Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear - Chapter 9

This chapter in Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear may be the most politically charged as Scott Bader-Saye tackles The Risk of Peacemaking. I should start out by saying that by peacemaking he is not saying that every Christian must be a pacifist, but simply that the call of peacemaking severely limits the ways in which we can justify violence. Fear and its attendant virtue of preemption pushes us to view the world suspiciously and often respond by force in order to ensure our security. Here he asks the question: is there a better, more Christ-like way to respond when we feel threatened?

Returning again to providence, he declares that while trusting providence is the key to peace, it is also fairly readily turned on its head by those in power in such a way that it actually threatens peace. We see this all through history - when providence is used to justify violence and domination. After all, if whatever happens is God's will, then the victor must be God's winner. And, he notes, the victor not only writes the history, but also writes the theology. Thus we find scripture being used to support the rich, the powerful and the oppressors, contrary to the life of Christ as witnessed to in the gospels, which shows compassion and love towards the meek, the poor, and the oppressed.

In order to respond appropriately to threat, we must cultivate the virtue of patience. "One of the gifts of courage is the ability to be patient because we refuse to let fear push us to act before we are ready, that is, before we have taken time to gather the wisdom necessary to judge a situation with prudence. Because Christians trust in Gods' providence, we believe that time is on our side, that history unfailingly moves toward that fifth act in which God will gather up all things in Christ. Patience, then, as an outworking of our trust in providence, becomes a partner of peace." (129)

This patience, however, must not be creatively cloaked apathy. All peacemaking efforts ought to involve actively living the way of God. So, for example, during the civil rights movement it wasn't Godly patience that urged the black leaders to just wait. "Their kind of patience was not a freely chosen witness to God's providence, but a weapon wielded by the powerful to shut down social change." (130)

To be perfectly honest, I find the risk of peacemaking to be quite difficult. Not only to do, but to figure out what doing it even means. The idealist in me is drawn to pacifism, but the reality of non-response in the face of terrible, violent injustice chastens me. But can a nation wage a war 'justly'? I don't know. What are 'sufficient' reasons to respond in violence? It's all so hard to discern!

And even on a personal level, it is so tricky, especially given our astounding capacity for self-deception, to figure out when we are being patient and when we are being apathetic. It's far too easy to brush things off with an "all in God's time," but perhaps easier still to act rashly in the interests of 'urgent' tasks and problems.

Anyone have thoughts on this? I'm curious to hear what y'all think about pacifism, just war, criteria for helping to discern when to act, etc.

Next week, the final chapter: The Risk of Generosity

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Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear - Chapter 8

In this chapter Scott Bader-Saye kicks off the final stretch in which he talks about hospitality, generosity and peacemaking as ways to combat fear in his book Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear.

He begins with The Risk of Hospitality, calling us back to the discussion in chapter 2 about how a culture of fear can lead to an ethic of security, with 'virtues' like suspicion, accumulation and preemption. These 'virtues', however, easily lead to a decline in hospitality - if we view the stranger with suspicion and see him as a threat, we are unlikely to risk opening our homes or lives to him. In a post 9/11 America, it is quite easy to see how individually and corporately we have adopted this attitude. But this mentality threatens our commitment to the Christian ethic of love for God and love for our neighbor.

Next he identifies a less obvious threat to hospitality: community. We've all probably experienced to some degree how easy it is to start to tribalize within our communities, with sharp boundaries defining who is in and who is out. When we are driven by fear, it becomes increasingly important to surround ourselves by people like 'us', disavowing all that may be 'strange' in a stranger in order to feel secure. It goes against most of our natural impulses to trust in God (see the previous discussions on providence) rather than our own ability to protect ourselves, especially knowing that "following... God will lead us into the unknown where safety is simply not the point." (102)

However, community can also serve as the context for hospitality. If we allow the boundaries to remain porous, shifting our communities from being 'bounded sets' to 'centered sets' as suggested by Brian McLaren, we become defined by where we are in relation to the center (Christ) rather than if we fit into the boundaries established by the group. This is immediately uncomfortable, as it adds a certain fuzziness to our identity. Christine Pohl (whose book on hospitality, Making Room, is excellent by the way) says this:

Part of the difficulty in recovering hospitality is connected with our uncertainty about community and particular identity. Hosts value their 'place' and are willing to share it; strangers desire welcome into places that contain a rich life of meaning and relationships. By welcoming strangers, however, the community's identity is always being challenged and revised, if only slightly. While this is often enriching, it can occasionally stretch a place beyond recognition. (108)

We can look to the early church in Acts to see some of the ways in which welcoming the stranger forced the Jewish core to reshape their notions of identity as they invited gentiles into their communion. Serious centuries-old boundary breaking took place that required much more of a total paradigm shift than most of us will have to undergo. We need to embrace the body of Christ metaphor given by Paul and start celebrating diversity in our communities, risking the 'death to self' that takes place when we start to actually welcome difference, letting go of our pride and holding our identity loosely enough to allow it to be refined.

Next week: The Risk of Peacemaking

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And I'm Back

Thus ending the long string of lasts, and beginning a new series of firsts. Right now? First time back on the internet. It's still strange to me that I can get online in Bellevue but not at my parents house.

Other great firsts in my new life back in Texas include margaritas, mushroom fajitas, firecracker sushi, walking with Dad and the dog at the crack of dawn, working out with mom and realizing she can lift more than I can, lunch with grandma, and a trip to Target. Good stuff. It's amazing how much you can pack into a day when you get started at around 3:30 in the morning. Jetlag, gotta love it.

