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June 30, 2006

Evidence

I went over to Edward Tufte’s “Ask E.T.” forum to see what Tufte might have to say about the use of graphical information in An Inconvenient Truth, but it looks as though neither he nor anyone else has posted on this yet. Moreover — oddly — it’s not at all clear how a user might post a query to the forum.

On the other hand, his next book will be out soon.

Posted by AKMA at 10:14 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 29, 2006

ABC

Yesterday I wrote a long-ish comment on Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’s recent response to General Convention. I didn’t post it, because I didn’t do a good enough job of clarifying the difference between how I feel about the current state of things (on one hand) and what seems practicable, honest, viable, and in keeping with demonstrated trajectories of thought and behavior.

The short answer is that his statement reminds me vividly of the legend of Thomas a Becket. I stress “the legend,” because my point doesn’t depend on what the historical Thomas was really like (or was he married to Mary Magdalene in the South of France by Leonardo da Vinci); the legend, however, simplifies Becket to the man who placed a higher emphasis on his sense of the office of Archbishop than on his friendship with Henry and his roistering temperament. I read Williams as a theologian serving the office of Archbishop as best he understands, over and above his personal inclinations. I respect that a lot, even when I wish it led to different outcomes.

If I were to place his response on a spectrum that extends from “my ideal plausible response” (omitting, that is, mass miraculous conversions of the heart) to “oh, my heavens, I can’t endure that” (and omitting “the renewal of Dioceltianic persecution), this sounds closer to “pretty good” than “pretty bad.” Whether U.S. church leaders are right or not, the whole of the Anglican Communion is not on board with their understanding of the gospel, and I can7’t see a sound theological basis for requiring that the rest of the church to let us have whatever we want and remain in strong ecclesiastical communion with them. (By the way, I wholeheartedly agree with what Alan Jacobs wrote here a few days ago: I’m sick and tired of hearing that “the Spirit is doing a new thing,” without the rich, respectful theological argumentation that might confirm people’s identification of the Spirit’s activity in recent developments.)Granted that the U.S. church isn’t about to repent, Williams’s picture of a two-tiered communion that grants the Episcopal Church use of the Anglican tag, but excludes it from doctrinal and policy decision-making just plain makes sense.

I wish we hadn’t come to this place, but I don’t see Williams making a more congenial response to where we’ve been taken.

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June 27, 2006

St Jerome's Librarian on Potter

Micah came over for a visit, providing the occasion for a rollicking argument over plot developments in the Harry Potter saga (inspired by the latest news from J. K. Rowling). Micah argues that Dumbledore is not dead, Snape is really Harry’s father, that the Avada Kedavra curse doesn’t actually work, that those who seem to have been killed by the curse are actually working undercover for the Order of the Phoenix (Pippa says, “No, they’re Unknowables working for the Department of Mysteries), and that Harry is not the one who dies (or that he does not die in a final way). He also said that Crabb and Goyle are girls, but I’m not sure he meant that; that may be a decoy.

In other plot prediction news, Si proposes that Ginny may sacrifice her life to save Harry. Pippa wonders whether Hogwarts can continue if the whole line of Slytherin were eliminated.

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Spirit Blows Where It Will

Even if he hadn’t been one of my favorite students, I would appreciate Will Crawley’s very direct request that I add him to my blogroll. You have my link here, Will, and I will get around to changing the blogroll (but I’m a tad slow about that).

Will works for the BBC (former employer of Euan and Tom) as host of a program about religion; he’s sharp and articulate and I ought to listen more often, but it’s hard to remember. . . .

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June 26, 2006

Flights of Angels

A lovely, generous friend of us all, Michelle Goodrich, has died. She has shared extraordinarily freely and effectively with friends and strangers alike, and has done so with grace and good cheer from painful circumstances. She no longer knows the limitations that pressed upon her; she is free.

You may meet her at her site, as you learn some of the ingenious, standards-compliant devices she offered to make the Web a more beautiful, more useful medium. You can get to see more behind the scenes in her interview with Frank Paynter (thank you, Frank, for bringing out her answers and saving them for us).

There’ something problematically passive-aggressive about using someone’s death to extort sentiment or action from people. Our friends don’t die to teach us, or to make us better. If hearing about a brave, kind woman’s difficult path moves you to do or say something, maybe you could use her tricks (and note they’re from her, maybe in the alt tag) — or maybe you will lean harder into vacillating politicians and exploitative medical systems so that they take better, more humane care of people in pain.

Michelle put tremendous energy and effort toward the cause of beauty. Beauty enhances the world, gives and continues giving toward glory and wonder, joy and growth; it shares that character of giving-away with the Web, and with Michelle’s habit of offering for free that which she might have held as proprietary secrets. Giving-away makes us all greater; Michelle has made us greater.

Thank you for that, Michelle, and we will pray for you and those who love and miss you.

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June 25, 2006

Everything Is Stromateis

First of all, I should say belatedly that stromateis transliterates a Greek word that serves as the equivalent for the Latin miscellanea. It’s the neuter plural form of the noun strômateus, “bedspread,” which in the plural form has the sense of “patchwork” (hence, an assortment of various matters, a thing of shreds and patches). Titling a blog entry “Stromateis” is a way of saying “even more random than usual.”

OK, the particular miscellaneous topics for this Sunday include:

• Someone finally said out loud how ludicrous the whole bathrobed-terrorist security breakthrough is. Unfortunately, people will no doubt ignore this (“consider the source,” the World Socialist Web Site).

• Last Saturday at Ravinia, Garrison Keillor read aloud our greeting to Jeannette DeFriest, priest-in-charge of our parish home, St. Luke’s church. Sad to say, he neglected our greetings to other friends and family.

• I uploaded that image from the camera phone that Si traded me (since he never uses it). I have to email the image to my Flickr site without having seen it first. I could obtain a cable to connect my phone to my computer, but the phone service store wants an extortionate $60 for the cable (so that I remain captive to their upload-via-phone connection). Anyone know of a simpler solution, so that I could (for instance) find out ahead of time that the picture I took was blurry, or spruce it up a bit, before I draw it from Flickr?

