A Rising Tide Lifts...One Boat

Top 10 reasons we should all go see Russell Crowe as Noah next month:

1. The movie is directed by the director of Black Swan -- clearly, someone who understands animals.
2. Great date flick -- that is, a great movie to view in pairs.
3. Neither Bill Nye nor Ken Ham were consulted in the making of this film.
4. It was painful to watch Crowe fight the wild beasts in Gladiator, and now it will be heart-warming to watch him make up with them.
5. Crowe, to my knowledge, doesn't sing in this one (‪#‎Putting‬-the-"Misery"-in-Les-Mis).
6. If you beg her, your church youth group leader might pay for the ticket.
7. Fortunately, everyone's forgotten Waterworld by now.
8. There's a happy ending...um...sort of.
9. This film continues the venerable Hollywood tradition in which older male leads are paired with much younger female actors: Emily Watson's character clocks in at a youthful 350 years old.
10. Marvel Comics films, eat your heart out! I'd like to see Magneto pull off something like a world-wide flood.

The Roots of Social Deviancy

So recently, as background for another project, I've been reading A Theology for the Social Gospel by Walter Rauschenbusch. This Baptist theologian-activist worked as a pastor in inner-city New York, near Hell's Kitchen, in the late 19th century and later taught for two decades at Rochester Theological Seminary. Reinhold Niebuhr called him "the real founder of social Christianity in this country." This text comes late in his career (1917), and is his attempt to draw together, in systematic fashion, the theological implications of progressive social Christian faith and practice.

Before I proceed, a couple caveats. First, I'm no expert on Rauschenbusch. My exposure to his work so far has been a brief pass-through in survey courses and a very cursory overview of the Social Gospel movement when I used to teach a gen-ed course in American religious history. Second, however, I respect Rauschenbusch and the other early pioneers of social Christianity and more recent thinkers, such as Prof. Gary Dorrien, whose work is informed by this tradition. (I'll hold off, for now, on offering any critiques of this theology. "Seek first to understand," counseled the late Stephen Covey.)

The book begins with a hat tip of appreciation to representatives of the older orthodox theology (especially Rauschenbusch's friend and Rochester colleague, Augustus Strong). Still, to put it a bit tersely, he interprets orthodoxy to be too individualistic to adequately address the social problems spawned and exacerbated by modern industrialism. Then follows a three-chapter apologia for his social reconstruction of theological method.

Then comes the meat of the book -- the reconstruction (or truncating, as critics would have it) of classical Christian doctrines. As Schleiermacher had done nearly a century earlier, Rauschenbush boils theology down to the religious experience of sin and redemption, now interpreted (of course) in relation to social processes. Like many modern liberal Protestants, Rauschenbusch rejects the biblical literalism of traditional accounts of creation and fall. But he is keen to retrieve the doctrine of original sin within the logic of his own framework.

The truth of this doctrine, according to Rauschenbusch stems from the essential solidarity of the human race -- particularly the solidarity of bad moral influences. Essentially, each generation corrupts the one that follows it. He posits some (inexplicable) biological basis for this solidarity. "Idiocy and feeble-mindedness, neurotic disturbances, weakness of inhibition, perverse desires, stubbornness and anti-social impulses in children must have had their adequate biological causes somewhere back on the line, even if we lack the records" (p. 58). (Perhaps genetic scientists will soon show us the part of the human genome that causes "stubbornness.") But the main culprit for our malaise is "social tradition".

And, even though I'm adjusting for the fact that I'm reading a century-old text, my mouth gapes a bit as I read the following passage:

The evil habits of boyhood, -- lying, stealing, cigarette smoking [R. would fit right in with us today], profane and obscene talk, self-pollution [Oh my! Not sure exactly what that is, but it sounds dreadful], -- are usually set up in boys by the example and social suasion of boys just one stage older than they [consult C.S. Lewis' account of English public schools in Surprised by Joy to confirm this]....One generation corrupts the next.

And it gets even better (my expository notes are embedded in italics):

The permanent vices and crimes of adults are not transmitted by heredity, but by being socialized; for instance, alcoholism and all drug evils [excluding marijuana?]; cruel sports, such as bull-fights and pugilism; various forms of sex perversity [a Victorian reticence to be specific spares us here]; voluntary deformities, such as foot-binding [some feminists might balk at the notion that foot-binding is "voluntary"], corseting, piercing of ears and nose; blood feuds in Corsica [wait...what?]; lynching in America [which, apparently, is on a par with nose-rings.] Just as syphilitic corruption [nice!] is forced on the helpless foetus in the mother's womb, so these hereditary social evils are forced on the individual embedded in the womb of society and drawing his ideas, moral standards, and spiritual ideals from the general life of the social body.

