactly what I had in mind when my taste buds pictured ‘fresh from the vine.’
 
But then I had a life changing experience. Okay, maybe not life changing, but still, significant. Not long ago there was an article in the local paper about fall tomatoes. Was the author peering over the wall into my garden? Because he described my situation to a tomato…
 
Although the plant looks awful, we think to ourselves, "There's still a chance it will recover." A noble thought, but not likely. It's a downward slide from this point on for a struggling tomato. March-planted tomatoes are only going to get worse, not better. Yes, there is a handful of small green fruit on the plant, so you say to yourself, "I'll just wait until these turn red, then I'll start a new plant."
You know the scenario. A month later you pluck the three or four ripe tomatoes. But now you notice two more little green ones coming along, "Just a little longer, until these are ready?"
By now, it's October or November and too late to have any success with a fall tomato crop. Sound familiar?
 
Fall tomatoes? The idea opened up a whole new world to me. Maybe there was hope after all.
But what about the three plants that were, in fact, still producing their noble efforts? One of them even had new flowers and a fresh, healthy looking green shoot. I can’t uproot that new growth, can I? Maybe I should just leave it alone and see what happens. What if I pull out my existing plants and the new ones don’t take hold? Then I will have nothing. At least if I leave alone what I have I am guaranteed a meager result—meager is better than nothing, right?
 
But I knew that the author was right. I had experienced it myself twice already. Did I really want to persist and confirm my findings a third time? Or did I want to take the risk of trusting that what he said was valid—that the path toward tomatoes actually required that I first pull out the old to make room for the new?
 
Well, it is too late now. I have taken the plunge. I dug up the tomatoes this afternoon. I am not kidding when I say that it was a difficult endeavor. I knew the benefits. I have even seen them confirmed in my neighbors’ flourishing new fall tomato plants. Even still, it was hard to bring myself to dig up the old. I did take off all the green tomatoes—maybe I can look up a recipe for fried green tomatoes?
 
I haven’t resolved my questions. I still wonder if the new plants will actually take hold. I still doubt that this decision was a good one. I am still worried that it is too much of a risk. I am afraid that I have let go of the old without having any guarantee that the new will take hold. As a general rule, I don’t like taking risks. Sure, this one is not life or death. But still, my caprese salad is on the line here, and that’s serious business.
 
At the end of the day I realize that it is not entirely up to me. I mean, I can plant them, make sure the automatic watering system is working, and provide them support on which to grow as they mature. But whether or not they bear fruit? That is out of my control.
 
For now, it is time to plant.

 
This is not about tomatoes
 
This is not about tomatoes. 
 
Even still, there is nothing like a home grown, perfectly ripened tomato straight off the vine and into your stomach. What passes for a tomato at the grocery store (expensive vine-ripened versions excluded) is a bit like chewing on mulch, when compared with the real thing, right off the vine.
 
But this is not about tomatoes.
 
My Dad was the tomato planter in the family. After his death three years ago the role fell to me. Because I did not receive any formal training from him on the nuances of planting tomatoes, I simply tried to copy his efforts, as best I could. The key in the whole enterprise is the location of the three plants, lined up along a south western facing wall, providing full sun most all of the day.
 
This is still not about tomatoes.
 
One afternoon recently I was out checking on the garden and happened to notice that the tomato plants were in complete shade. This was no surprise, as the tree nearby has been growing nicely over the past three years. Because it has been a gradual process, as growth often is, one might be tempted to overlook the tree’s growth, except for a few pictures around the house which happen to bear witness to its stature a few years back.
 
This is not about the tree either.
 
So that you don’t get impatient and stop reading, let me tell you what this is about. Actually, now that I think about it, I wish I could, but it’s not going to come that easily, sorry.
 
To recap—three years ago: Dad planting tomatoes along the wall, small tree, perfect location, full sun, fantastic tomatoes. Today: me planting tomatoes along the wall, big tree, causing mostly shade for the tomatoes, not so perfect location, we’ll see how it goes for the tomatoes.
 
The point is, when my dad set out to plant tomatoes, he had the perfect location, everything was just right. The temptation for me, following after him, is to simply copy him and hope that in replicating what he did I will get the same results. The problem is, in the intervening time, the situation has changed. 
 