• Pippa and I rode about five miles on our bicycles yesterday. Mine has one of those old-school hard leather seats — so when I got back, through today, I have felt as though I dropped from a height of forty feet , straddling a telephone pole.

• In church today, one of the torch bearers fainted while I was reading the gospel. As he crumpled to the floor, a parishioner and I caught him, the M.C. and I caught his candle, and several people went to get water and ease him back to consciousness. Imagine a bow-legged priest (see above) holding a processional candle in his left hand, an acolyte in his right arm, ascertaining that said youth was not about to throw up, and signalling the congregation not to be concerned. Everything turned out fine.

• I think there were a few more things, which I’ll add as I think of them.

Posted by AKMA at 01:45 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 24, 2006

Two Degrees of EepyBird

About a week ago, I spotted a link on David Weinberger’s blog to the EepyBird experiment with Diet Coke and Mentos. I showed it to Margaret, and we both laughed ourselves silly first thing that morning.

Yesterday, Margaret and I got an email from my Mom noting that she’d seen it too, and that the shorter of the two experimentalists is Fritz Grobe, a family friend (the son of my Mom’s best friend from school days), a gold-medal juggler and all-around fascinating guy. I’ve met him, ages ago, so I could claim one degree of EepyBird — but since they’re global celebrities now, I thought it was humbler just to claim the two degrees, whether with my mom as the mediating link or Fritz’s mother and father, whom I knew moderately well a few decades ago.

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June 23, 2006

That Kind of Family

So, we all got together for a family night out, and went to the movies to see — An Inconvenient Truth. (That’s after having gone to see Prairie Home Companion the weekend before.) I suppose that says something about us, hunh?

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Not Ready For Prime Time

Since I didn’t really have a “side” going into the recent General Convention, I can’t really feel as though my side won or lost. At the end, it looks like everyone lost — to the extent that “liberals” won most votes until the end, when they wound up passing a resolution that contradicts the legislation and actions they had been taking so far; either they didn’t really mean all those votes for the first week of the convention, or they didn’t mean the conciliatory note they tried to strike on the last day (and the “Statement of Conscience” by a number of bishops demonstrates the flimsiness of the Episcopal Church’s affirmation of Windsor Report’s expectations). “Conservatives” elicited a reluctant expression of apparent apology, but obviously they lost the vast preponderance of the particular motions and elections; the convention’s proceedings rejected everything that would have pleased “conservatives.”

I expect all sorts of unpleasant fallout from this. I doubt Canterbury wants parallel jurisdictions in the U.S., so I suppose that they may recognize the authority of U.S. bishops, but exclude them from participation in the life of the Anglican Communion unless they repudiate the Episcopal Church’s recent actions — and then to allow parishes that want to remain in communion with Canterbury to affiliate with like-minded bishops, as near to local as possible. That would leave room for U.S. dioceses and parishes to pursue their own ends, but would definitively relegate U.S. (and Canadian and, eventually, U.K. and some other) “liberal” bishops and clergy in a twilight zone where they’re acknowledged as para-Anglican, but not acknowledged as holding any juridical authority relative to the church at large. But I expect that everyone wants a more decisive outcome than that, so many will press to have U.S. Episcopalians cut off, and plenty of U.S. Episcopalians don’t want to be accountable to a world church that disagrees with them.

If I weren’t aware of how partial my insight is, I’d suggest that very many of the most prominent spokespeople on the present miasma have lost touch with two facts. Fact One is that, however homophobic some people may be, there are very sound theological reasons for conservatives to resist the consecration of lesbigay bishops, and the blessing of same-sex relationships. I don’t hold to those ideas — I don’t think they’ll hold up in the long run — but that doesn’t make them nugatory, or bigoted, or uninformed, or illogical. The people whom I think wrong have a very strong case.

Fact Two is that pious, faithful, learned, spiritually profound theologians hold that there should be no ecclesiastical impediment to these consecrations and blessings. However problematic those sacramental gestures seem to some observers, and however many weak reasons that some proponents advance, a significant constituency of responsible Anglican theologians thinks that hetero- or homosexuality ought not determine full participation in church life.

If we were taking seriously both these facts, I imagine the Episcopal Church’s last two weeks would have run rather differently — but it’s easier, and more practically effective, to trade in straw adversaries and overblown polemical misrepresentations. Presumably the partisans expect that their protestations of “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out opponents in your name, and enact many deeds of power in your name?” will be met with a hearty, “You bet!” I wonder whether there might not be another possible answer to that question.

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June 22, 2006

Fashion Statement

Do you think these glare-prevention scarves will catch on? Laura thought I should see. . . .

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Index Under

Margaret, who cheerfully and painstakingly is reading proofs and constructing the index for my Fortress book, looked up from her labors to wonder what the index for David’s book Everything Is Miscellaneous will look like.

Posted by AKMA at 08:15 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

June 20, 2006

Hat Tip

Yesterday morning, I received a video iChat invitation from Pascale, who wanted to show off her new roommate Ariel. I, in turn, brought Beatrice to the computer, and we exchanged pet stories and pleasantries.

Margaret called from the kitchen that the flat of strawberries she had bought for Saturday’s trip to Ravinia was not disappearing as fast as necessary, and wouldn’t Pascale like some? Pascale answered that what we really ought to do was make Strawberry Sauce. Margaret pooh-poohed the notion, but I queried Pascale for more details, and she explained how brain-dead simple it was (if it hadn’t seemed brain-dead simple, I wouldn’t have remembered it). And when Margaret left for her morning’s writing work at Peet’s, Pippa and I snuck into the kitchen and stealthily whipped two quarts of strawberries into sauce.