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Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear - Chapter 7

Continuing the discussion of providence as it relates to fear, in this chapter of Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear, Scott Bader-Saye takes a look at Security and Vulnerability.

He begins by reiterating the point that the drama we are participating in is ultimately comic, not tragic. Not funny comic, but comic in the sense that because of God's providence, we can trust that it will end well in Act 5, to continue using Sam Wells' metaphor from last week.

But as we live in Act 4, with its attendant suffering and brokenness, we need to dig a bit more deeply into providence not as an insurance policy against harm, but as a promise of provision and redemption. This flies in the face of the 'health and wealth' gospel that draws heavily on the verses which seem to promise blessing and protection. What do we do with these verses? Well, it seems that we ought to treat them in the same manner as we treat other parts of scripture: Read them in their context. The larger narrative paints a picture that includes not only these verses, but the story of Job.

So given the reality of the world, and our deep instinct to seek security in fearful surroundings, where do we go looking for it? Well, it seems clear that wealth, power and domination aren't the answer if we look even only superficially at scripture.There we find a "paradoxical reversal of strength and weakness" (93) that manifests itself most clearly in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But to place our security in a God whose power is vulnerable love? Seems sort of risky. It seems counter-intuitive almost to trust a God who seems silent in the face of evil. But as you can probably guess, Bader-Saye again has something to say about interpreting events that helps give voice to the silence.

He draws again on Sam Wells and his metaphor based on theatrical improvisation, which I really love. "In the lingo of improvisation, an actor can respond to an 'offer' (an action, speech or gesture) from another actor by 'accepting', 'blocking', or 'overaccepting'." (94) Accepting the offer is to play out the scene on the terms as given. To block is is to refuse the offer and "disrupt the scene in such a dramatic way that what follows has no coherence with what preceded." (94) To overaccept is to receive the offer, even an evil offer, but in a way that refuses take it on its own destructive terms.

The Genesis flood could be taken as an example of an act of blocking on the part of God, after which he promised to not 'block' humanity in such a way again. Joseph serves as an image of overacceptance by both he and God, taking the 'offer' of his brothers selling him into slavery and, rather than responding in violence, transforming the evil into a good in the larger narrative. Obviously, Christ again also presents to us the pinnacle of overacceptance, turning the evil of the cross into victory. In all of these stories, we see God refusing to 'block' the sin of humanity, but instead working through it to produce good. He redeems the situations and provides for the people within their own experience, even if not in the direct way they (and we) might initially choose.

So when faced with fear producing realities like, say, cancer, while we are powerless to fully 'block' the offer, we can choose to re-narrate and transform the event (and ourselves) by responding in trust to God. If we seek first the kingdom of God, making Him rather than security our primary goal, we can better meet life with courage in the face of fear.

Again I find these chapters on providence difficult to condense, so I hope that this makes some sort of sense. From here Bader-Saye moves to combating fear by risking hospitality, generosity and peacemaking.

Next week: The Risk of Hospitality

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Going, Going, Gone

Well, I've been up since about 3 this morning doing a final pack, and Kay and I will be catching the 6 o'clock bus to begin our long haul over the ocean. It's all too crazy.

See y'all stateside soon!

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More Lasts

Another day of lasts... my last formal meal, my last Bellevue dinner crew. Tomorrow is my last final high tea. It's all very.... just, very.

Also, the last installment of Dr. Horrible. If you haven't watched, do it, you'll love it.

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Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear - Chapter 6

This week we'll be diving into Narrative and Providence in Scott Bader-Saye's Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear.

Now you may be wondering what in the world providence has to do with the topic of fear. Well, a lot actually. You see, he identifies a common yet subtle fear that afflicts most of us at some time or another: purposelessness. It's easy to worry that our lives are simply a series of meaningless actions, but he argues that the Christian story provides the larger context that gives us meaning. Not to mention hope.

One of the important skills we must learn is to read our own stories, the story of history, the story of culture, etc. figuratively with the story of scripture. An example of this can be found in Elie Wiesel's book Night, written about his experience in the Auschwitz concentration camp. In it, some of his fellow inmates struggle to interpret the horror in terms of the biblical pattern of exile, while others drew on apocalyptic imagery. Wiesel himself attempted to interpret the experience through the lens of Job. In each case, they placed themselves within the biblical narrative to interpret the events. Again, not to explain causation, but to interpret them in a meaningful way. This type of figurative reading is poetry, not science, and is flexible enough to allow multiple readings at once as well as for the interpretations to change as times and events change.

In addition to learning to read figuratively, we can read our lives within the larger narrative of God's redemptive plan. Sam Wells' uses the analogy of a 5 act play (86):
   *   Act 1: Creation
   *   Act 2: God's calling of Israel
   *   Act 3: God's incarnation in Jesus Christ
   *   Act 4: God's calling and sending of the church
   *   Act 5: The culmination of the story in the reign of God

As we walk through scripture and become acquainted with the overarching themes and the narrative that enfolds us from beginning to end, we are able to place ourselves in act 4, part of the continuing story. This placement gives meaning to our lives, reconnects us when we are feeling disconnected, and frees us of the burden and pressure of creating a new story by allowing us to participate fully in a story that is already being told. And we know the ending: the kingdom of God. So while we strive and try and persevere, we can also rest in the true hope of God's redemption, knowing that whatever surprises life throws at us, as the author of the story God can and will write a good ending. Or has written it: in Christ act 5 has already definitively been decided.