So, the real point is, just copying something from the past because it worked in the past is not necessarily a guarantee of it working in the present or the future. This may not seem like rocket science in this context. 
 
But take, for instance, the example of the church. “But we’ve always planted it here and gotten great results” could translate to “we’ve always done it this way” or “church is always on Sunday” or “we’ve always had a choir” or whatever “we’ve always” or “we never” you want to insert for your particular situation. 
 
News flash: in the intervening years since that sure formula for success worked, the world has changed. Trees have grown up. There is shade where none used to be. There are intervening factors. Sure, you can try to ignore them or pretend that they aren’t there, but pretending won’t make the tomatoes grow and it doesn’t make the shade go away.
 
So the question becomes, which are you more invested in, connection to the past, or the ability to eat tomatoes in the present?
 
Is there a nostalgia intertwined among the leaves of “we’ve always done it this way?” Of course. Clinging to “my dad planted the tomatoes here so I am going to plant them here as well” might be comforting, but it won’t help you make salsa.
 
Of course, repeating the past will continue to provide some sort of yield, though dwindling. Perhaps that is okay. Perhaps that is enough. “We didn’t want all those tomatoes anyway,” you might reason. “This way we won’t have to give any away to our neighbors,” you might justify. Life sure is a lot easier without all of those tomatoes to deal with.
 
But what if a different future were possible? What might that look like? “Gosh, I just happened to notice that this other area of the patio seems to get sun all day long—do you think we might try to plant some tomatoes here?” Or, “you know, we could thin that tree a bit and the sun would still get through to the original tomato plants.” Even possibly, “you know, this other variety of tomato does not require as much sun—maybe we should try planting something new and see what happens.”
 
But this, of course, is not about tomatoes. 

 
Quantum Leap of Faith
 
The battle of Religion versus Science has gone on since the beginning of time. Well maybe not the beginning of time as in the very beginning there was no need for either concept. Unless of course you are a Creationist and believe that both existed in God’s mind prior to creation but that is further complicated by the notion of time because God supposedly exists outside of time and therefore has no beginning or end which is more than a rational, scientific mind can comprehend so it is easier to either say that time on Earth began when God spake it into existence or when the Big Bang pooped out our planet in what the late Bob Ross would refer to as a “happy accident.” Regardless, religion and science have not always seen eye to eye, save maybe for Scientology which is supposedly a hybrid of both, but is probably devoid of either making it merely a belief system that can turn a highly successful movie star into a couch jumping imbecile. The battle between science and religion is no more heated than here in the United States especially around the religion of Christianity. One need look no further than past television shows to see this tension played out on screen in a way that was as divisive as it was entertaining.
 
Television shows have been the one place where Christian media has occasionally found a home despite the secular left forcing viewers to watch men kiss each other. While Christians may avoid scandalous shows like my family’s ban on Night Court, for some reason, the average television viewing audience joins with Christians to watch shows that deal with the fanciful and unbelievable such as Highway to Heaven, Touched by an Angel, and Glen Beck.
 
Highway to Heaven was a huge hit with families because of the redeeming social values it portrayed and because its heart was as big as Michael Landon’s hair. The story of an angel coming down to Earth and righting some of the social wrongs was about as uplifting and inspiring as television could get. Add the fact that Landon was last seen on Little House on the Prairie churning butter in a nonsexual way, and you have wholesome entertainment that the entire family could enjoy, except for the smart ass son who is trying to secretly set the VCR to record Night Court.  
 
The success of H2H (as the hipsters call it) inspired the secular studio heads who would eventually steal Highway’s glory by bringing a similar message through Christianity’s vile nemesis – SCIENCE! Quantum Leap came along and replaced an angel with a time traveling scientist named Sam Beckett, played by Scott Bakula, and instead of an awkwardly chummy bearded sidekick there was a lecherous hologram named Al. 
 
Both shows lasted five seasons though H2H had more episodes. Fourteen to be exact. Fourteen is double the number seven and seven is considered the number representative of God making it a scientific fact that Highway to Heaven was twice as holy as Darwin’s beloved, Quantum Leap. 
 
Within two years of H2H’s cancellation both of the main actors, Landon and Victor French, died of cancer demonstrating that God had no further use for his earthly angels so he summoned them home. At the time of this publication Bakula, who got his early acting start in the blasphemous play Godspell, is still alive and rumor has it that he has been cursed by God to live one thousand years on Earth to watch all that he holds dear die around him. Oh boy.
 