We tested it on our lunch waffles, and agreed that it was pretty good. When Margaret came home from Peet’s, we surprised her with the jar brimful of intoxicating strawberry essence. We served vanilla ice cream for dessert, topped with our own Strawberry Sauce (top secret recipe), and the afternoon of setting and refrigeration had turned our pretty-good strawberry sauce exquisite. Thanks, Pascale!

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June 19, 2006

Since You Asked

Several people have wondered what I think about the election of Katharine Jefferts Schori as the next Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, and the short answer is, “I don’t know.” I’ll certainly pray for her and her family, for the leadership infrastructure of the Episcopal Church, and for new health for the Anglican Communion as a whole.

But I haven’t seen any reliable sample of her theological reasoning, and at this time we need sound, deep theological reasoning more than just about any other characteristic.

I hear reports that she has a lovely, gracious, attentive, focused personality. She has a pilot’s license and flies her own airplane. To state the obvious, she’s a woman, and there is good in U. S. Episcopalians not assuming that a Presiding Bishop must be male.

At the same time, if she can’t back up her winsome character traits with weighty theological reasoning, all the positives won’t add up to enough to preserve even marginally cooperative relations with the Anglican Communion outside the U.S., nor to bolster the theological integrity of the Episcopal Church. For a variety of cultural reasons, the Episcopal Church in the U.S. can’t quite believe that anyone can (or should) take theological truth seriously, and tends to settle for lo-cal substitutes (convention conflict as “Less Filling!” vs. “Tastes Great!”); the vital (and I mean that word emphatically) importance of theology for the church remains in inconvenient truth. I hope I’ll learn that Bishop Jefferts Schori can handle that aspect of her new calling.

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June 18, 2006

Father's Day

The family honored Father’s Day today with cards and gifts — Si sent me the card above, which Pippa drew for him. It’s a whale of a card, for a whale of a Dad, and Si added a kindly appreciative message on the inside.

Pippa herself gave me a small bag of goodies, including a bouquet of silk flowers that she had made (more in the realm of imaginative flowers than the exact reproduction of familiar floral forms), which hung over my place in the dining room. She added a card of her own, on which she transcribed the definition of “father” from the

Random House College Dictionary

she picked up at the most recent library Book Sale.

Best of all, she suspended her recent abstinence from graphical endeavors to produce a pastel for me, a wonderful picture of three brilliant tomatoes on a bright blue background. What a wonderful family — I’m very proud of all of them, and blessed that I got the assignment of being “father” among such remarkable, gifted souls!

Posted by AKMA at 06:33 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

June 17, 2006

Placeholder Home Companion

This afternoon, we’re heading north to Ravinia to see A Prairie Home Companion — the live show, not the movie (Pippa’s a big PHC fan, loves Guy Noir). I’ll post some observations here after the show, but for now we’re gathering our forces, mapping out food and supply strategies, and devising our plans for reconnaissance and deployment. More later.

Posted by AKMA at 12:41 PM | Comments (3)

June 16, 2006

Tradition, Change, and Precision

I observe that my dictionary software permits using the traditionally transitive verb “expound“ as intransitive: whereas I was taught that one expounds a position, a claim, the Scriptures, or a proposal, the Oxford American Dictionary (on which Apple’s Dashboard software relies) allows us to “expound on” a topic. The Oxford editors do not, however, approve the widespread use of “advocate” with an indirect object. Even in this fallen day and age, one advocates a cause, one does not advocate for that cause.

Just so you know.

And since I’m blogging about academica, I will belatedly point to Alex Halavalais’s now-famous post on ways students could cheat better. It’s not the kind of thing I would have posted — I can’t do anything to make my job harder — the post and some of the comments deserve attention.

Can you tell I’m grading papers and exams?

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June 15, 2006

Joke's On Me

The PDFs of my Fortress Press book arrived yesterday, and I take bemused delight in one of its features. In a book which includes at least two essays that broach the topic of how typography affects interpretation, Fortress has set the headers in Antique Olive, one of my very least favorite typefaces in the world. At least the body copy is set in a sturdy Janson-family typeface.

In other news, I seem to have succumbed to the cold Pippa developed two days ago. She has seemed pitiably uncomfortable since then, so I’m not looking forward to the rest of the week.

Posted by AKMA at 06:25 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

June 14, 2006

Redeem the Time

Since I posted yesterday, I’ve been flooded with semi-intuitions that the problems I care most about (theological, hermeneutical, ethical, and all) find a common determinant in the character of time. I hesitate to blog any one of the notions that’s crossed my mind — they aren’t that well-developed yet — but if I were a character in an Edwardian novel, I would set out for a cottage in a remote location (say, France, or the Cotswolds, or even Scotland) and spend a year or two working out the connections. As it is, I’ll mull them over in the gaps of my days, and if anything noteworthy comes to fruition, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, in ecclesiastical news, it turns out that Barbara Brown Taylor is not an “ex-priest,” but has stepped down from parish ministry. Sadly, the noteworthy story here is not that the USA Today got its facts wrong in a headline, but that she feels comfortable claiming that “Jesus knew the Hebrew Scriptures, and he departed from them. He was not faithful to the Scripture of that time. . . .” When celebrities such as she advance foolishness like this, the job of teaching wisdom to the church just gets harder and harder.

And since I noticed all this through Kendall Harmon’s site, I ought to complete a bizarre convergence of parties by noting that here I repudiate Brown Taylor’s claims, and endorse Al Kimel’s resistance to Paul Zahl’s unnerving theological hybrid of Luther and Zwingli.

But that “time” stuff — so much to think about, from Augustine to Heidegger. . . .

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June 13, 2006

On Weasel Words

The Episcopal Church’s triennial General Convention starts its work this week, as even totally uninterested newswatchers will have been informed. We can anticipate a great deal of heat, and a good deal less light, and a sizable number of dissatisfied Episcopalians, no matter what the convention decides.