Well, to be honest, this was a chapter packed full of important theological nuances and helpful anecdotes, and I feel certain that in condensing it for blogging purposes it has lost much of its punch. Please comment if I've left out the bit that makes it all make sense, and I'll try to clarify it there.

Next week: Security and Vulnerability

 

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The Status? Is Not Quo.

Act 1 of Dr. Horrible is up, and it is fan-freaking-tastic. Check it out ASAP!

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Little Surprises

Still packing, still going through drawers, still feeling sad, and I found this:

given to me by Anna ages ago. Made my day a little sweeter.

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Ugh. Packing.

This is the week that it all has to come together. After my last worker meeting this morning (yet another last) I pulled out the suitcases and began the somewhat traumatic process of going through desks and closets and drawers and trying to figure out what should stay and what should go. The weather matches my mood - it's a virtual white-out, and we can scarcely see the mountains through the fog. It's an apt metaphor, really.

But the good news is that Thomas, upon witnessing my plight, made me a delicious chocolate pie to give me comfort. Seriously, what else could a girl want? Such a thoughtful guy! (Ladies - he's available!)

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Medical Missionaries in Need of Support

Susan, a woman on ravelry, is doing a raffle on her blog to help support her aunt and uncle, who are medical missionaries. Her uncle, Jan, fell out of a tree and broke his neck and spine and is now partially paralyzed. She's trying to raise enough to get them the wheelchair they'll be needing.

Read more about these folks here. Tickets for the raffle are only $10, and even if you don't want the stash she's raffling off, it's a great way to support them if you'd like to do a good deed today.

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Really, Really, Really Ridiculously Good Looking

This has been a week of 'lasts' for me. I had my last High Tea on Sunday and did my last lecture/discussion on Wednesday. It's hard to believe how quickly my time here at l'abri is drawing to a close!

For my last High Tea, once again I showed Zoolander in the afternoon, served up enchiladas (yum!) for dinner, and then everyone got gussied up for a Ridiculously Good Looking party in the lounge. With a walk-off, of course!  Some pics of the evening...

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

               Me and Meghan,                                Ben & I - dude doesn't
           my beautiful tutee                                even have to try!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Boys - Erik, Eric & Ben

 

 

 

Me and Kellie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        Adrienne,  Me and Renea

 

Kara, strutting it  during the walk-off

Dancing the night away...

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Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear - Chapter 5

Here, in the 5th chapter of Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear by Scott Bader-Sayer, the role of community in developing courage and overcoming fear is addressed.

He begins by noting that in our times, the culture of fear and the culture of disconnection are very much related. More and more people suffer from loneliness, and are truly very alone in the world. Much business can be done electronically, more people work from home, with the rate people move around our communities have less stability... it all adds up to greater fear.

To combat fear, we need to develop courage. Courage is, in his definition, "the capacity to do right and good in the face of fear." (67) Courage doesn't dismiss fear, it perseveres in spite of it. This is much different than recklessness, which mimics courage but doesn't have the sister virtues of prudence and humility.

So what role can/should community have in developing courage? First, he asserts that courage, like other virtues, is best learned by having it modeled. It's just not the same on paper - he likens it to sheet music vs. a symphony actually performing. In a well functioning community, courage (and other virtues) will be being sought and lived, and a living community is reinforced by the stories of the communities of the dead (tradition). For example, the lives of the martyrs can help sustain a church community by modeling faithfulness.

Another role the community plays is by providing a space in which one can be vulnerable and confess their fears in anticipation of support rather than judgment. Often our churches don't have this reputation, which is tragic. We need a place to name our fear. "Fear grows strongest when we allow it to fester as a 'wordless darkness'. Words not only help us understand our fear but, more importantly, make it possible to share fear. To speak our fear to another is to begin to loosen the grip that fear has on us. To make fear take form in speech is to name it as something that can be confronted, not confronted alone but in the community of those willing to speak their fears aloud and thus begin to subdue them." (71)

He draws on the early church portrayed in Acts as an example of courageous community, especially as they shared risks and resources. Alone, resources feel much more scarce, and fear can drive us to spend more time protecting ourselves. After all, if I get sick, who will help me? Or what if my car breaks down? Fear seems much more manageable when we know that there are people who will support us both with prayer and material help. This flies in the face of the Western elevation of the autonomous self.

I wouldn't advocate an attempt to go back in time and recreate this exact scenario, but I wonder how we could implement some of the principles into our current context in a better way. Any ideas?

I'd also be curious to hear what anyone thinks about online communities. Most of you on my blog are connected to me solely electronically. Geographically we are very distant. Could we be called community? Can an online community be expected to take on any of these characteristics? Should it?

Next week: Narrative and Providence

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Beat the Press

You gotta love Fox News...

You also gotta love that MSNBC has a segment devoted to exposing the manipulation of other networks, which basically serves to manipulate our perception of their network. Ah, the media.

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Podiobooks

I may be late to the bandwagon on this one, but I just heard about this site, podiobooks.com that has free audiobook downloads. I haven't actually listened to any of them yet, so I can't vouch for the quality of them, but as an avid audiobook person, I'm definitely curious to check it out.

Have any of y'all listened to any of them? Any titles you'd recommend?

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Prayer and Fasting

Today we are doing a day of prayer and fasting in our community to spend an extended time of bringing the needs of L'abri and the world before God. I'd love to invite anyone who desires to join us...

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Anticipation

On July 15th, part 1 of Joss Whedon's musical extravaganza, Dr. Horrible, will be begin airing online. To tide us over until then they have put out an online comic featuring Captain Hammer, the "hero" of the piece. It's hysterical -  Check it out!