 

 

The Wild World of Zero (plus a Roundabout Critique of O'Lorin's "Toward an Unsystematic Theology...")

 

by Michael Mulligan

 

Some of you are thinking that Zero isn't any wilder than a wet willy, and you are going to pass up this article for one about fangs, claws, primordial heart beats, and all the other more applicable articles about the movie rendition of Where the Wild Things Are.  But if you happened to read C. C. O'Lorin's "Toward an Unsystematic Theology or Putting the WTF Back into Christianity," and if you want to dabble a bit more in the wild world that makes the Cartesian mind break like Humpty Dumpty all over the floor, keep reading.

 

I can't fully follow this weeks theme "Where the Wild Things Are," because where is nonexistence, zero, or nothingness?  Nothingness cannot inhabit any place within the space-time continuum, and any matter that does exist can only be transmuted.  Complete and utter annihilation, along with oblivion, are simply metaphors describing what we can never actually witness.  Zero, in its purest form, may not really exist.  True, if you have six Skittles and you give six Skittles away you have Zero Skittles.  But the Skittles still exist.  They have merely changed location.  And if they are eaten, well, they only change form.

 

"What about Black Holes," you may be thinking, "If there is one place Zero exists, it must be there."  Nice theory, but doesn't that take us out of the space-time continuum?

 

In the 1600's, Descartes had an epiphany.  He put the number Zero in the middle of the Cartesian graph and algebra was born.  Algebra, if we recall, is a movement from number to shape, whereas geometry is a movement from shape to number.  Once Zero sat in the middle of the x/y axis, everything seems to fall in place, that is, if we all agree to never ever--did I say never--divide by zero.

 

I discovered the following "proof" in Charles Siefe's book Zero:  The Biography of a Dangerous Idea, and it is his work that clued me in to just how dangerous Zero is.  The preface tells of a naval destroyer that was decked with all the fire power imaginable, but its computer system had one flaw.  No one ever told it not to divide by Zero.  On a fateful day, fortunately during a mere test run, it did so, and the entire ship was rendered completely and utterly annihilated (metaphorically speaking).  A tug boat had to drag its sorry ass back to port.     

 

I won't recap the entire book here, but I will share of the way in which Seife figured out how to divide by zero, despite the fact that we have already blindly agreed to never do this.  The results are disastrous, especially for the Cartesian mind, all mathematics, and basically the fabric of the space-time continuum. 

 

The following steps take a basic understanding of Algebra, but they are fairly simple to follow.  Seife lets a and b each equal 1; and then, through a series of mathematically correct substitutions, he walks us down a very dark path:

 

b2 = ab

 

I hope you all agree with this.  One squared equals one times one.  Sure.  Let's keep going.  Since a equals itself, it is obvious that

 

a2 = a2

 

Subtract equation 1 from equation 2 yields the following equation: 

 

a2 – b2 = a2 – ab

 

I may have lost some of you, but remember, if we subtract the same value from both sides of an equation, then both sides still equal one another.  The next step requires that we remember how to factor the difference between two squares.  For a refresher, x2 – 49 factors into (x + 7)(x – 7).  This is how we factor the left side of our equation, the right side we just use the law of distribution:

 

(a + b) (a – b) = a (a – b)

 

Now, we divide both sides of the equation by (a – b).  It is important to remember that both a and b equal 1.  In other words, this is the step that divides by zero: 

 

(a + b) (a – b)  =   a (a – b)

        (a – b)            (a – b)  

 

 

The result follows:

 

(a + b) = a

 

Subtracting a from both sides reveals the following:

 

b = 0

 

Substituting the initial value for b reveals the perplexing and mind-boggling concept that smashes the Cartesian mind into smithereens.    

 

1 = 0 

 

Do I hear a WTF?  Is anyone else perturbed by this seemingly insignificant conclusion?  I know we have all heard of mystics who swear that being is nothingness and nothingness is being, but when I see it in the math, I get a little scared.  What if we are all duped?  On the other hand, perhaps this is the equation that proves the existence of God and creation ex nihilo.  It could be the foundation for a new cult.  The Zero Cult. 