Some observers have offered pre-emptive strikes against the use of “weasel words” about issues that demand firm, clear, unambiguous verdicts. I’m not so het up about this one — my acquaintance with Anglican history suggests that the strength and weakness of the Anglican tradition depends to a great extent on keeping as many people as possible on board. To the extent that carefully worded resolutions (that may be read in more than one sense) contribute to sustaining broad participation in the church, I think that they reflect one of the defining characteristics of this stream of Christianity.

I’m not defending vagueness, but rather precision — about matters on which there is not a clear, distinct agreeement. That’s not a vice, but a virtue.

On the other hand, I see so little clear, precise writing that I sympathize with partisans who doubt that official church pronouncements aim not so much at precision as at empty but congenial sonorousness.

On a separate but related topic, I finally edited and added the sermon from Paula Harris’s ordination, and on another separate but related topic, Kevin points to the eerie convergence of catholic and agnostic sensibilities.

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June 12, 2006

Furthermore

Yesterday afternoon, Margaret and I sang the hymn“Come, Labor On,” one of those resonant theological classics of sacred music. The fourth verse includes the admonition, “Redeem the time; its hours too swiftly fly. The night draws nigh.”

Twenty-four years ago today, we sang “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven” and “Come Down, O Love Divine,” two more of those classics; we stood up in front of Margaret’s home parish, of family and friends, standing among saints and angels. We offered to one another and to God and church our willingness to bind our lives together; we promised to stick together through thick and thin, as a testimony to love’s power to harmonize and unite different characters, a tentative witness to God’s love’s ultimate reconciliation of the differences by which this mortal world has been constituted — when earthly passions turn to dust and ashes in the heat of God’s love consuming.

As we begin a twenty-fifth year of life together, we can’t afford to take for granted even a minute of the time we share. We’ve somehow put together two dozen years of affection, care-giving, parenting, support, growth, endurance, surprises, patience, and in all things, praise of God. Who could ask more? Yet we promise one another, our beloved family, our dear friends, and all with whom our lives have become intertwined, to rejoice in each new day, to acknowledge the tremendous gifts we’ve received (and, at our best, shared).

And to Margaret, my love: All this that you have given me far exceeds anything I could ever ask. Thank you, my dearest, for loving me, knowing me, and keeping close very moment — I’m with you, all along, always, all ways.

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June 11, 2006

Not To Boast. . . .

But Pippa was honored at St. Luke’s Annual choir banquet, with a joke award for her punctuality (the Eastern Standard Time Award, for always arriving an hour early). She also received the Attendance Award (shared with our family’s friend Kaethe Wright Kaufmann), and also with the Rector’s Award as the chorister who exemplified the Christian ideals of the choir. She was mentioned as Honorable Mention for most improved, too.

That’s after she had a lovely, short solo during Saturday’s memorial service.

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June 10, 2006

Reporting For Duty

No, I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth, nor have I been crushed by the tree limb that fell down across our street last night. At the end of an exhausting year, I gave myself a week off (not exactly a week off, since I had Seabury meetings every day this week, and two on some days — but more nearly “off” than the rest of the year had been). I’ll be getting back into action this week, gradually.

While I was gone, Jordon pushed back on the “church and popular culture” topic, in an entirely apposite way. I don’t assume we’ll agree about everything, but it’s just the kind of discussion I want to be part of.

David cites Jay citing Raymond Williams to the support his argument that the participatory-media transition accelerates the dissolution of “mass culture,” and that’s a good thing. I second the motion.

While I haven’t been blogging actively, I have been spending a non-trivial amount of time deleting comment spam, which now seems to be flowing in a constant, intense stream despite its total ineffectiveness at this address. I know, it doesn’t cost the accursed spammer anything to try; the whole cost is borne by the host, in bandwidth and time spent deleting. One of my jobs this summer will involve the back-up and upgrade process here. In the meantime, if I’ve deleted a comment you left, I apologize. When deleting hundreds of posts left in the name of a prescription drug, a mode of sexual activity currently under legislative review, empty flattery with links to gambling sites, and invitations to resorts, an innocuous comment from a non-commercial visitor can easily get swept up in the process.

I should also say that this week has been framed by our learning that Allen Strehlow died early last Sunday morning. As I write, we’re sitting at the café while Si and Pip rehearsse with the choir for this afternoon’s memorial service. I would say more about Allen, but trivialities are cheap, and I’m not sure I’m up to trying for profundity yet.

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June 05, 2006

Noted In Passing

Binder on the counter of Peet’s: “Leader-Led Training.” Is that unusual? I guess so; I overheard someone ask, the other day, “Is it possible for the church to learn from learning and teaching experiences?”

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June 04, 2006

da Vinci Talking Points

Here are some of the points I expect to make in tonight’s (and Wednesday’s) presentations on The da Vinci Code:

To begin with the obvious: ”symbology”? At Harvard? (I mean, maybe out in Boulder they have a symbology professor, but not at an Ivy League institution.)

How does the movie define “identity”? Who are the characters, and what do they stand for? For instance: the movie shows us no Protestant, Orthodox, (or Anglican) believers; only Roman Catholics, and only Roman Catholics of an extreme sort. Only one Roman Catholic character seems to have a shred of conscience, and that after he has already defied church teaching (relative to the sanctity of the confessional) and has disrupted police procedure, supoposedly at the behest of the church. The movie suggests that our identity is bound up with heredity (in a nostalgic, romantic-noble way). Evidently the Merovingian dynasty was all about helping the poor and oppressed (poor and oppressed people who never appear in the movie). The movie (and book) presuppose “origins” and “original [things]” are somehow truer than their contemporary manifestations.

The church’s teachings run in a very different direction. Counterexamples to the contrary notwithstanding (and reality, unlike the movie, admits of counterexamples), the church has from the apostolic time acknowledged that no “blood line” ennobles anyone, but that we are all God’s children by adoption, that God is not partial to one person over another, and that in Christ all particularities are harmonized into a concordant equality.