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My Day

I ate a lot of cheese. A LOT of cheese. That is all.

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The Chateau

One of the things that was on my list of things to do before I left Switzerland was to  get a picture of the Chateau de Chillon in Montreux from this exact spot. So the ladies (Adrienne, Trisha, Renea and Bethany) trekked out with me and we made the rounds: Montreux, then Vevey for lunch and meandering, and finally to Lausanne to check out the brocante (a second hand shop) for steals. Which we found in abundance: Books for 2 francs a kilo! Clothes for 1 franc! Awesome leather shoes for 2 francs! Hurrah! And then to top off our day of bargain hunting, Adrienne got a new iPod in Aigle for free. Okay, not exactly. After getting stuck in the downpour last week, her iPod had a meltdown, and they replaced it for her. But still...

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Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear - Chapter 4

In this 4th chapter of Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear, Bader-Saye tackles the topic of Putting Fear In Its Place.  After all, we've said already that being overly fearful is not good, nor is being fearless, so how do we start reflecting on our fear to discern what's going on?

To do this, he returns to Aquinas, offering his definition of fear as a jumping off point: "[F]ear arises from the imagination of a future evil (something that threatens the loss of something we love) that is both imminent and hard to resist." (53) From here he extrapolates that we can offer two broad categories that a 'disordered' fear could fit into. We can either fear what or as we ought not.

As far as fearing what we should not, we can return to the definition and find a couple of criteria to test against. 1) Is the object actually evil? 2) Does it threaten the loss of a proper love? 3) Is it of great magnitude? 4) Is it imminent either in time or distance? 5) Is it difficult to fend off?

A couple of fears of mine that get critiqued under this rubric are heights (not of great magnitude), death by snake bite (not imminent), a computer crash (not a proper love)... and you get the picture. Some of these things get more difficult to discern, particularly imminence and magnitude, as the media floods us with constant streams of information. So how much should we fear global warming? Economic crisis? Poor water quality?

Here we step into the (I find) grayer arena of fearing as we should not. This comes in when we fear excessively, when we allow our focus on avoiding evil to overwhelm our dedication to doing/being good. So, for example, loving my dad tremendously (a proper love) and having the threat of his loss feel more imminent post-rattlesnake shenanigans, and agreeing that death is of great magnitude and impossible to avoid, I have some huge fears about losing him. But if this fear prohibits me from enjoying fully the times I share a beer with him, or limits my ability to be excited about his adventures, then my fear has become excessive. It contracts my world rather than expanding it.

Or what about our possessions? Our homes? It seems important to take care of the things we have, and to understand that goods, to whatever degree, are 'goods'. But does it limit our generosity and hospitality?

Bader-Saye makes the point at the end of the chapter that while reflecting on these things and critiquing our fear is a necessary part of putting fear in its place, we don't have the capacity to simply command ourselves to stop being afraid. No, our fears have to be overwhelmed by bigger and better things.

So I'd be curious, do any of you have stories of conquering a fear, be it trivial or major?

Next week: Community and Courage

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Summer Storms - Part 2

Yesterday I told you about our little (actually, according to Greg, the biggest since he's been here) hail storm in Huemoz. Like a lot that's going on in the world these days, even though it was beautiful it was destructive. It tore up much of the l'abri vegetable gardens, and no doubt hurt lots of local producers that rely on their harvests for income. This in turn will drive up our food costs even more.

Not a unique tune, and certainly not even close to the volume of  damage that the flooding in the Midwest is causing. I don't even know how to begin praying in the face of such overwhelming destruction: China, Myanmar, the Philippines, the Midwest, California... it seems that almost daily there is more bad news. And that's just the weather! Attempts at eloquence when I pray have faded as words fail me, and I am left with the refrain:  "Lord, have mercy on us."

With the credit crisis, gas prices, food shortages, etc. times are tight for everyone. It seems like the forecast for our lives this summer is 'overcast'. Here at l'abri, as at many other non-profits, we are definitely feeling the crunch. We've already had a couple of months of salary reductions, and this month the hope is mostly that we will be able to pay all of our bills, much less any of our salaries. Please pray for us. Not only that we will get the donations that we need, but that this time will spawn a growth in trust. That the words of Jesus will gain new depth; that things like leaky roofs, squeaky brakes and the like wouldn't deter me or any of us here from seeking first God's kingdom. That all these things would take their proper context in God's providence, and that my feeling of scarcity wouldn't make me less generous. Already I find myself holding the money I do have a little more tightly.

I recognize that as a relatively affluent Westerner I've never even scratched the surface of 'need' in my life. Please pray also that this tightness in my chest as I face (somewhat minor in the scheme of things) uncertainty in my life would not breed doubt, but increase my compassion for those who truly want for the bare minimum to survive. And that this, too, would increase my generosity.

Thanks to all of you, the friends who read this blog and remember me (and l'abri) in prayer!

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Summer Storms - Part 1

After hours of sunshine and volleyball yesterday, Renea and I headed back to the chalet to relax and do our Sunday ritual, during which I knit while she reads to me from the second of the Ender books. (I know, I am spoiled) We had the door flung open in my living room to allow in a breeze, when suddenly our noses detected rain in the air, the skies clouded over, and torrential rain began pouring down. Shortly thereafter, due to a little roof condition in Bellevue, it also began raining in my living room.   Here are a couple of pictures of a a bowl rapidly filling next to an electrical outlet (thank goodness my laptop was spared! It was still plugged in when the deluge began!) and the worn buffet that is sort of impossible to protect because of the angle of the mirror, so I make due with lots of bowls and towels. I couldn't believe how heavily it came down!