 

If we tried to divide by zero in math class, we were simply told we couldn't.  WTF.  Seife figured out a way to do it, and when we divide by zero, the entire foundation of Cartesian mathematics unravels.  That's wild.  There must be a conspiracy to keep this locked up.  What would all the math students do in high school calculus if they knew just how tenuous math's foundation really is?  Math works, it all works, but you just can't divide by Zero.  That's like telling a bunch of teens that abstinence works as birth control, but you just can't have sex.  And what if we do have sex?  What if we do divide by Zero? 

 

I discovered a place where Zero ends up in the denominator within the Cartesian system:  the vertical line of a graph:  the rise is infinity, while the run is zero.  Wait a second....  Infinity over Zero!  This can't be good.  I attempted to clue in the math teachers at the school I teach.  They just told me that the slope is "undefined" like it was no big deal.  I said, "Come on, can't you dance with the devil in the pale moonlight for a moment and flirt with the possibility that there is an uncharted wilderness of mathematics that we will never see until we, with fear and trembling, divide by Zero? 

 

You know, Cummings once said that twice two is 5, and he argued that this is a basic truth that all poets intuitively grasp.  Of course, many people just think he is using a fancy metaphor to suggest that anything is possible with metaphor:  the moon can equal anything: a scoop of ice-cream, a pearl, a lover, or an eye looking down the barrel of a gun (that's what César Vallejo said).  But Seife shows us Cummings is right.  All we have to do is add 4 to both sides of 1 = 0 to get 5 = 4. 

 

Personally, I think the poets and the theologians and all of us ought there who want to multiply the Cartesian mind by a big ol' fat ass zero, annihilating it metaphorically into nothingness, ought to slide a milk cart out on fifth and main, and shout it all out.   

 

It'll just be tough to get the nonbelievers out there to believe that nothingness exists.