Who are the intelligent characters (on the movie’s terms)? The ones who believe in a conspiracy theory grounded in dubious evidence and false claims.

How do we discover/encounter truth? In what do we have faith? (Documents hidden in a basement?) Thomas: people we trust. In the movie/book, Clio (the muse of History) is, in effect, the One God; it’s singular, it’s not perspectival, and we have access to the truth. As Margaret points out, the movie communicates its “truth” with the grainy documentary film-clip effect; since we see scenes from the lead characters’ (true) pasts in grainy flashbacks, the movie suggests that the scenes from Christianity’s past are true in the same way. The rhetorical style of the book and movie’s characters conveys the impression that Christianity must be either a plot or a laughable delusion.

What’s the basis for believing in things? The movie suggests that the publicly-available, historic church is fraud, whereas a secret, private, unknown conspiracy represents the truth.

What is a “document,” and how does it testify to truth? If you find a basement full of Top Secret documents, does that make them instantly reliable?

The problem of “liking” theological texts: “Liking” limits interpretation by suggesting that we may concentrate on texts we like, it excuses us from talking about texts we don’t like, and undercuts reasoning about what’s good, true, sound.

What does it mean to kneel at the remains of Mary Magdalene? How does Tom Hanks kneeling at the [supposed] memorial of Mary Magdalene differ from Christians making a pilgrimage to a tomb or memorial? What does any of that behavior mean, on the movie's terms?

It’s all about genealogical family — but the focus of the family is on the individual. Jesus’ alleged blood line did not expand and extend, but it narrowed down to one person (the notion that Sophie is the only descendant never gets examined in the movie; somehow Tom Hanks just knows that she’s alone).

Stuff like this.

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June 03, 2006

Clear Skies, Bright Hopes

Having cleared my writing responsibilities for the short term, I have mostly to go preach at Paula Harris’s ordination this afternoon, then lead a couple of church forums on that movie. The weather is beautiful today, the school year is over (even though I have an ever-increasing number of committee meetings in the weeks to come), and Margaret’s and my wedding anniversary is coming up.

Things are looking better.

(Sermon will be in the extended section after I preach it.)

Sisters and brothers in the body of Christ, sharers in the ministry of the gospel, Right Reverend Sir, and particularly, this afternoon, my dear sister Paula:

On this most solemn occasion, I am reminded of a quotation from one of the texts that most significantly shaped my childhood. Indulge me for a moment, my friends, and imagine a large animated moose in a cartoon tuxedo standing here beside a flying squirrel. The moose says,

“Hey, Rocky; watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!”
To which the squirrel responds, “But that trick never works.”
And the moose unhesitatingly replies, “This time, for sure!”

For sure? Maybe; maybe not. We know, do we not, that there is nothing in the magician’s silk top hat; we know that yonder lie some ordinary bread and some everyday wine. We know that Paula is fundamentally just another person like all the rest of us, perhaps more friendly and patient, certainly very well-educated, but really just another person And we know that when the psalm says, “No good thing will the LORD withhold from those who walk with integrity” — what? What do we know?

Do we know that the Lord will keep us from all evil, in a precarious economy, when gas prices could leap to $4.00 a gallon in the blink of an eye?

Will the Lord keep us from all evil, when the threat of terror haunts our cities?

Will the Lord keep us from evil, when hundreds of thousands die every day from disease, from gunfire and bombs, from starvation?

Perhaps those questions dance always at the fringes of full-blooded, whole-hearted ministry, sometimes dance close to the very center of ministry, perhaps sometimes the questions pierce your heart as you look in a lonely widower’s faraway eyes. Perhaps that “what do we know?” question addresses anyone who presumes to take the long walk to this pulpit, to proclaim the good news of God’s salvation to busy, hungry people who look to you in trust. Perhaps that question “what?” echoes the voice of an angel — and a demon — who play tag in your study, inviting you to try just a little harder, give even more of yourself, extend yourself just a little further — and maybe that question draws you out onto the thin ice where faith and truth begin to crack.

So let’s pull back, let’s draw that question out into the open, let’s put it on the table. Let’s look that angel and demon straight in the eyes, and ask, flat out, “What do we mean when we say that the LORD will withhold no good thing from those who walk with integrity, in a world where we know full well that ghastly things happen to lovely people?” How can we make so audacious a claim?

We can make that claim because we know that more is going on than meets the eye.

It’s not entirely that simple, of course; we must never glibly say that God is at work through all these things, bringing us through to a safety and a blessedness that we can’t quite bring into focus through the foggy vistas of confusing circumstance. The world rightly doubts our word if we just smile and say, “Not to worry — all’s for the best,” and at our wisest we avoid offering any such facile assurances to heartbroken mourners. But we do say, along with the Apostle Paul, that “all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to God’s purpose.” We do say that the sun will not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. We say that the Lord will keep us from all evil. We say, and we insist, that more is going on than meets the eye.

We must say that. We must say and believe that, for we know well, far too well, that God doesn’t vaccinate us against suffering and mortality. We have nursed our loved ones through cancer, through AIDS, through abyssal depression, through Alzheimer’s. We have buried our parents, our children, our dearest friends. We have seen the prosperity of the wicked, who have no pain, whose bodies are sound and sleek, who are not plagued like other people. We know that the righteous suffer, and that oppressors live the high life. What we see day by day reminds us that nothing matters very much out on the streets, not faith or goodness or virtue or hopefulness; so if we don’t remind ourselves that more is going on than meets the eye, we would have to agree with the world, that faith is for the feeble, that religion is a pain-killer for the weak. If we are wrong, then we are counted among those perishing souls whose minds are blinded. If we are wrong, then the jig is up, the bread is just bread and the wine is just wine. Bullwinkle’s top hat is empty. Time to go home, sisters and brothers, we’re closing up shop. Sorry, but you lose. We all lose.

Will you allow us say such a thing, Paula?