Shortly after the rain started and the bowls were strategically placed, our reading was interrupted again as the sounds of the storm grew louder - it had turned to giant chunks of hail that persisted for nearly an hour. Everything was covered with a layer of white.   Happily, we were inside - unlike this poor schmuck (-->) and Adrienne, who was up past La Truche when it started and by the time she made it down to rejoin us was soaking wet.

And then we ate crepes. MmmmmCrepes.

 

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Non-Dogmatic Americans

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has recently released a new report on religion in America, and the results are really interesting. The article says that Americans are 'non-dogmatic', which seems almost to be an understatement! We talk a lot about postmodernity here at l'abri, and while I wouldn't want to equate postmodernity and relativism, our culture certainly seems to produce a certain murkiness or uncertainty about how strongly we are able/allowed to hold our beliefs. This survey seems to bear that out - 66% percent of Protestants and 79% of Catholics believe that many religions can lead to eternal life. And it's not just Christians who hold their faith in such a 'true for me' way - over 80% of Jewish, Hindu, and Buddhist respondents believe the same, as well as 56% of Muslims.

It makes me wonder what churches are teaching - not that we can or should take a small view of the power of God to save or even pretend to know exactly what that looks like - the perennial questions of babies and people who haven't heard the gospel, etc. come to mind.  I don't know that we have enough information to make an absolute judgment on that, and don't think we have to - I'm fairly content to let God be God on such weighty matters. But on the question of God himself - I'm unclear why, if solid biblical teaching is taking place, 19% of Protestants and 29% of Catholics surveyed (2 and 3% of whom, respectively, say that there is no God at all) believe that there is a God but not a personal one. God as impersonal force. How can even a superficial perusal of the OT (50% of Jews say that God is impersonal, by the way) or the gospel accounts lead to that conclusion? But then, 28% of folks who answered from mainline churches don't believe that the Bible is the word of God, anyway.

I don't know, I hate that writing even a little thing like this makes me cringe, knowing that I will likely be thought judgmental for not having such a total openness. But I think that total openness lacks humility just as much as total closedness. I'm just sad that we've reached the point in many conversations where to make any kind of truth claim is taboo.

Anyway, you should check out the site, there is tons of interesting data on the religious landscape, as well as how it affects politics, which will be interesting to watch as this election year progresses.

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Dr. Horrible

Most of you know that I am a giant Joss Whedon fan. He's a brilliant, brilliant man. Well, he's working on a new web project, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, which will be a three part musical starring Nathan Fillion (that's Captain Tightpants, for you Firefly/Serenity fans), Felicia Day, and Neil Patrick Harris. They've just released the trailer and it looks legen (wait for it) dary. (If you've not seen How I Met Your Mother that last sentence probably makes no sense. Sorry)

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

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Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear - Chapter 3

Here in chapter 3 of Scott Bader-Saye's excellent book Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear, we discover Why Fearlessness is a Bad Idea.

It seems that fear and love are inextricably bound together. If we love nothing, we have nothing to fear losing. So fear itself is not the problem, but only an excessive fear or a lack completely thereof.

So what should we fear? Scripturally it seems that fear of the Lord is in order, and is both spiritual gift and wisdom. However, we ought not fear the Lord as a threatening or coercive power. But, argues Ellen Davis, simple reverence is perhaps not the best interpretation either. She says, "The writers are speaking first and foremost of our proper gut response to God. Fear is the unmistakable feeling in our bodies, in our stomach and our scalp, when we run up hard against the power of God. From a biblical perspective, there is nothing neurotic about fearing God. The neurotic thing is not to be afraid, or to be afraid of the wrong thing... Fear of the Lord is the deeply sane recognition that we are not God." (44)

Aquinas makes the distinction between 'filial fear' and 'servile fear'. Servile fear prompts one to act rightly because of a fear of punishment. Filial fear, on the other hand, acts rightly because of a love relationship that you don't want to damage by acting contrary to it. Our relationship with God ought to be prompted more by a filial fear than a servile fear.

Aquinas also argues that one can become fearless in three ways, none of which are good or healthy: "through a 'lack of love' (loving nothing enough to fear its loss), through 'dullness of understanding' (not knowing or acknowledging the danger or threat), or through 'pride of soul' (refusing to believe that one is susceptible to loss)." (45)

Bader-Saye expounds upon each of these, but of particular interest I thought was the last one. He comments that 'pride of soul' can lead to a pursuit of invulnerability, which can be achieved only when one achieves totalitarian power and/or destruction of all potential threats. Bad for individuals, bad for governments.

He goes into a lengthy description of the Star Wars saga as a parable of fear and fearlessness, which is good and helpful, but I just can't in good conscience devote much space to Yoda. I know, it's small of me.

Next week: Putting Fear in its Place

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Echoes of Fear

I'm reading a book called Hope in Troubled Times: A New Vision for Confronting Global Crises, and it's especially interesting in light of reading Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear. It talks a lot about ideologies, defining them as consisting of three elements: 1) they have an absolutized political or societal end, 2) they require a redefinition of currently held values, norms, and ideas that legitimize in advance the practical pursuit of the predetermined end, and 3) they establish a standard by which to select the means or instruments necessary for effectively achieving the all-important goal. (p.33)

Looking at identity ideologies that develop when identity is threatened, the authors point to militant Islamists, the terror of the Gaza strip, and the lessons of apartheid and Nazism. These all seem like impossible progressions of the 'American Dream', but our nationalist identity could indeed be slinking towards ideology, just look at Guantanamo Bay and the treatment of prisoners there (although the recent Supreme Court ruling is, I believe, a step in the right direction). To start treating people as less than human may be pragmatic and even somewhat effective as a means to an and (although even that is questionable), but at what price? Is it okay for us to redefine our morals in the pursuit of self-preservation, or is the Christian call radically risky?