 
LifeWay No Longer a Way of Life
Or-
Dead End on LifeWay
 
 
            Lifeway bookstores, owned by the Southern Baptist Convention, are strewn all across the nation’s suburbs, much like Starbucks. But in the crack-whore-ruled suburb nearest me in Seattle, the Lifeway bookstore recently closed down. I don’t believe it was because the Baptists couldn’t bear the debauchery occurring around the store. I think, rather, they couldn’t make any money.
            When I first noticed the bookstore had disappeared from its (former) strip mall, I was quite surprised. My wife and I had just visited the store a few days earlier, looking for a book by N.T. Wright. Actually, I should say, my wife visited. I waited in the car, assuming the store wouldn’t carry the book — this is the same store that nearly banned books by Mark Driscoll, one of America’s most conservative and hotheaded pastors, because he has a potty mouth. I assumed that, if they almost banned someone who is essentially one of their own but occasionally says the fuck word, why on earth would they stock the work of a British Anglican who has often been accused of quite a few heritical ideas by conservative theologians like John Piper? When my wife emerged unscathed, carrying the book, I looked for some consolation: “Did they have lots of Kinkade Bibles?” I asked. “I don’t know,” she responded, “But they did have to search the stock room for a copy of the Wright book.” I shook my head and said, “I don’t ever want to go there again.”
            Now, I don’t have to. And suddenly, I feel very sad about the store’s closing. Like most things in this life, now that it’s gone, I wish it was still here.
            No, it’s not just because I need some stupid Christians to mock. I have access to Trinity Broadcasting Network, so I’m good there. Is it nostalgia? I hated visiting these stores with my parents when I was young, so I doubt that. I think it’s something more basic, something that surprises me to say: I’m sad the Lifeway bookstore closed because, well, Seattle needs all the help it can get.
            Seattle is a tough city for Christianity — with one of the lowest populations of Christians in a major American city, Seattleites often boast of being better educated and more “tolerant” than most people. And while this may be true in some ways, it has never been true in how Seattleites approach Christianty. The city is packed with people who scoff at Christian ideas without having ever really studied the subject. They often make a sport of marginalizing Christians, since they assume all Christians are intolerant of everyone else. All of this to say, even the simplest of books at the store might be helpful to educate a few of those people. And keeping some sort of vague reminder of the Gospel around — even just a glimpse of the gaudy red and white Lifeway sign as people drive toward their favorite bikini barista stand — might be a good thing.
But as I mentioned, I’ve always hated these stores. They sell Thomas Kinkade-designed Bibles. (It wouldn’t at all surprise me if there were a new translation by Kinkade, in which the Ark is a floating cottage beside a warm brook, and the blood trickling down from Jesus’ cross glows in the early evening.) I’ve seen plenty of things to despise in Lifeway bookstores, and I’ve always been ashamed of the stores. And it’s not even the fact that they’re peddling all sorts of kitschy Christian knick-knacks and t-shirts for the sake of profiting a giant, corporate church. It’s because I’ve never believed these stores did anything beyond preaching to the choir. Why would any non-Christian be lured in by a sale on Michael W. Smith albums or Max Lucado children’s stories? These types of stores, I believe, have mostly made the general Christian population dumber, and made the rest of the world laugh at the silly, stupid Christians. Just glance inside a Christian bookstore and you might be convinced that a Christians’ taste in art is horrendous, their movies are inane at best, and their music is amateurish, and all the persistent happiness is unbelievable. And apparently they’re so afraid of dancing or hearing naughty words that they’d prefer to repel nonbelievers by delighting in banal crap.
            So perhaps I’m not sad that the bookstore failed, but that it failed to try to connect to the culture around it. Maybe it could’ve survived in Seattle if it offered a wider range of options. I mean, sure, go ahead and carry the Left Behind series, but consider this: the movie Dogville by Lars Von Trier might paint a more vivid and accurate depiction of how God will work in the End of Days. And why not sell a Danielson album once in a while? His music may sound a little weird compared to Sandi Patty, but it’s brilliant, and it comes from a devout Christian. Just throw away the Christian romance novels. If there is anything worse than hackneyed romance novel, it’s a Christian novel in which the characters obediently court in the presence of the girl’s Republican father. Oh, but never, ever, consider selling a Jesus Light Switch.
But even as I write this, I think I’m beginning to realize why I’m feeling a bit down about the store’s closing. What if all the Lifeway Christians disappear from Seattle, just like the store? Who will be left to tell people about the Gospel? Sure, Seattleites can still visit Lifewaystores.com to stock up on Scripture-laden meatloaf pans, but what about the physical presence of Christianity in the city? Where will people find that? You see, people like me — the self-proclaimed educated, tolerant Christians who claim to be showing another side of Christianity — are usually too busy looking cool or focusing on some personal project to approach someone and say, “Read this. Listen to this. Follow this.” I’d rather sit back and mock both sides of the culture war than risk getting in the middle and being shot at from either direction.
Okay, I’m stopping now. I think I’m just being too emotional about all this. The day I noticed the store had closed, I hadn’t eaten breakfast and I missed the bus. Besides, I think it’s fair to say that God probably hates most people in Seattle anyway. If Lifeway couldn’t help, there’s probably nothing I can do to help them.

 

Toward an Unsystematic Theology

or

Putting the WTF Back into Christianity

by C.C. O’Lorin

 

In the autumn of 1993, I drove to Stanford University to hear a theologian speak about Postmodernity.  It was a bogie-word:  Relativism (gasp), Pluralism (look away), Post-structuralism (oh God no)!  According to this guy, the foundations of logic and reason were in serious trouble.  These, the staples of Christian Truth, were being deconstructed and it was only a matter of time before 2000 years of evangelism was undone.  Dude was a doomsayer—and a bad one at that.

Christianity has survived internal dysfunctions, imperial persecution (both as the victim and as the perpetrator), splintering, corruption, politicization and commercialization. For better or worse, Christianity isn’t going anywhere.  It is the cockroach of religions.  Bring on the apocalypses; we’re ugly, but we’re staying.  

Christianity is a funny thing.  In many ways it is amorphous, able to adapt to any society.  The spiritual truths of Christianity seep into the cracks of culture and sink deep into age old customs and belief systems.  On the other hand, once Christianity has been married to customs and belief systems, challenges to these are seen as an affront to Christianity itself.

What my anemic doomsayer failed to realize was that Christianity existed before the Enlightenment’s coronation of logic and reason and that Christianity will survive long after postmodern thought has dethroned the worship of science.

            Perhaps providentially, I attended a seminary that wasn’t afraid of bogie-words.  Postmodern thought, I found, gave voice to my suspicion of science worship.  I had been dissatisfied with the secular tendency to preach “salvation by science.”  And I was equally dissatisfied with the sectarian tendency to teach “scientized salvation.”  Or, as my seminary called it, “systematic theology.”  So while my chosen seminary required courses in systematic theology, it also gave me the tools to understand why I had an aversion to systematic theology.

