Theology

Quakers and Threshing Sessions

Posted by Callid

I’m putting this out as the functional definition we’ve used at Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting, New  England Yearly Meeting

Threshing sessions are a form of Quaker worship and practice intended to help a community prepare for a business meeting, especially one which involves a decision on a difficult or potentially controversial topic. Threshing sessions are held as part of the process of preparation for individuals as well as the meeting. العاب رياضية It is a time for individuals to raise up concerns and hopes that they have in regards to the issue being threshed. كيف احصل على المال مجانا؟

Although it is clerked and a Clerk may at times test their sense of the Meeting, it is not a called Meeting for business and no binding decisions will be made. Even if the sense of the meeting seems clear at the end of the threshing meeting, Clerks will only be taking notes and making a record of where the group has reached: the decision will be left unmade until the next full Meeting for Worship with a concern for Business. This is a time for sharing information, extended exploration, and clarification as to what needs to fall away and what will remain as the centering focus of any later business. تصفيات اليورو 2022

The Dance of Decolonizing Theopoetics

Posted by Callid

A guest post by Patrick Reyes who I’m grateful to for reviewing my recent book, Way to Water as part of the Homebrewed Christianity Blogger Book Tour.

What happens when the Way to Water serves as more than just a metaphor? What if it should actually lead to water? dosage ivermectin paste average size mini horse Self-ionization may in fact be the right metaphor for how Theopoetics as a field is emerging and that is shown through L. Callid Keefe-Perry’s work. Water is always in a status of transition, and similarly God, as articulated through Theopoetics, is always in flux. However, what about Theopoetics itself? Should that not also always be in flux?

Keefe-Perry’s work demonstrates that when operating on the boundary lines of several distinct fields – constructive theology, process theology, practical theology, hermeneutics, science, art, etc. – one finds that Theopoetics and the definition of “it,” if there is even an “it” to define, follows several distinct historical and theoretical lineages. This plurality is to be celebrated. To have a discipline such as Theopoetics, which is owned and operated by so many different practitioners, that in and of itself is the way to water.

Nevertheless, like all ownership and means of production, Keefe-Perry’s masterful work shows the limitation of the owners and operators to really question why they own, and where their fluidity and freedom originates. While Keefe-Perry is clear to point to new directions, new texts, new ways of reading, gesturing towards these bibliographies, this barely scratches the surface of how coloniality operates throughout the text. There is an allure to Theopoetics, or what he calls, seduction: “Via MacKendrick, Theopoetics can be seen as a way to mark and embody our desire to draw closer to God” (122). For those whose bodies were moved, not simply by seduction but by force, the relationship between Theopoetics and those suffering under coloniality stretches all metaphors too thin. Perhaps it is too much to ask for a text to speak beyond its own boundaries, to include those voices who might not readily make it into the accepted bibliography, to reflect what Octavio Paz had to say about writing on these boundary lines in his 1990 Nobel lecture:

The search for poetic modernity was a Quest, in the allegorical and chivalric sense … I did not find any Grail although I did cross several waste lands visiting castles of mirrors and camping among ghostly tribes. But I did discover the modern tradition. For modernity is not a poetic school but a lineage, a family dispersed over several continents and which for two centuries has survived many sudden changes and misfortunes: public indifference, isolation, and tribunals in the name of religious, political, academic and sexual orthodoxy.

This work traces a particular lineage bathed in modernity that is surviving sudden changes like what is noted by Paz. Keefe-Perry is searching for the way to water in this desert of indifference and tribunals of the divine. For a decolonial practical theologian, searching or finding God through this discourse that resists the temptation to be dogmatic and bathed in prose is exciting. However, to build a decolonial Theopoetics, Keefe-Perry would have to expand the bibliography to include other voices: the lost, silenced, and marginalized. Keefe-Perry welcomes those other voices; in fact, he invites them to dance with him, to seduce us into new being. thesquirrelboard ivermectin Those voices though, under the weight of coloniality – the residue and psychological scar tissue of colonialism – subjugates and silences many of those voices he is calling to dance with him.

I hear Keefe-Perry’s call. I desperately want to dance with him. But my feet are tied to the lost cultures and ways of speaking about and to the divine. The world does not allow me to stand. Keefe-Perry’s feet are tied to his own colonial inheritance; so are mine. When we try to dance together with his text, it is awkward and disjointed: both attempting to dance, to express, but always within the limits of coloniality.