Here's an interesting paragraph from the book that sort of sums it up:

During difficult times democracy falters and the national urge for a strong leader and tighter security returns... When self-preservation becomes our highest goal, then we deem whatever contributes to it as strong and whatever detracts from it as weak. Further, the all-encompassing desire for self-preservation can lead us to redefine good and evil, whereby good becomes whatever preserves us and evil becomes whatever threatens us. In the aftermath of September 11, did not President Bush declare, in a paraphrase of John 1:15, that 'the light [America] has shone in the darkness [the enemies of America], and the darkness will not overcome it'? These words have echoes of a nationalist ideology. If this ideological impulse is allowed to progress, its cures will be worse than the illness, and the means for maintaining order will slip out of control. And then it will be too late. (p. 82)

So what do y'all think? Do you see the new American doctrine of preemption as a 'necessary evil' or a step along a dangerous path? As a nation do we have a responsibility to protect ourselves, and how far does/should that protection take us? It's murky sometimes, I know, and I'm curious how y'all feel about it.

 

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A New Trick

Knitting freak that I am, I have already finished four sweaters this term, and wanted to challenge myself to learn a new skill: Knitting two socks at the same time on two circular needles. You use two balls of yarn, and just pray that it doesn't end up a tangled mess. After spending nearly three hours casting on, joining, and knitting a few rows of ribbing, I am now the proud owner of, you guessed it, a tangled mess. Sigh.

So what will with any luck someday look like this -->

Currently looks like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully I can update soon with good news from the knitting front...

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Somewhere Out There

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Public Funding - What is the issue?

Barack Obama has declined to use public funding for his general election campaign despite earlier clues that he would use it, and some people seem none too happy about it. I don't know a ton about it, but it all seems to be a mixed bag. I think spending limits are good (public funding would place a ceiling at 85 million dollars), but does it really limit spending if you've got lobbyists and special interest groups that can still spend a virtually unlimited amount? Is there any way to actually limit spending? Do private donations encourage political favors - even in relatively small amounts? (A great site to check for up-to-date numbers is OpenSecrets - find out where the money is coming from and where it's going to)

I don't know... does it matter as an campaign ethics thing or will campaign spending pretty much just stay out of control no matter which way you spin it? Anyone have an opinion on the topic?

You can watch the video announcement below:

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Hold the Meat, Please

One of the questions I get asked most often is why I am a vegetarian. I think people often assume one chooses to go that route because they are sentimental about God's furry little creatures. Well, I have to admit, I'm not really that sentimental. I mean, I love animals and don't relish the idea of their pain, but I also don't have any fundamental issues with eating them. I don't think that it is theologically problematic at all. That said, I would definitely call into question the factory farming practices that are widely used.

However, I am somewhat sentimental about humans, and creation in general. So I've gone veggie in large part because I think that most meat is raised/processed in ways that are not healthy for my body. Not only the drugs used on the animals directly, but the agricultural chemicals that go into the grains they are fed. I don't really want to put all that into my system. And that applies not only to meat, but in trying not to eat a lot of processed foods in general.

Also, I think that the methods used in raising livestock are often not good for the planet. Farming and ranching are often separated in ways that leave lots to be desired, and the massive deforestation that is happening to make room for more livestock is problematic, I think. Other environmental factors are pollution, soil erosion due to overgrazing, more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined, and the list goes on. Plus, animals raised for meat consume tons of feed (for example, it takes about 16 pounds of soybeans and grains to produce 1 pound of beef) that could potentially be used for feeding us human folk. It's plausible that eating lower on the food chain could ultimately help with some of the hunger issues worldwide if it was done on a larger scale.

That said (and it's terribly oversimplified for purposes of brevity), I wouldn't want to preach or pretend that vegetarians have some greater degree of ethical sensitivity, having in some way attained an enlightenment that omnivores don't have. Truthfully, I am an omnivore when I can be. I love that my dad and brothers hunt and fish, and I have no dilemma at all in eating the venison and redfish that I'm happy grace my plate when I'm home. I don't have any ethical problem with wild meat. And while I have some reservations, as there is no perfect system, I would probably eat free range organic meat and non-farm raised salmon if I could afford it. I know I can't be totally consistent (and vegans could call me hypocritical in a heartbeat), but I feel like I need to do what I can. For me it's about claiming control over that which is in my power, since so many of the things that grieve me about the world are completely outside of the scope of what I can do. So I look for ways to go green, but recognize that no matter what I do, it's probably insufficient and/or contains problems that I'm simply not aware of. It's somewhat overwhelming, actually.

So there it is, my little spiel. For more information on vegetarianism, I'd recommend The New Becoming Vegetarian. It offers a much better articulated rationale for the whys, as well as giving lots of great nutritional information to help make the best food choices you can if you decide to cut out or decrease your meat intake.