            I do not think that the study of God, the Bible and the Church is helped by a systematic approach.  Systems help us categorize, prioritize, and give definition to subjects in a scientific way.  In my experience, however, the study of religion is rife with paradoxes, overlapping categories, and impossible complexity.  Christianity, in particular, resists and defies both reduction and scientization.  At the very heart of Christianity is a big fuck you to Descartes and his unwitting minions.  Christianity itself is an impossible paradox that defies Cartesian logic at every turn.

            Please forgive me as I skim the surface of some of the most difficult questions ever asked:

            Monotheism: Here, we borrow from Ancient Judaism.  “Hear, oh Israel, the Lord your God is one.”  The oneness of God is at the foundation of Christianity.  But at the same time that we’re affirming that our God is “one,” we’re simultaneously asserting that our God is three.  1 = 3.  We mask this nonsense with fancy words like “triune,” but no theological gymnastics will translate this assertion into the language of logic.

            Christ: The doctrine of the incarnation asserts that Jesus was both fully human and fully God.  That’s God with a capital G for those keeping score at home.  Again, we borrow from Judaism as we maintain that God is transcendent. 

God = Creator = transcendent;

human = creation = not transcendent.

Thems the rules.  Except, of course, as these concepts are applied to what most defines us: Jesus Christ.  Christ is what makes Christianity distinctive from all other religions, yet the very concept of his existence is nonsense.  Let me put this into the mundane for the sake of argument:

Black hole = void = no stuff;

Planet = not void = stuff.

For something to be a planet means, by definition, that it is not a black hole. The difference here is the difference between one and zero; it is infinitely different; one is not the other.  Yet, somehow, Jesus Christ is both fully human and fully not-human; He is both fully not-God and fully God. There is no bigger WTF? for the Cartesian mind.

            Born Again: In that famous conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, the Johannine Jesus claims that one must be “born again” to enter the Kingdom (i.e. be a member of Christ’s following).  Nicodemus, famously, replies with a resounding WTF(?)!  It seems that from the very beginning, becoming a Christian required a certain suspension of logic.  It seems that spiritual truth has very little to do with what makes sense in the material world.

            These are just three examples of theological claims common to Christianity.  But these are some pretty important claims for most Christians.  If they aren’t the top three theological concepts of Christianity, they are certainly among the top ten.  But there are paradoxes throughout the tradition both big and smaller. Jesus said that “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.”  For those familiar with the saying, the WTF might not be readily apparent.  But, once pondered, that statement is utter nonsense by Cartesian standards.

            At the end of the day, theology is messy and amorphous. This is not a necessary evil. I contend that this is the virtue of theology. It is not rigid so that it can seep into the cracks in the human soul and change it from within. This rings true of how I see the God of the Bible relate to people. He rarely follows the rules. He rarely acts in predictable ways. For every pattern established there are several caveats. God is a WTF kind of deity. Hence the study of God must begin with this quintessential question: What the fuck?

 

Too Salty

by Erin Dunigan

 The other day, while pondering the state of the church in the world today,  I found myself thinking about salt. “If salt has lost its saltiness then it is good for nothing…it cannot season, it cannot perform its purpose.” Those words of Jesus are standard fare for most of us who have grown up in the church, at least in the more evangelical segments of the church.

 

Growing up as a part of the youth group and attending church camp each summer I felt like I was always being challenged in my salitness—have you lost it? Do you need to renew it? You know, don’t you, that if you lose it you are good for nothing, you are denying your purpose as a Christian. 

 

So I found that I was always trying to make sure I was salty enough—small groups, Bible Studies, covenant groups, quiettimes, daily Bible reading and of course, taking my own Bible with me to church, the ultimate proof of one’s dedication to the faith.

 

But I guess my quesiton is, and something that was never addressed, is it possible for Christians, and for the church, to become too salty?

 

Salt is meant to be used, right? Salt was never meant to just sit around hanging out, being salty, enjoying life amongst the other grains of salt, was it?

 

I don’t think all my years of youth group and church camp really taught me how to season. They were more concerned with making sure I did not lose that defining saltiness. Yes, I am grateful for the experiences they gave me. Yes, I have learned much from those experiences.