He says,

Theopoetics seduces us, leading us away from what is certain … we will be brought back again to where were before we began, required to confront the reality that there are experiences that simply refuse to comply with our vision and hope for the world. Whether through their abject horror and atrocity, through their category-shattering beauty and awe, or the sudden profundity of the mundane, there are experiences that lead us away from what we thought was sure and we must reassess. (127-128)

It is time to reassess. Why are our feet tied? Why can’t we dance freely? For those that can dance, I say – of course, Roland Faber likens Theopoetics to Process Theology; of course, Amos Wilder gyrates towards a new Theopoetic method; of course, there are embodied Theopoetic discourses in practical theology! Of course! These texts and authors were already dancing, free to move about to the music in the way they please. They are simply showing us a new way of dancing.

If we are to take Keefe-Perry’s challenge seriously and bring those experiences that foster our ability to dance freely because of their beauty and awe, then we need to look to those texts, communities, and experiences that escape the colonial grasp.

The Way to Water: A Theopoetics Primer is the way to a particular Theopoetics. The water may be different, but at the mouth of the river are the same theological, philosophical, artistic, and mathematic texts that one would find elsewhere – albeit never on the same dance floor. I believe Keefe-Perry is going to decolonize the Way to Water. Following Alves, who decolonized the bibliography of Theopoetics or Melanie May who enfleshes it, or MacKendrick who seduces us out of our colonial rut, Keefe-Perry suggests in a celebration of Alves, “I have lifted up Rubem Alves as an author who willfully and explicitly subverted the norms of formal theological method so as to create literary spaces that honor fleshly experience” (177). My fleshly experience tells me that The Way to Water is preparing the way for a decolonial Theopoetics, a new Way to Water. The Way to Water gestures towards those lost, subjugated, and colonized narratives by showing that there are multiple ways to water, multiple ways to dance with the divine texts of our hearts and experiences. I look forward to his follow up work where he seeks out those watersheds and sources of life that have been rendered invisible by colonialism and coloniality. I look forward to dancing with him in this new space, freer than before. kjope ivergot

For more reviews of Way to Water, visit the Homebrewed Christianity Blogger Book Tour.

I’ll Give YOU a Grammatological Contour – Theopoetics in John Caputo’s “The Insistence of God”

Posted by Callid

This post is part of a blog tour around John Caputo’s latest book – The Insistence of God: A Theology of Perhaps. Check out this link to see lots of other folks weighing in on this book. My post engages Chapter 4 “The Insistence of God.” I was sent copy of the book as part of participating in this blog tour. It was made out of paper.

As per usual I was too lazy to condense my thoughts into the written word, so a video (in four parts) is what you have.

[These links go into the video itself if you want to skip around]

First Part: Contextualizing this book in Caputo’s trajectory

Second Part: Discussing the broad content of the chapter itself

Third Part: Caputo’s use of theopoetics in the context of his “theology of perhaps”

Fourth Part: My commentary on the nature and Caputo’s (possible) intent for this project.

A Sketch of a Theology of Ministry

Posted by Callid

 

Primarily, I intend this document to articulate my understanding of ministry in a general sense. That is, the material here addresses what I think ministry is in a functional and definitional way beyond just what I think ministry “means to me.” In attempting to be so bold as to title something “A Theology of X,” it strikes me that what is produced ought to be more than just individualized conviction, ought to attempt to lay out a sense of things beyond the personal level. Thus, I think it is vital to be able to articulate a category like “ministry” in a way such that it is not simply a personal statement of preference and opinion, but an attempt to actually make a claim about the nature of ministry in a denominationally and historically justified context. This is an attempt to make just such a claim.

 

NOTE: This is to be considered a permanently in-process draft. It is here both (1) for others to read in the event it is of use to them and (2) so that I can continue to develop it as I think through it in community. If you have thoughts you’d like to share one way or another I’d appreciate comments.


On the Nature of Ministry

At the core of my understanding of ministry are three affirmations.
  •  Ministry arises in individuals in the context of community for the sake of helping people enter the Kingdom of God.
  • All people – of every age, sex, and orientation – are called to ministry and some are called to a greater degree than others.
  •  The gifts of the ministry are not the minister’s but God’s, stewarded by the minister while they rest with his or her person.