I pray that you will not. I pray that the gifts with which God has so amply equipped you will keep the church doors open, keep our eyes sparkling with hope amid tears. I pray that your presence among us will always remind us of God’s power, supple and subtle and sweet and undefeatable, holding the truth up to satisfy our hunger and slake our thirst. Hear me right — I pray that it be the truth that you offer us, not fairy tales, not guesswork, not the flimsy band-aid assurances that televised talking heads and ecclesiastical compromisers pull from their anthology of pompous bombast. Truth is what we need, truth that touches us where it hurts most deeply, not where the the wounds are obvious and shallow. Truth will heal us. Truth will set things right, even when the appearances say that nothing will ever be the same.

Let me repeat this one hors d’oeuvre of that truth: more is going on than meets the eye. When we sing with the Psalmist, “No good thing will the LORD withhold from those who walk with integrity,” we know full well that bad things are liable to happen, that unpredictable catastrophes overtake God’s people, that rain falls on the just as well as the unjust — but we know also that God’s promise extends beyond what we can see on the surfaces of things, and we love one another with mutual affection to help us sustain that assurance of things hoped for, that conviction of things unseen. When hard times shake us, when affliction clouds our vision, we need the support of our steadfast friends, we need the ministry of our clergy, to help us keep alive our reliance on the Holy Spirit’s ceaseless provision for our well-being, our hope in Christ’s healing love. We need one another to remember that heart-breaking appearances may conceal, but they don’t interrupt, God’s overflowing grace.

God’s grace constantly works at us, transforming us, even when that transformation operates so gradually, so steadily, as to defy observation. But just as this service does not by itself instantly convert Paula Harris from a thoughtful, pleasant woman-in-the-street — hocus-pocus! — into a passionate, gentle, eloquent, patient and peaceable servant of God’s Word, in the same way God operates within and around us all the time, always offering all of us the possibility to recognize grace transforming us, drawing us steadfastly through our highs and sometimes especially our lows, drawing us through the rejoicing of our joyous days as well as the weeping of our heartbroken nights, drawing us beyond the boundary of mortal life itself.

That’s not something I really learned at seminary. (Of course, I went to Berkeley; our midwestern seminaries may have done a better job on this point.) But I wonder whether anyone really learns that theological lesson in a classroom. The deep, transforming lessons in truth come most readily when we don’t have our official guidebook to pastoral response open to the right page, when they catch us off guard, without any academic training to protect us. Our own resources fall away in the face of the awesome challenge of love, and we’re thrown back on the mercy of the Holy Spirit; at times like that, we’re vulnerable to the Spirit. And the action of the Spirit sometimes, often, usually comes under the category of things that don’t meet the eye.

That invisible presence can strain our patience, our hope, our very faith itself; have you been there, Paula? Come there with us, then, meet us there, and I beg you not to scold or reproach us in our time of desperation; rather, weep with us when we weep. Come to us there, love us as we grunt and sweat under a weary life, bless us with your own joy in hope, your patience in suffering, your perseverance in prayer. Trust that as you bear with us, more is going on than meets the eye.

Remind us with fervent proclamation and, even more, with your life’s manifest integrity and dignity, of the power of the Gospel to sustain us through hard times of shock and stress. Show us what it means for us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, rather than simply allowing ourselves to be conformed to this world. Intercede for us, so that even if there be only fifty, or twenty, or even just a few righteous souls with you, we not be found opposing our God. Preach the Gospel in season and out of season, joining your voice with ours when times are good and praise comes readily to our lips, and find words on our behalf when we stammer and fall silent. Show us Christ, and help us believe that more is going on than meets the eye.

Share with us with the bread of life and the cup of salvation. Nourish our souls with these signs of God’s ever-giving love, with the remembrance that God forgives the sins that we cannot forget; encourage us with the promise that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Help us to taste and see the goodness of God’s providence for us.

And we, in turn, will watch as Bishop Miller lays hands on you and we will pray that the Holy Spirit descend upon you to renew and deepen and invigorate the gifts that we’ve recognized in you, gifts for ministry, for prophecy, for teaching, for leadership, all according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. We will pray that the Spirit speak in your words, that the Spirit touch us in your hands, that the Spirit gladden us in your love for us. And even though, at the end of the afternoon, you will probably look pretty much the same as ever — good, I mean, but generally the same — we will know in our hearts that the Holy Spirit has been at work among us, and that more, much more, inestimably more is going on than meets our eyes.

We know that you have been blessed with every blessing in abundance, so that you may share in every good work. We know that God has been at work among us, has been at work in you, bringing us together this afternoon to present ourselves as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, and to celebrate and solemnize your calling to lead us in our transformation into the image of Christ. We know that a Providence beyond our wisdom has been with us all along, and will indeed preserve our lives, not simply in this world, but much more to the very threshold of eternity itself. We know that this is not simply bread and wine, but a foretaste of the feast we will share with all the elect from every people and language, every tribe and nation, at the hand of Jesus Christ. We know that Bullwinkle’s hat is not empty after all, nor does it conceal only a hapless bunny, but inside it lurks something wilder and more powerful than he or Rocket J. Squirrel or we ourselves can predict. Now is the time for us reach out our hands, lean back cautiously, and watch with joy what God can do in our sister’s life.

“Hey Rocky, watch me pull a deacon out of my hat! Nothing up my sleeve...”

“Not again...”

“This time — for sure.”

Amen

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June 02, 2006

Next?

Graduation went well, I’m beat, sermon to work on for tomorrow. I’m hoping that Sunday will begin my decompression time.

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June 01, 2006

The End

We didn’ close out every single last one of the editor’s queries — we can do that tonight, probably, or tomorrow afternoon. I did finish the preface, which I’ll put in the extended section.