 

No, the point of salt is to use it, to add flavor and seasoning. Salt was never meant to be the end goal, the final destination.  After all, it is the meal that is the point, not the salt.  Salt is meant to be used. Sparingly.

 

Too much salt? It ruins the meal. It tastes harsh. It drowns out the intended flavor, overwhelming the taste of the food with the taste of itself.

 

Salt was never meant to be tasted for its own self. Tasting salt is rarely a good thing.  No, salt is meant to enhance the flavor of something other than itself. For it to do that it needs to actually mix with the food. If it never mixes, how will it season? 

 

Scaffolding

 by Erin Dunigan

 

The thing about scaffolding is, it is not meant to be long term.

 

On this particular summer vacation as a teenager with my parents we were doing somewhat of an American history tour. We had been to Washington DC, Monticello, and Mt Vernon, among other places of historic interest. As we traveled it became a joke, for all of the buildings and monuments seemed to be under scaffolding.  Needless to say, the pictures left something to be desired, as the beauty of the buildings themselves was hidden behind the temporary ugliness of the scaffolding which encased them.

 

The other day I was talking with a friend who was telling me about her current crisis in faith, as she put it.  Things just don’t seem to make the easy sense that they once did. And somehow, in the midst of the conversation about faith, we got to talking about scaffolding.

 

As far as I can tell, scaffolding has two main purposes. At first, it exists in order to be able to build something.  I am thinking here about architectural wonders such as the  great cathedrals that were built throughout Europe.  The scaffolding was what allowed the builders of these cathedrals to create these magnificent structures. Without the scaffolding they would have been left with something only as high or as grand as the ordinary human being could reach. With the scaffolding they were able to create something far above and beyond their own limitations.

 

The second purpose of scaffolding was the one I encountered in Washington DC. All those buildings had long ago been built, but were in serious need of repair and refurbishment. So, the scaffolding was put in place so that they might be restored.

 

In neither instance was the scaffolding itself the end result. It was simply a means to an end, a supportive structure that would allow for the creation of something far beyond the scaffolding itself.

 

Back to my friend, the crisis of faith—enter the scaffolding. 

 

What if what we have taken to be faith is actually just the scaffolding?  Sure, it is important. Sure, it has its place. But what if it is really meant to be in service to something much bigger, much grander, much more beautiful?

 

Before you condemn me as a heretic, let me explain.

 

Growing up in the conservative evangelical church I feel as though I was given all the answers, taught how the Bible made sense, learned how to argue my faith, told the difference between right and wrong, and learned that being a Christian meant that you did not do many things that ‘the world’ did do, such as smoke, drink, and have sex before marriage. So, growing up in the church youth group, my faith looked a lot more like a list of things you weren’t supposed to do, than anything life-giving. For my friend, now grown up and married with children, she had experienced the same sort of faith. Faith was that you did do certain things, like go to church each week, try to be nice to people, and live a moral life and also that you did not do certain things, like get angry, lie, or commit adultery.

 

Her crisis of faith came in when she stopped to look around and wonder if that was all there was. Because though the easy answers and clear list of right and wrong had served her well, they had gotten to the point where they were no longer enough. If that was all there was, then really, what was the point? 

 

This, of course, caused her great alarm. Was she turning her back on all that she had believed? Was God not enough for her any more? Had she out grown her faith? She was nervous even to voice these things.

 

But what if the scaffolding of our narrowly defined Christianity was never meant to be the final point? What if this scaffolding of easy answers and lists of right and wrong was necessary for a time, in order for us to build a firm foundation and base, but was never meant to be long-term? What if in rejecting the scaffolding we are actually freeing the beautiful cathedral that longs to be exposed to the light of day and to the gaze of wonder?

 

On a trip to Florence, Italy, I saw some more scaffolding. This time it was on the Duomo, a beautifully ornate domed cathedral in the town center.  More impressive than the cathedral itself though, was the story of its creation.  When work started on the cathedral the technology to build a domed ceiling did not exist. But in what my guidebook described as the hubris of the time, they began construction anyway, figuring that by the time they got to the top they would know how to build the dome.

 

Hubris? Or faith?  For isn’t this what we are called to?

 

We begin with the scaffolding, building the walls, not knowing how it will all work out, but trusting that when we get there, we will know.