I hope the rest of the book turns out to be as much fun as page 60.

Die Evangelischen Theologen: Breaking News—DET KBBC Book is now in print!

I was pleased when Travis McMaken and David Congdon asked me to contribute to a fascinating volume that puts the work of Karl Barth in critical and constructive dialogue with other theologians and philosophers, past and present. Now I'm even more pleased to see that the project has come to fruition. (Still, it's with some trepidation that I see a piece with my byline that attempts to assess, in part, the work of my grad school advisor!)

Check out the announcement over at DET, where you also can browse the blog conference where these essays first appeared in their incipient forms.

Stringfellow on the Freedom of the Word

Here is one of William Stringfellow's many bedeviling quotes about scripture and its role in the Christian life:

Paradoxically, the trouble with fundamentalists, as I try to listen to them, is their shocking failure to regard and use the Bible conscientiously enough. If they honored the Bible more highly, they would appreciate that the Word of God will endure demythologizing, that the Word cannot be threatened by anything whatever given to human beings to discover and know through any science or discipline of the world, or hindered by textual criticism or hampered by linguistic analysis, or harmed by vernacular translations. All these are welcome to Christians as enhancements of the knowledge of the fullness of the Word of God and of the grandeur of human access to the Word. More than that, if the fundamentalists actually took the Bible seriously, they would inevitably love the world more readily instead of fearing the world, because the Word of God is free and active in this world and Christians can only comprehend the Word out of their involvement in this world, as the Bible so redundantly testifies (quoted in Bill Wylie-Kellerman, ed., William Stringfellow: Essential Writings. New York: Orbis, 2013, p. 42).

Now what do we make of this?

The Gospel According to Mozart

This quote from the movie Amadeus recently stopped me in my tracks:

I heard the music of true forgiveness filling the theater, conferring on all who sat there, perfect absolution. God was singing through this little man to all the world, unstoppable, making my defeat more bitter with every passing bar.

The narrator is the composer Antonio Salieri, Mozart's chief rival in the competitive Viennese music scene of the 1780s-90s. This 1984 film, based on Peter Shaffer's play of the same title, was a childhood favorite of mine, and I find it still speaks to me. Amadeus won eight Oscars, including one for best picture and a well-earned best actor nod to F. Murray Abraham for his superb portrayal of the troubled Salieri.

In case you don't remember, this is the basic storyline: A young Salieri bids God to grant him a world-class talent with which to praise the Creator. Later, while serving as composer at the court in Vienna, Salieri waits with rapt anticipation to meet the young Mozart, who has by now become a world-renowned prodigy. Salieri is shocked and scandalized, however, at the famous composer's crude, risque and foul-mouthed demeanor. Why would God bestow such stunning abilities upon this frivolous little man while the ever dutiful, yet less inspiring Salieri languishes in the wings? The jealously that consumes Salieri leads to him to go mad as he conspires to drive a sickly Amadeus to his early death.

The play and movie are dramatic explorations and not historically accurate depictions of Salieri and Mozart, who are reported to have collaborated amiably. The message, however, is timeless and one of the best cinematic depictions of the Gospel I've ever seen. One might well view it as a creative retelling of Jesus' parable of the two brothers (Luke 15:11-32). (I wonder if Karl Barth, who wrote a short book on Mozart, would have approved of the film? Somehow, I think so.)

The "true forgiveness filling the theater" of our petty little lives is pure gift. There's no bargaining with the Giver, period. The absurdity of trying to parlay the gift in exchange for some service rendered drives us inexorably toward hell (in Salieri's case, the hell of the insane asylum filled, as he sees it, with "mediocrities" such as himself). The gift is "unstoppable" -- or as a Calvinist might put it, "irresistible." Each of us is Salieri. Each of us tries and fails to parse out the gift for our own selfish ends.

And what about Amadeus himself? He is each of us as well -- the younger brother, the prodigal, the profligate and punk who has no business playing in the prince's house. The "little man" of Salieri's sneer -- that's you and I.

This shitty world of ours -- that's what we've made of it --  marches toward dissolution and death minute by minute and day by day. And what does God do about it? Scandalously, shockingly, offensively, God keeps on singing absolution.