Inherent to this view of ministry is an understanding that the Priesthood of all Believers is an actual work of Grace from God such that the notion of “the laity” has been abolished. All are called to the ministry and are ordained by virtue of their baptism into service for God to the whole of the world. Those of us who serve more intentionally or regularly are merely called to that task more directly, there is nothing more granted to those who serve in the ministry than that service and the opportunity to more faithfully labor under the yoke of Christ. That being said, I do affirm that “some have a more particular call to the work of the ministry and that therefore… are especially equipped for that work by the Lord. [And that our] work is to instruct, exhort, admonish, oversee, and watch over our brethren more frequently and more particularly than the others” (Barclay 215).

I believe that the gift of prophecy – in the sense of Divinely Inspired speech, not future predictive speech – is yet still poured on flesh and that it is especially upon those who serve in Ministry to not speak frivolously or without mind towards the possibility that we may be called into speaking prophetically at any time. “For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged. And the spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets, for God is a God not of disorder but of peace” (1 Cor 14:31-33). In more contemporary terms I find that I unite with the language of Brian Drayton who writes that “a concern for the ministry is a calling to be intentionally available to put our experience of the divine light and life at the disposal of others, for their refreshment and encouragement… a commitment to redouble our inward watchfulness, so that we grow in faithfulness, and grow in our ability to serve” (Drayton 17). In effect, I understand Ministry as an act of catalysis, the bringing forth of some word, some story, or some comfort that enables those present to come more fully into the Presence of God which was most certainly there prior to the minister’s arrival. The particulars of the action(s) done by the minister differ according to the spiritual gifts and leadings of the individual, but their effect is that people are intentionally brought closer to one another, to God, and/or to Creation.


On the Calling to Minister

While it follows from the above, it is worth mentioning the means by which one is called to ministry. Put another way, how does one come to be a minister? Again, I stand firmly with my tradition and affirm that “by the inward power and virtue of the Spirit of God, which will not only call the minister, but will – in some measure – purify and sanctify him or her… Since the things of the Spirit can only be truly known by the aid of the Spirit of God, it is by this same Spirit than one is called and moved to minister to others. Thus, the minister is able to speak from a living experience…” (Barclay 219). The intent here is to affirm that from beginning to end, to the extent that there is any transformation or revelation through the work of the minister, its source was not that person, but the Spirit which inspires all.

I think that it is incredibly important that those of us called into ministry never come into contempt of those we are to serve or come to think that somehow we have been given more than them. I think often of Paul’s letter, “for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5). The calling is not into any social esteem or power. Mine is the task to be of service to others, not to adjudicate or cast dispersions upon them, but to be a servant to them. A bondservant.

Furthermore, as a calling, I believe that the impulse to serve can also be lifted such that the “more particular call to the work of the ministry” no longer compels someone into service. I do not think that God ever withdraws the call to serve, which we are all to be engaged in, but I do think that the “more particular call to the work of the ministry” can have its season and may then transform or be put to rest. This means that we must be in regular discernment: Am I being called into a particular service? If I have been called before, is that calling still live? Is it changing?


On the Qualities of Ministry

Ministry is a way to embody the claims of the Gospel about liberation, justice, and freedom through service. Enacting ministry is to demonstrate that when we act from our core convictions we can bring an increasing awareness of the presence of God. That is, ministry is both about action and being. That being said, it ought not be measured by the worldly yardstick of “success,” lest we forget the parable of the sower and lose track of the fact that ours is merely the task of sowing seed and not to ensure that each one cast grows. Conversely, while faithfulness – rather than “success” – is always to be the primary mark of “a job well done” it is important that attention be paid to the wake in the minister’s passing. That is, if the minister is constantly leaving behind crowds of sad, weary, and listless people who do not seem any more marked by the Kingdom of God, well… then something might be up.

In a situation such as this if I maintain that I have been nonetheless faithful though no mark of love, joy, or liberation is noted, a sincere and weighty period of discernment is in order. I believe firmly that our service in ministry is a form of discipleship and ought to be patterned as Jesus taught: “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). My service is perhaps best marked not by particular sermons, services, or articles, but in the character of the relationships I cultivate within and beyond my community.

I think that Ministry also has the quality of transforming not only the communities in which the minister serves, but also the minister. I agree with Lloyd Lee Wilson that “the individual who does not feel stretched out by calling, who does not feel to some degree exposed and made vulnerable by the act of ministry, is not likely to be surrendered and accountable to the true promptings of the Holy Spirit” (Wilson 73). Another way of thinking about this is that I believe that the minister functions as a conduit of God’s Grace and Spirit, and as such, the ministry that flows from the minister will be marked by the qualities of God’s Grace and Spirit as well, namely that God “gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6) and that the fruits of the Spirit are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5:22-3). As a conduit to these graces, if I find that I am myself not more deeply reflecting these qualities I must question the rightness of my service.