The chapters of this book approach this multimodal differential hermeneutics with various points of emphasis, along various trajectories. Each chapter sets out to clarify a particular puzzle relevant to understanding the transition away from modern technical interpretation to a hermeneutic that better fits a more interactive, flexible approach to meaning. Written over the course of fifteen years, they begin from a critical interrogation of what was once the prevalent theoretical background for New Testament theology and gradually stake out a staging area for articulating a sounder approach to the theological interpretation of the Bible.
The first chapter considers the relation between modern biblical scholarship and the goal of a satisfying theological interpretation of Scripture. Many readers of the Bible report a certain disorientation when they turn to the study of biblical theology. They may have learned well the academic modes of criticism that form the basis of contemporary biblical interpretation, and they may feel a strong interest in how the Bible informs subsequent theological reflection, but the most prominent texts in biblical theology offer something very different from the wisdom which these readers seek. A reader who turns to a biblical theology book in hope of learning the biblical precedents for Trinitarian formulas is more likely to encounter a historical survey of the discipline of biblical theology itself, and programmatic reflections on how biblical theology should be done. Often as not, both the history and the program baffle the reader. So the interested reader's hermeneutical vigor dissipates in thickets of dense disciplinary undergrowth. The miscarriage of one program leads to proposals for another, and this new alternative requires historical perspective in order to justify its claims, and which in turn baffles a new set of readers.
This essay proposes that the definitions by which biblical theology and New Testament theology establish their disciplinary identity include elements that correspond to the axiomatic assumptions of modern culture. In particular, the practitioners in these fields so defined their disciplines as to put a premium on the presumed “scientific” character of the knowledge they produce. They show a proclivity for according greater weight to the most recent studies of their topics, in keeping with the modern ideology of progress (as though sound understanding of the New Testament had only dawned in the most recent decade). Accordingly, New Testament theologians emphasize the vast historical gap between the ancient New Testament context and the contemporary scene, a gap that requires the mediating expertise of a historical scholar; from this point of view, the generations of interpreters between Paul and this morning constitute more of an obstacle to understanding the Scriptures than they provide links to a living tradition of interpretation. The modern theological interpreter rejects these readers of Scripture as “precritical,” since they do not conform to the same criteria that the modern scholar regards as necessary. Modern biblical theology withholds its approval from any mode of interpretation that does not submit to adjudication at the bar of historical scholarship – but this chapter holds open the possibility that biblical theology may have durable claims to legitimacy that do not depend on strictly modern assumptions about time, progress, and the unique validity of historical-critical analysis. The strongest ventures in biblical theology demonstrate insight and critical judgment that draws on historical-critical scholarship, but which cannot be limited to the horizons that circumscribe modern technical conventions of reading.*1*
The second chapter confronts one of the most common rationales for assigning historical-critical analysis the authority to adjudicate questions of interpretive legitimacy. The historian, it is argued, brings to light the historical actuality of Jesus’ identity, so that any other approach to studying Jesus displaces his fully human character in favor of a theological phantasm (the christological error of “docetism”). This defense of historical-critical authority, however, misconstrues the results of technical historical scholarship and misreads the (historical) character of docetism. Careful study of the topic of docetism in its patristic context and in its contemporary manifestations reveals an elusive complex of tendencies and inclinations, no one of which can be remedied by historical scholarship. Nor indeed can technical scholarship produce an anti-docetic, concretely human Jesus on its own; historical research into Jesus produces an academic construct (as opposed, perhaps, to a devotional construct), but the academic construct does not automatically count as more fully incarnate than its devotional alternative. The opposite of docetism is not certified historical scholarship, but a resolutely Chalcedonian christology.
The third chapter takes up the problem of subsistent meaning and textual agency. If, as I argue, texts do not possess characteristics that promote or resist various interpretations, can one simply make a text mean anything one chooses? By no means! Our interactions with texts and the interpretations we offer always involve social and environmental mediation. Communities of interpreters approve or discountenance proposed interpretations according to criteria that constitute the community: technical interpreters according to criteria of academic scholarship, congregations of faithful believers according to the rule of their faith, and enthusiastic consumers of sensation according to the headlines of supermarket tabloids. Mortal readers have no access to immutable laws of interpretation by which we can, with God’s perspective on meaning, adjudicate interpretive legitimacy, but we cannot escape participation in complex interactions that provide ample basis for evaluating interpretations; we can only “make texts mean whatever we want” if we are willing to abide the consequences of alienating everyone who deems our readings nonsensical. When we emphasize our own accountability for the interpretations we propose (rather than invoking transcendent laws of interpretation whose application always remains contested in particular cases), we open up a strong connection between our hermeneutics and the ethics we proclaim and practice.
The fourth chapter pursues the question of meaning and ethics with particular reference to the Gospel of Matthew’s invective against Jesus’ rivals and enemies. While critics have denounced Matthew as "anti-Jewish," this chapter argues that an ethically sound reading (in the sense set out above) should promote a different view of Matthew and his theology. There is not, in other words, an anti-Jewish meaning subsisting in Matthew’s Gospel. Our readings of Matthew have benign or baneful effects on our neighbors, Gentile and Jewish, but it's up to us to articulate interpretations for which we are willing to stand accountable. After all, Matthew’s Gospel quotes many very harsh words Jesus directed against Gentiles, and instructs disciples to uphold the entire Torah; if Matthew himself was Jewish, and he deplored rival visions of how Judaism should be constituted, his polemics should be treated as “anti-Pharisaism” or as intra-Judaic controversy rather than as anti-Judaism. Finally, I appeal to the historical experience of the great crisis of the mid-twentieth century, to show that the ideologues of Nazi anti-Semitism specifically rejected the Gospel of Matthew as unsuitable for their propaganda purposes, whereas some of the Protestants who risked their lives to save Jewish refugees acted on the distinctively Matthean basis that whoever offered aid or shelter one of the least of Jesus’ sisters and brothers, did so to him. While Christians have certainly drawn on Matthean texts to justify their anti-Jewish bigotry, we should not blame Matthew for that bigotry. Instead, we should hold interpreters accountable for the use they make of texts, and should exemplify the kind of commitment to support and protect our neighbors that would make anti-Jewish readings of Matthew seem implausible.