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Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear - Chapter 2

This week I'll be looking at chapter 2: Fear and the Moral Life in Scott Bader-Saye's book Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear. In it he poses the question: "What kind of people do we become if we are fed a steady diet of dread?" (25)

To answer this question, he asserts that we must first ask whether we can even speak of fear as a moral issue at all. After all, we're not accustomed to ascribing anything more to our emotions than neutrality. Bader-Saye calls our attention to theologian Simon Harak on the issue to show that our emotions can indeed have a moral dimension: "It is somehow wrong not to feel revulsion at rape, or to stay forever angry with imperfect parents. It is somehow right to rejoice at a friend's success, or to be moved by the plight of an abused child. So it seems upon reflection that our passions can be morally praise-or blameworthy." (25)

As applied to fear, while he says that fear itself is innate, we are socially conditioned as to what/how/when we fear. And if our fear becomes disordered and/or excessive, as it often is when we bathe in its waters daily, it can result in what he calls "shadow virtues". These 'virtues' are arising as we are losing the common ground and language with which to talk about morality, lacking a shared platform to exercise communal judgement. But we can appeal to our shared fear, and create a new ethic of safety that we all agree on. After all, who doesn't want to be safe?

Thus instead of talking about, for example, sex in the context of belonging to marriage as a gift from God (you've all heard this song, you can fill in the rest), we discourage premarital sex because of the health/pregnancy risks. Thus a moral decision now has little to do with holiness or goodness, and everything to do with safety. "We are more likely to tell our children 'be careful' than 'be good.'" (31)

But going back to the 'shadow virtues' that develop in a culture of fear. Bader-Saye identifies three: Suspicion, Preemption and Accumulation.

Suspicion assumes that we are (nearly) always at some kind of risk, and leads us to treat others as potential threats rather than our neighbor (in the Jesus-ian sense. Is that a word? Can it be?) It's easy to see this on the individual level, as most of us feel a little jumpy sometimes (also see the upturn in knife violence among teens in London this year. Scary.), but it also takes place at a policy level. One example he gives is how each foreign visitor to the US is now required to have a photo taken and be fingerprinted. A practice we often associate with what? Suspects in a police station. I'm not (and he's not) saying it's ineffective, but the roots of policy like this are problematic. (See the contrast with Leviticus 19:33-34)

Secondly, the 'virtue' of preemption: fight or flight. Get out of the way or strike before the other guy gets a chance. Again, you don't have to read long into W's National Security Strategy (check out the second bullet point) to see this virtue at the national level, nor far into the headlines about the war in Iraq to see some of the cost. He contrasts preemptive flight and fight, observing that flight is "characterized by our own lost opportunities and possibilities", while fight "jeopardizes the opportunities and possibilities for others." (33)

Finally, accumulation of wealth. We save for a rainy day, save because social security is going away by the time we need it, save because we might get sick, save so we can ______. While I would definitely advocate for wise financial planning and good stewardship, it might be worth taking a moment and examining the motives. What are we trusting?

Okay, that's it. Next week: Why Fearlessness is a Bad Idea.

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Man, I Love The Onion

McCain Vows To Replace Secret Service With His Own Bare Fists

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Happy Father's Day!

Celebrating parents makes me feel like a kid, so here's a Father's Day acrostic for you:

Doggedly determined, daring to do what is right
Amply adventurous, always ready for fun
Dashingly debonnaire, dripping with charm

Dad, I love you and wish I could be with you today!

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License Plates and Religion

The Washington Post has an interesting essay by C.Welton Gaddy offering his take on the South Carolina decision to offer license plates with an image of the cross on them.

This paragraph pretty much sums up my view, as well:

Does not the government have other work to do that is more important and appropriate to its functions? Given the mortgage crisis, an economy teetering on the edge of inflation, joblessness, the status of public education, it boggles the mind that any legislature would debate crosses on a license plate.

What do y'all think: would you get one of these? Do you think they should be offered? What would you think if it was an Islamic motif? Or are you Switzerland on the subject?

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A Wrench in the Rumor Mill

Barack Obama is fighting back. He's launched a new website, FightTheSmears.com, to combat the rumors spreading like wildfire on the internet accusing him of everything from being a Muslim to refusing to say the pledge of allegiance. Videos and photos offer solid evidence.

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Knitters Take Heed...

.... this site has the potential to kill loads of your time. Brace yourself: Thousands of patterns. Forums. Yarn reviews. Book reviews.

And did I mention, thousands of patterns?

Check out Ravelry if you haven't. You'll be glad you did.

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Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear - Chapter 1

I recently finished reading Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear by Scott Bader-Saye. It's one of the best books I've read in a long time, and has prompted me to re-enter the blogosphere after a long leave of absence to do a chapter by chapter review of it.

So I'll start with, appropriately, the first chapter. Titled Fear for Profit, it sets up the book by outlining how fear is in many ways the air we breathe. (One caveat - Bader-Saye is from North America and is drawing on North American culture. It may not generalize globally, but I suspect that most points would ring true) Our cultural identity is sometimes built around being consumers, and since fear often drives consumption, we have become masters at manipulating it. He points to a couple of major areas that this takes place:

First, parenting. Drawing upon his experience of fatherhood, he points out the ways in which fear can become overwhelming. From choosing the type of birth (hospital? home? natural? meds?) to baby proofing the house (spawning a billion dollar child safety industry) to choosing a parenting method (consult one of the hundreds of books written by experts contradicting each other), it becomes easy to to spend more time "think[ing] about what we want to prevent and avoid rather than what we want to encourage and develop." (14) The lack of cultural consensus about standards and norms confuses the issue even more - "it's not even that we don't know if we're 'getting it right', it's that we don't even know what 'right' would look like." (13) Honestly, I know several people who have opted to not even have children simply because it all seems like too much. And I can't say I blame them!