Note that nowhere in this articulation is a description of powerful intellect, rigorous debate, or proof. This is on purpose as I believe the fullest power of God does not come through physical or mental coercion. That is, I believe that “Truth proceeds from an honest heart. When it is forthrightly spoken by the virtue and Spirit of God it will have more influence and take effect sooner and more forcefully than a thousand demonstrations of logic”(Barclay 200). I think that academic prowess can certainly supplement faithful service, and, in fact, feel that sometimes education can be a ministry, however the emphasis is always to be on God and the Kingdom of God and not on my own faculties.


On Scripture

The minister’s relationship to scripture is two-fold.

First, it is one of a dear companion with whom much is shared, all is entrusted, and yet with whom there are sometimes terrific arguments and disagreements. Scripture is the record that we have of human reflections upon God, including the life and sacrifice of Jesus and the culture and world from which he came. It is inspired and yet if we are to be critically engaged, thinking servants we must acknowledge that at times it frustrates and confuses us.

Second, it is one of the type of acknowledged limitation as might be encountered when reflecting upon a much-loved and much-used tool box full of the finest tools when the problem at hand is a broken heart. There are many fine metaphors and truths that the scriptures contain, and they are pertain absolutely to our lives, but they will not in and of themselves mend broken people. That task is God’s alone to do. Too often I find that the Bible is treated like an added fourth person of the Trinity, or worse, as a substitute for the Spirit. That is not something I find useful or spiritually beneficial.

Furthermore, while education may assist in helping the minister to more fully understand the scriptures and help them bear fruit in the church, I do not believe that it is necessary. Again, I find powerful resonance with my tradition: “All that someone can interpret from the scriptures though industry, learning, and knowledge of languages is nothing without the Spirit… Whereas, by the Spirit, a poor, illiterate person can say when she hears the scriptures read “This is true.” And by the same Spirit she can understand “open,” and interpret it, if necessary. When her “condition” answers the condition and experience of the faithful of old, she knows and possesses the truths that are expressed there, because they are sealed and witnessed in her own heart by the same Spirit” (Barclay 49).

That is, as with the calling and nature of ministry I believe that the origins of service and action rest firmly with the Holy Spirit, even when that action is the right reading and interpretation of scripture. This is said in no uncertain terms again in Barclay’s Apology.

Because the scriptures are only a declaration of the source, and not the source itself, they are not to be considered the principal foundation of all truth and knowledge. They are not even to be considered as the adequate primary rule of all faith and practice… We truly know them only by the inward testimony of the Spirit or, as the scriptures themselves say, “the Spirit is the guide by which the faithful are led into all Truth” ( John 16:13). Therefore, according to the scriptures, the Spirit is the f irst and principal leader (Rom 8:14). Because we are receptive to the scriptures, as the product of the Spirit, it is for that very reason that the Spirit is the primary and principal rule of faith” (Barclay 46).

On the Minister, who Stewards the Gift of Ministry

While it is the case that the Minister’s service is primarily as a function of conduit to God’s Grace and Love via the Spirit, it is nonetheless the case that the minister remains clay-footed and human. While the Spirit moves as it will and manifests as it does without apparent particular concern for human desire, the minister has significantly more limitations. Rather than consider this a negative thing however, I believe that it is a beautiful reminder of our finitude and our reliance on God. Were ministers suddenly transformed into superheros then our capacity to serve would be impeded in two immediate ways.

First, we would find it all the more challenging to act in humility and service, and second, others would look to us and not find connection, thinking that perhaps only “special” people can follow God’s vision. Instead, we are called in our brokenness to witness to the world that even through it God can redeem and uplift. I am regularly encouraged by the words of George Fox written in an epistle to traveling Friends ministers in1656:

This is the word of the Lord God to you all, a charge to you all in the presence of the living God; be patterns, be examples, in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come; that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in every one; whereby in them ye may be a blessing, and make the witness of God in them to bless you: then to the Lord God you will be a sweet savor, and a blessing.