 
 
Putting the "Om" In "Oh My God"
 
"That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along." -Madeleine L'Engle
 
It was 2:30 a.m. on September 22, 2007. I lay in my tiny bed, shivering, with heaps of blankets piled on top of me. From the next and only bed over, a stranger inhaled so desperately that I feared she might be drawing her terminal breath ... until she pushed the audible equivalent of a chain saw out of her nose and proved that, no, she was just snoring. In a double room. Meant for two people who had truthfully checked the "I don't snore" box on their registration forms.
 
I was at Mount Madonna Retreat Center in scenic, coastal Watsonville, just a few miles from the famed Monterey Bay. The views were picturesque, the air serene. A mass of benevolent, peace-minded, lovey doves comprised the student body of my Buddhist meditation retreat.
 
And I got paired with the only hate-mongering, whiny, log-sawing soul on the compound.
 
I'd met my charming roommate by day - so I knew that she wasn't, as her nocturnal grunts would have me believe, a dying wildebeest. She was human, possessed of a soul (albeit an incessantly complaining one), and deserving of "metta," a Buddhist term for loving-kindess. This was true, even though I'd fought impulses to slap her throughout our introductory conversation, which consumed ten minutes of my life that I'll never gain back.
  
She began by insulting me. When I disclosed that I'm a solo family law practitioner, she responded that I was "far too young" to properly run a legal practice. Then she switched gears and griped about her dietary needs, which she claimed would require her to break the no-snacks-in-the-rooms rule, a prohibition specifically designed to keep wild animals from eating us in our sleep, thus breaking the no-snacks rule themselves. Finally, she tossed into the conversation a demand that we leave the windows open at night, citing some feigned circulatory something that caused her to something, something, something when windows were secured to keep bears away from the dietarily correct snacks enticing them from her night stand.
 
That's how I found myself shuddering from the cold and shaking in anger at 2:30 in the morning. And then again at 5:15. And so on. 
 
Later that morning, when all the people with courteous roommates were beginning to rise, I recounted to a friend how I'd woken up every couple of hours the night before, to keep shutting the window that my roommate had repeatedly opened between snoring fits while I slept. After telling him my story, I stood ready for my friend to blame me for my predicament, to remind me that I'm called to be compassionate while in retreat, and to abruptly write me off as a narcissist and stop associating with me altogether.
 
Not one of these three things happened. As I concluded my theatrical reproduction of the preceding night's events, my friend stared at me in disbelief and said, "Sounds like you really need to take care of yourself."
  
And then it hit me: Not everyone is as emotionally resourceless as my family members of origin, from whom I first learned the martyr role. Most people don't actually believe one should be expected to tolerate the outer extremes of ridiculousness that my roommate presented. In fact, when polled, the vast majority of human citizens agree that innocent retreat dwellers should not face the threat of being eaten by bears, just so their self-referential roommates can hack and honk more comfortably throughout the night.
 
Finding my friend's support addictive, I pursued more. I repeated the tale to two women passing me by in the dormitory hallway, and one gleefully exclaimed, "The Real World, Mount Madonna!" As we giggled, the other woman pitched in: "Dharma drama!" They both told me how sorry they were that I'd ended up with such a bad deal.
 
I felt at once validated and insane, crazy for having ever considered that this woman's misery could somehow be pinned on me. In the bask of the Buddhist compassion that my friend and these two women showed me, I realized how self-effacing I can sometimes be, even in the midst of circumstances that keep the expression, "Oh, no, she didn't!" alive.
 
And that's the way it came clear. All of a sudden. I marched into the retreat housing office and demanded a do-over, which resulted in Ms. Special Sleep Needs banishing herself to a makeshift bedroom with - get this - no windows or beds. It was all a lovely display of passive-aggressive egotism, on what was clearly Opposite Day in Mount Madonna's contemplative tradition.
  
Since then, the memory of my cantankerous roommate has propelled me to new heights of self-advocacy, inwardly directed compassion, and earplug consumerism. These days, I'm a lot more willing to believe that when I suspect I'm being mistreated, I'm probably right. And when I fill out new registration forms, I pause for reflection as my pen hovers over the "single v. double room" box. After all, bunking with a dharma queen is an experience that should never happen twice.
 
Om my god.

 
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