Chapter Five returns to the theoretical dimension of theological hermeneutics, discussing the relative benefits and drawbacks of approaches to interpretation that foreground on one hand, univocity and correctness, and on the other hand, multiple meanings and soundness. The first approach, which I label “integral hermeneutics,” coheres admirably with God’s unity, and with hermeneutical analysis that seeks the definite meaning of a particular expression. Integral hermeneutics often uphold the premise that meaning subsists in texts, and issues the ethical mandate that interpreters orient their readings toward the author’s intended meaning. The alternative perspective locates “meaning” not within texts, but in the manifold interactions of humans with texts, or humans with other humans. In this complex economy of interpretation, we nonetheless find many of the most careful, diligent, faithful, and learned readers reaching divergent conclusions about what a given text means. Rather than taking this as evidence that only one of them is right and the rest more or less mistaken, the second approach to interpretation takes this as a reason to regard difference in interpretation as a normative condition; hence, I label this approach “differential hermeneutics.” The strength of differential hermeneutics lies in its capacity to ascribe disagreement to causes other than error or ignorance. On this account, we can expect interpreters often to disagree with one another, even as we expect the best interpretations to adduce carefully reasoned cases to justify their conclusions. While both approaches to interpretation can advance cogent reasons for the value of their perspective to theological interpreters, the practice of differential hermeneutics attenuates the spirit of contentiousness, better befits the capacities and limitations of mortal interpreters, and admits a fuller range of interpretive expression than an integral hermeneutics.To this extent at least, a differential hermeneutics affords the prospect of a more harmonious practice of biblical interpretation, attentive to the myriad particularities that constitute biblical interpreters as different people, with a view toward embodying the truths we claim to learn from the Bible.
The sixth chapter considers the importance of living out one’s interpretation of the Bible with special attention to the complications attendant on the imitation of Christ. Critics have noted an array of weaknesses to imitation-ethics: they disrupt the proper roles of the Savior and the saved, they tend to assimilate the Gospel’s daunting imperious command to the banalities of polite good citizenship, and they impose a hegemony of the homogeneous. Still, a number of warrants bolster the case on behalf of the imitation of Christ. Most obviously, Scripture seems to mandate this way of earnest discipleship; but we can sensibly expect that the lives of Christians bear at least a vague resemblance to the life of Jesus. We can maintain the value of an ethic of imitation if we attend to differences as well as similarity, if we distinguish the imitation of Christ from the misguided effort to become our own messiahs. By respecting the constitutive role that difference plays in repetition and identity, we can affirm solidarity without requiring assimilation, can order our differences to harmonious community rather than stifling monotony, can sponsor an imitation of Christ’s unwavering faithfulness to the Gospel that respects distinctions and particularities at the same time it draws us ever closer to one another and to God.
Chapter Seven tests the claims of modern integral hermeneutics against the evidence of actual interpretive practice. If we must accede to the premise that a single subsistent meaning lurks within texts, we may reasonably ask that two thousand years of scrupulously close study bring that meaning into finer focus. As a sample, I introduce the saying from the gospels wherein Jesus alludes to the sign of Jonah. This saying intrigued the church's early commentators, among whom it evoked a remarkably diverse array of interpretations. If, as some scholars of hermeneutics suggest, we can ascribe this to the undisciplined imaginations of archaic spiritual interpretation, we ought to see a significant convergence among interpreters with the advent of critical technical scholarship. In fact, though, the interpretations of twentieth-century scholars give no clear indication that their shared commitment to scientific investigative method has brought them closer to consensus. Although one can always criticize interpretations relative to premises that particular bodies of readers uphold, no one set of interpretive presuppositions itself provides a key to unlocking textual puzzles.
Chapter Eight approaches the problem of ways one can articulate a richly biblical theology of human sexuality and hallowed relationships. In an effort to move beyond an impasse in which opposing parties cling to a handful of texts, this chapter seeks evidence for a general understanding of God’s will for human intimacy, from which to work out a theological explanation of what makes particular expressions of sexual intimacy commendable or condemnable. By reading Scripture’s accounts of the character and implications of holy intimacy, particularly as the prophets and apostles apply it to God’s relationship with humanity, this chapter develops criteria for discerning what characteristics bespeak holiness in intimacy, and how churches may face the difficult challenge of putting that discernment into practice.
Finally, epilogue introduces the concept of signifying practices, drawn from cultural criticism, as a heuristic device for understanding the relation of disciplined technical interpretation to theological, ethical, liturgical, and pastoral practice. When we bring critical attention to the full range of communicative action, we cannot justify restricting interpretive legitimacy to the phenotextual dimensions of textual expression, nor can we limit in advance the range of interpretive gestures. This essay draws the conceptual vocabulary of signifying practices into the interaction among the different related areas of theological interest, and asks how the lives we make constitute an enacted exegesis of the gospel. As the eternal Word entered the temporal economy of signification in order to make God known, so exegetical theologians can use their critical faculties not only to fine-tune our appreciation of verb tenses, allusions, and scribal tendencies, but all the more to encourage the people of God more persistently, more wisely, more persuasively to make visible the truth toward which our interpretive labors aim.
With the epilogue on signifying practices, this series of forays into unfamiliar terrain closes. What I offer here amounts only to the report of an exploratory expedition; much remains to be done, from surveying and planning to assessing the various ways by which one might dwell in this habitat. In the end, what I pass along from these essays turns out to involve less a discovery of something new, than a critical reappropriation of ways that faithful readers have interpreted Scripture and sought to direct their hearts and souls and minds and strength toward loving God more truly. That effort always begins, never ends, and only benefits from sharing the vocation of discipleship.
*1* I develop this argument in much greater depth and nuance in Making Sense of New Testament Theology, rep. Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2005.

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