As such I feel as if the minister’s life ought to be one of increasing integrity in all places: home, store, service, work, and play. If our “carriage and life” is to preach, if our very walking upon the ground is to be a pattern and example, then our health must be tended to, our family must be given space, time, and love, and we must remember that God’s work is for God and those of us who serve can only help but where we can.


Works Cited

Barclay, R. Barclay’s Apology. Dean Freiday (ed.)
Newberg, OR: The Barclay Press. 1991.
Drayton, B. On Living with a Concern for the Gospel Ministry.
Philadelphia, PA: Quaker Press. 2006.
Wilson, L. Essays on the Quaker Vision of Gospel Order.
Philadelphia, PA: Quaker Press. 1996.

Placetailor

Posted by Callid

PT This is a mixed post: part pride and part relevant.

My brother, Declan Keefe, is the director of a environmentally-focused Architecture firm in (Placetailor) Boston. His firm was recently featured in what I am told is The Architecture magazine in the U.S. and I wanted to both give him some press (seriously, folks who read this blog will also likely be people interested in Placetailor) and reflect on the fact that his vision for architecture is almost exactly parallel to mine in regards to theology.  

from architectmagazine.com

…Placetailor was started in 2008 by Simon Hare, Assoc. AIA, a designer and builder passionate about developing new models of design and construction that challenge industry standards. Placetailor’s first project was the Hare family’s home, Pratt House, which garnered attention for its energy-efficient renovation and small physical and environmental footprint. Hare recruited a team of young designers and builders turned off by design-firm hierarchies and an industry they see as pitting architects against contractors. The company has had an evolving cast of characters, united by the conviction that designing and building should be joined together as a cooperative enterprise.

Declan Keefe, who has been with Placetailor from the beginning, took over as director when Hare went back to Israel….

“Design needs to include input from the entire community,” Keefe says, “rather than being imposed by architects from above.”

Whenever a profession or field of study becomes too distanced from those for whom it is supposed to work… well… things get wonky. At best.

I'm excited whenever there is a vision in which education isn't held up as a tool for elitism but rather as a means by which to more fully connect and serve.  That my brother shares this vision is sweet. 

Good stuff.

 

Check out Placetailor (they've got a great site) and there's a copy of the article from Architect Magazine below:

Me and the Fishes

Posted by Callid

Discovery

Yesterday I got an email from someone who had particular questions related to some of my views about theology and God as mentioned in the video below.

They were interesting to me and so I'm replying publicly here for you all as well.

How do these answers sit with you? Are they things you'd say of yourself as well? Am I a loon?

I think that your imagery of us being fish and God being the water we are in lines up with what Paul spoke about on Mars Hill. "In Him we live and move and have our being." The analogy of the fish not being able to see the water (or itself) clearly in the mirror also lines up with Paul in 1 Corinthians 13. "For now we see through a mirror, dimly." Does that work for you?
Exactly. In fact, in an earlier iteration of explanation I had included Paul's Mars Hill note as well as Meister Eckhardt's “I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God.” 

It seems you think Theology is man made. True?
Yup. Though the truths that they refer/point towards are simply the way things are ordered under God, our models for that ordering are only that, models, and those models are indeed made by humanity. Inspired at times, sure, but crafted by limited by human minds. 

It seems that you think that in our current state of existence we are incapable of "really" knowing God. True?
Yeesh… A lot hangs on "really" doesn't it? Hmmmm… I think I would say that it is not possible to know God in God's fullness. I'm thinking here of things like Isa 55:6-9, especially, the balance between "… he may be found; call on him while he is near…" and  "'my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." That is, of course there is a nearness and a knowledge of God. Praises! 

In there very least we have scripture by which God's work is recorded, and I believe that we still have the gift of the Spirit which Jesus said he would send from the Father.  And/but…  I believe we commit a sin of hubris when we claim to know God or God's will in its complete fullness. That is, God's Goodness, Beauty, Love, Being etc. is so profound that our words will never be sufficient to capture the essence or the nature of our reliance upon that Holy power.

It seems that you think that God does not "reach out" to communicate with the "fish" living inside of Him. True?
Disagree entirely. It's just that sometime we don't get the message well, or don't slow down enough to listen.