And God will keep on singing until the last note rings out and when the curtain drops on all the musicians and the prince of Vienna (thank heavens!) and those of us in the audience -- a the point when, finally, the real concert will begin.

If You Called me a Racist (or Sexist or Homophobe), Would I Blog Against You?

I should hope I would not do so.

A controversy has been brewing in the blogosphere, especially within emergent Christian circles, about the phenomenon of White Dude Defensiveness regarding issues of inclusivity and diversity. Some dudes, who might want to be identified as "liberal" or "progressive" have been facing tough questions about their own complicity in racism, sexism, heterosexism and class privilege and the ways in which such complicity shapes their writing, speaking and practice. (For an excellent entree into this controversy, with many of the relevant links, read the intrepid Brandy Daniels' fine post on the "Women in Theology" blog.)

I don't identify myself as an "emergent Christian": I'm just too traditional, conventional and boring for that. But I have friends who are involved in emergent Christianity, and because I care about them and about the future of the church, I try to listen in to their conversations as best I can.

Now, I'm not going to name names or weigh in on the acrimonious (though not unhealthy) debates that center on particular individuals and their posts, articles and talks. But I would offer this general advice to any white dude out there who ever gets caught up in such a crossfire and feels the urge to rush to his own self defense:

Grow up.

For the record, I've rarely faced such accusations personally, and my first impulse no doubt would be self defense if I did. This post is my attempt to lay out, rather, what I hope I would do and say. Although I'm not nearly important enough to ever be flattered with an attack on something I've written or said, I have thought about how I hope I would respond if someone ever did charge me with cashing in on my white, male, heterosexual privileges to the disadvantage of others. I've come up, so far, with three basic steps:

1.) I listen. I don't argue. I don't rehash my credentials as a solid progressive ally to the oppressed. I don't, above all, rush to defend myself. I shut up and really try to listen. Stephen Covey advised: "Seek first to understand, then to be understood."

2.) I acknowledge that I'm a sinner saved by grace alone. Not only am I guilty of personal sins, but I'm a beneficiary of systematic structures of oppression that are beyond my personal control. If I take advantage of such privileges -- and who doesn't? -- is there not at least some sense in which I must acknowledge: "Yes, I am guilty of racism. Yes, I am guilty of sexism. Yes, I am guilty of classism. Yes, God help me and try as might might not to be, I am guilty of homophobia." Because of that time I didn't stand up to hate when I should have done so, because of that time I laughed at that joke that I knew was beyond cruel, the blood of all the innocent victims is on my hands as well.

And what should I do? Should I complain about the "unfairness" of this situation? Should I bemoan this body of death in which I'm trapped? Why, indeed, would I have any basis for complaining when Jesus himself, who was guilty of none of these things, not only bore all my sin -- all our sin -- but became our sin itself (2 Cor. 5:21). I'm in no position to justify myself, for I stand condemned too, in sinful solidarity with all human beings throughout history.

That's all well and good, but it's not enough. The gospel has more to say to me on this issue and so, finally:

3.) I repent. Not necessarily in sackcloth and ashes, lest I risk making a show of my contrition. Rather, this means I commit myself to renouncing, as best I can though usually haltingly, the web of privileges from which I've benefited. I enter the painful path toward solidarity with the oppressed. Such repentance and effort at change does not justify me. It doesn't make everything okay. It is, simply, my due response in gratitude for what I've been given and for what I've been forgiven.

None of this will be easy for me. Am I a hypocrite? Yes, indeed. And I have an ego too. At some level I probably care more about impressing you with this blog than I do about really tackling the difficult personal decisions that such a divestment of privilege would entail. Still, it is how I feel called to respond.

All I Really Need to Know about Remythologization I Learned in Kindergarten

Richard Beck of "Experimental Theology" fame has given us the definitive blog post on a subject very dear to my heart: the classic original cartoon series Scooby Doo: Where are You?

I endorse his reading wholeheartedly, but I demur only on one particular: While I concede that the original series of 1969-71 remains superior to later series within the franchise, I have grown fond of the most recent incarnation, Scooby Doo, Mystery Inc. I think the latter makes a brilliant contribution to a genre that includes such notable programs as Lost and the The X Files and offers plenty grist for the mill for those who cast a critical eye on late modern capitalist-consumerist society.

My own neo-Marxist-Weberian-Stringfellonian interpretation of Scooby Doo, Mystery Inc. is forthcoming on these pages and will be available just as soon as I can clear a few much less important projects out of the way.