You seem to come from a "liberal", "man-centered" approach to Christianity and theology. True?
Since you seem to be a fair-minded person, and this question (to me) seems very much the same as the first one, I'll assume that there is something to it other than that which I already hit on. I think that "Liberal" as a categorical term is fitting regarding my approach to Biblical Scholarship, yes. Here what I'm thinking of (via the handy-dandy wikipedia) is something like:
 
"Liberal Christianity, broadly speaking, is a method of biblical hermeneutics, an undogmatic method of understanding God through the use of scripture by applying the same modern hermeneutics used to understand any ancient writings. Liberal Christianity does not claim to be a belief structure, and as such is not dependent upon any Church dogma or creedal statements. Unlike conservative varieties of Christianity, it has no unified set of propositional beliefs."

In terms of being "man-centered"… well, that bears some thinking… 

I do tend to think that there is something particular about humanity that is different that the rest of Creation, so I tend to be humano-centric in the sense that I don't think we are just the same as rocks or water, but I doubt that was what you were suggesting… Perhaps you can explain more what you mean about that and I can better answer you.
 

Interview with Daniel Meeter, author of “Why be a Christian (If No One Goes to Hell)?

Posted by Callid

So the basic gist is that Mike Morrell of Speakeasy book blogging sent me a copy of Daniel Meeters' Why Be Christian (If No One Goes to Hell)? from Shook Foil Press and below I interview the author about the book. Neato.

 

Reviews of the Book

The Christian Humanist

Thought. from Wes

Andrew Perriman

 

Note: Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. 

Von Balthasar and the Body AKA Theological Aesthetics is not Aesthetic Theology

Posted by Callid

So as part of my mid-sized project to more seriously think about aesthetics, embodiment and theology [Side Note: if you're going to SBL or AAR and these topics are of interest you might want to check this out] I've been reading from Scary, Johnson, the Frankfurt School, and now… Hans Urs von Balthasar. For those who don't know that name, the basic gist is that he was a Swiss Catholic priest (nominated for Cardinal-ship) who lived until 1988 and while he did an ENOURMOUS amount (see his wikipedia entry), the reason I found my way to him was because if you read about Aesthetics and Theology pretty much anywhere you end up seeing his name.  Sooo…

My task was to cut through to the heart of his content about aesthetics and start there. Results in video below.

Things referenced in the video:

The von Balthasar Reader

Elaine Scary's On Beauty and Being Just

Kevin Mongrain's "Von Balthasar's Way from Doxology to Theology"

Von Balthasar's The Glory of the Lord, Vol. 1: Seeing the Form

 

 

 

Elaine Scarry’s “On Beauty and Being Just”

Posted by Callid

As part of my reading project to get more acquainted with the field of aesthetics, I read this weird little number from Elaine Scarry: On Beauty and Being Just.

Cribbing from wikipedia, I know that Scarry is the Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University, which means at least some other people think she knows a thing or three about aesthetics. For my purposes though – that is, thinking more seriously about the body and its experience(s) as the primary site of theological thought –  this book was elusive. Wild, weird, and a bit fun, yes. But still elusive.

 

From Pages 111-113

At the moment we see something beautiful, we undergo a radical decentering. Beauty, according to Simone Weil, requires us "to give up our imaginary position as the center…  A transformation then takes place at the very roots of our sensibility, in our immediate reception of sense impressions and psychological impressions." Weil speaks matter-of-factly, often without illustration, implicitly requiring readers to test the truth of her assertion against their own experience. Her account is always deeply somatic: what happens, happens to our bodies. When we come upon beautiful things—the tiny mauve-orange-blue moth on the brick, Augustine's cake, a sentence about innocence in Hampshire—they act like small tears in the surface of the world that pull us through to some vaster space; or they form "ladders reaching toward the beauty of the world,” or they lift us (as though by the air currents of someone else's sweeping), letting the ground rotate beneath us several inches, so that when we land, we find we are standing in a different relation to the world than we were a moment before. It is not that we cease to stand at the center of the world, for we never stood there. It is that we cease to stand even at the center of our own world. We willingly cede our ground to the thing that stands before us.

The radical decentering we undergo in the presence of the beautiful is also described by Iris Murdoch in a 1967 lecture called "The Sovereignty of Good over Other Concepts." As this title indicates, her subject is goodness, not beauty. "Ethics," Murdoch writes, "should not be merely an analysis of ordinary mediocre conduct, it should be a hypothesis about good conduct and about how this can be achieved." How we make choices, how we act, is deeply connected to states of consciousness, and so "anything which alters consciousness in the direction of unselfishness, objectivity and realism is to be connected with virtue.” Murdoch then specifies the single best or most “obvious thing in our surroundings which is an occasion for 'unselfing' and that is what is popularly called beauty.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Creeds? (Part 3 of 3)

Posted by Callid

This is the last part of a short piece I used as a pre-semester reading when I was co-teaching a seminary theology 101 course. The sections on theology are here and here, and the first two on creeds are here and here. this last one makes more sense in the context of what came before, but how you spend your time on the interwebs is up to you.

 

 

I once had a professor of contemporary American poetry that made clear the distinction between opinion and justification. To the topic of poetic interpretation he remarked – day one of the semester – something to the following effect:

I do not ever want to hear the phrase “I can't explain it, but that's just how I see it.” You are, of course, utterly entitled to your opinion about what a poem “means.” However, if your position cannot be articulated, justified, or supported, you should be clear that you are doing yourself no favors. Are you still entitled to maintain that opinion? Certainly, but know that you are divorcing yourself from any broader discourse and dialogue by clinging to the “wordless specialness” of your isolated sense of things. Will you make mistakes and oversimplifications in your analysis if you do try? Without a doubt. But if you do not at least attempt to flesh out your position, you should be under no illusion that others will give ear to your interpretation. In terms of this class, I am interested in hearing your opinion only in as much as it is paired with a justification that others can try on for themselves. Let people in to your way of seeing. Practice trying to get it worded right. Practice letting people in. That is what we will be doing here.

 Indeed. 

 

Why Creeds? (Part 2 of 3)

Posted by Callid

 

This is part of a short piece I used as a pre-semester reading when I was co-teaching a seminary theology 101 course. The sections on theology are here and here, the first on creeds is here, and the last will hit Friday.

 

 

 

Each creed is a snapshot of a turning point and the period in which it was written. Who was involved? What did they they think? Why did they think it? And just like a snapshot, though the people in it may have tried to get themselves together and pose before the click of the camera, someone will be blinking or looking away. Furthermore, as many pictures from family functions can attest, not everyone has a good time at the reunion.

 The study of creeds is the study of a collision of social history, theology, and polity. They record the outcomes of each collision, the results of an intersection of attempts to more clearly name aspects of the Divine and the human frailties which sometimes sought to gain advantage in the process. By studying creeds we get to see how theologians have crafted language to articulate their sense of things and we are given the opportunity to see what circumstances beyond the creeds themselves may have influenced that language. We sharpen our own skills of articulation and acquire the grammar and vocabulary of our tradition in the hope that we become fluent enough to authentically appropriate that which is life-giving and employ it as best we might in our own context(s).

 As we immerse ourselves in the language and patterns of tradition we can learn to navigate our own situations, traveling down similar paths to those who crafted the creeds we can read, but in a new day and place. What's more, our day and place has been indelibly marked by that very same language and formed by those very same traditions: the creeds are our history as Christians. We study them as markers of schisms, splits, and decisions, to immerse ourselves in the nitty-gritty of belief and profession. Not as detached observers of clean, historical documents, but as the descendents in faith of those captured by the flash. 

Why Creeds? Because part of our work is to determine what we believe and how to live in light of that belief, and the creeds are part of the living tradition of which we are still a part. They are very much a historical “theological map,” and though old maps are not likely to meet our needs in the present entirely, it would be foolish to throw them all away for want of something new.

Sexism and Being a Patriot: To American Christians on July 4th, 2012

Posted by Callid

 

While I was at the Wild Goose Festival in NC a week or so back, Deborah Arca of Patheos' Progressive Christianity Portal asked me and a few other folks (Brian McLaren, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Lisa Sharon Harper, and Roger Wolsey)  – apropos of an impending July 4th – if we would speak on video for a wee little bit about our understanding of patriotism and how it played with out Christianity. My response is above and here, and though I'm not 100% on my subject-verb agreement and my diction leaves more than a speck to be desired, I feel pretty good about what I said on the whole. By all means, please go ahead and check it out, AND make sure to read the paragraph that follows this one for the thing that gets me going.

 

What is bizzarre / sad / unfortunately-predictible-upon-cultural-assessment is the sheer number of objectify-ingly disrobed women that popped up when – doing my normal Google image search for some nice little graphic to plug into my blog post – I entered the search term "Patriotism."  To put this another way… when Google (which is really nothing more than an easily accessible repository for the traces of America's projections) was asked to show me patriotism, MORE THAN 1 IN 10 OF THE IMAGES PROVIDED AS AN ANSWER WERE BLATENTLY misogynistic. If you want to see in greater detail what I am talking about, turn off "safety search" (if you have it enabled) to ensure no ratings-based censorship that happens, then check this search out. 

Maybe it is the late time of night or the heat getting to me, but SWEET JIMMY! does this make me wonder / bothered / sad. 

Now I'm certainly no sexless prude, but here's my two cents at the moment: if you didn't already know that the Principalities and Powers where at work idolatrously conflating our political nation with our spiritual salvation, then look no further than the way we heavily employ sexism to visually conceive of the notion of patriotism.

Blech.

May this too find redemption. 

Why Creeds? (Part 1 of 3)

Posted by Callid

This is part of a short piece I used as a pre-semester reading when I was co-teaching a seminary theology 101 course. The sections on theology are here and here, and two more creed pieces will be coming soon. Readers interested in checking out some of the academic background and claims made in these pieces – especially as they pertain to creeds – are encouraged to pick up Jaroslav Pelikan's Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition and/or listen to his interview on the show "On Being."

 

While many know the creeds contemporarily as quasi-chants that you “have to” believe, their history began as part of the dangerous path into communal Christian life. At a time when living as a Christian was a subversive task, early baptismal creeds were the words by which your life was given over to God and your priorities were radically shifted. By saying “yes” to Christ you said “no” to Caesar and Mammon, a risky position indeed. The question therefore, was not “will you, or will you not, repeat these words?” but, “are you willing to stake your life to the hope and promise that prompts you to profess this as your faith?” If we approach the creeds from this perspective we can see them inviting us to answer that same question: upon what would we stake our lives?

Acknowledging then that the heart of the creeds is the theological impulse to reinterpret, rearticulate, and reinvision, we are best served by remembering that at a time before they were what some see as monotonous obligation, they were daring and transformative proclamation. In a contemporary American culture where a trend of intense suspicion of authority persists, it is a marked challenge to accept that this kind of history stands behind what many take to be a less-than-vibrant tradition of the Church. Yet it seems part of the task of the Christian leader and theologian to mine our histories – and creeds – for vibrancy and hope, something we often sorely lack.

 

Richard Neuhaus is a staunch critic of the culture of incessant, suspicious criticism and he pointedly addresses its repercussions when he writes that we live in “the toxic cultural air of a disenchanted world in which the mark of sophistication is to reduce wonder to banality… In academic circles, this is called 'the hermeneutics of suspicion,' meaning that things are interpreted to reveal that they are not in fact what they appear to be… They must be exposed and debunked if we are to get to 'the truth of the matter.' The false, the self-serving, the ugly and the evil, on the other hand, are permitted to stand as revealing 'the real world.'” And we could well succumb to this same “toxic cultural air” in our engagement with the creeds of the church. They are hollow documents, we might say, imperial attempts to reify the Church and exert human power and control over what is God's! And we would – in many instances – be speaking some measure of truth. But what Christians do we make if our only cries are of lament and loss? I believe that by virtue of our Baptism and as a function of our calling to faith and ministry we are called to a process of reclamation and audacious hope. In the face of the self-serving, ugly, and evil things of the work we respond that there is yet something more. The French philosopher Paul Ricoeur equally believed in such a calling, articulating it most clearly in his book The Symbolism of Evil.

It is in the age when our language has become more precise, more univocal, [and] more technical… that we want to recharge our language, that we want to start again from the fullness of language… Beyond the desert of criticism we wish to be called again. (349) In every way, something has been lost, irremediably lost: immediacy of belief. But if we can no longer live the great symbolisms of the sacred in accordance with the original belief in them, we can, we modern men [sic], aim at a second naïveté in and through criticism. (351)

 Our engagement with creeds provides us with ample opportunity to seek out Ricoeur's “second naïveté.”

 He isn't calling us to a “first naïveté,” a kind of childish acceptance of whatever we are told by those in positions of authority, but rather to a new kind of belief. Our task isn't to force ourselves to ignore the fact that human foibles and power struggles influence theological proclamation, but to somehow acknowledge this critically, allow it to influence our reading of texts, and then move beyond mere criticism. If we can do this, the hope is that we will come to a place “beyond the desert of criticism,” where we can acknowledge our doubts and questions, preaching – and living into – a fresher and more powerful Gospel for not trying to deny the complexities and marks of confusion that haunt and tantalize us. Beyond that desert the Living Water yet flows.