Then he moves into the broad area of media and marketing. We all know that we will see millions of commercials over our lifetimes, most of them instilling fear that without x product we are doomed to being sexless, ugly, and lonely. It's a fairly obvious ploy, and one that is much discussed. Perhaps less discussed is the way that TV and news increase our fearfulness. News programs need advertising dollars, so they air the most sensational and shocking news stories to generate ratings.  A quick glance online shows rape, murder, new toxic substances/health dangers, economic crisis, etc. topping the headlines on all the major networks. Witnessing so much brutality both on the news and scripted programming (see: Dexter, 24, the many crime procedurals, etc.), we start to believe that the world is a more dangerous place than it actually is. In fact, "in the 1990's crime rates were dropping while 2/3 of Americans believed they were rising." (15) Our fears no longer correspond to our actual risk levels.

Thirdly, there is politics. In a post 9/11 world, we are all too aware of our potential vulnerability, and will go to fairly extreme means to ensure our safety. Politicians capitalize on this in their rhetoric (by the way - I've only caught the headlines so far this election cycle, how are the political ads? I'm curious...). We also tend to be more suspicious of our neighbors, especially neighbors who aren't just like us. Makes it difficult to practice loving them.

Finally, he puts the spotlight on the church, and its tendency to manipulate fear from the pulpit. Could be fear of hell, fear of science, fear of loss, or whatever. Less direct than the old fashioned fear of the sword method, but I still find fear as a driving force of spirituality problematic. At least this kind of fear.

So that's all for this chapter, and I think he's laid the problem out well. Next week? Fear and the Moral Life.

Stay Tuned. Or else.

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New Book Study

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to be doing a chapter-by-chapter book review on Scott Bader-Saye's Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear. If anyone wants to follow along, it's a fantastic book, definitely worth reading. 

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Change is in the Air

For those of you who don't know yet, this is to be my final term at L'Abri. I'll be leaving to head back to the Lone Star State, Houston to be precise, and start working towards grad school. I'm planning to pursue a degree in social work, despite the horror stories I've heard from friends in the field. I'll (hopefully) be attending University of Houston, so that I can remain in the geographical vicinity of my family, which is growing* (my brother Josh recently wed the gorgeous and wonderful Anna), and I don't want to miss any (more) of it.

It will be more than difficult to leave this place that has changed my life so much, but I think, at least for the time being, it's time to bid adieu.

Just wanted to post a brief update about this major development in my life.

 

*Mom - I don't know anything you don't. No grandkids from any of your children are insinuated here... ;)

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The Coburn Seven

A post on the God's Politics blog Friday talks about seven senators (the "Coburn Seven") who are hard at work blocking the reauthorization of the Global AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis bill, which helps fund the fight against these diseases which account for more than 90% of infectious disease death. It's a post worth reading, and Sojourners has a form online that you can use to send a letter to your senators encouraging them support getting the bill passed.

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What Does it Mean to Grow Up?

A few days ago there was an article by David Brooks in the International Herald Tribune talking about what it means to mature, starting with the example of Lincoln and the model during his time that to be mature was to exercise self-control. A sin-centric model that changed over time to a model that emphasized our inner goodness, placing self-discovery as the goal of growing up. Now, according to Brooks, we are moving into a maturity defined by service - maturity as moving from being served to serving others.

I read this article to a group of students at my formal meal, and it was a really fascinating conversation. People described maturity as being accountable and responsible, cultivating virtues. We also talked about maturing requiring an end goal, and that goal must be virtuous, even if not explicitly Christian. We also talked about the external cultural markers of maturity (rituals or rites of passage), and some of the ramifications of having few if any of them in modern Western culture. Very cool stuff - we spend so much time talking about identity, but it seems as though very rarely we talk about maturity.

I'd be curious to hear anyone else's thoughts on it...

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Doing the Jitterbug

Many moons ago, I went on a trip that went badly. Very badly. To soothe myself, I did what any self-respecting knitter would do. I bought a fabulous hank of out-of-my-budget yarn dyed in bright and cheerful colors. Upon returning home, I placed this yarn in my basket and waited for inspiration to strike, for the wool to whisper to me what it wanted to be, and then to knit it up into something beautiful that would in some way help redeem the memory of the trip.

And it sat there for months until finally, sick and tired of waiting for inspiration and starting to feel almost mocked by that bright little ball of wool, I saw a lacy little scarf pattern that I thought just might work and decided to knit the blasted thing. Which I did, and after making a six foot long scarf, still had more leftover to continue the mockery. So I made a head scarf. But like the memory of that week, it just wouldn't go away. Still more remained. Giving up on my idea of full redemption through yarn, I finally gave it away, tossing it to a fellow yarn lover with my best wishes.

Pleased that finally it was gone, I then went to block my new projects. For the non-knitterly folks, that simply means soaking the project and pinning it out to dry into shape. I put it in its first bath, and it bled.  And continued to bleed through the nearly 15 subsequent washes. I never could get the water to run clear. I laughed a lot, I cried a little, and I supposed that ultimately the story of this little ball of wool (Colinette Jitterbug, hence the title) had completed itself in the only way it could have.

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Have A Non-Commercial Easter!

Slate Magazine has an article about how, unlike Christmas, Easter has largely resisted mass commercialization.

Even the resurrection, the joyful end of the Easter story, resists domestication as it resists banalization. Unlike Christmas, it also resists a noncommittal response. ... Easter is an event that demands a "yes" or a "no." There is no "whatever." ...

What does the world do with a person who has been raised from the dead? Christians have been meditating on that for two millenniums. But despite the eggs, the baskets, and the bunnies, one thing we haven't been able to do is to tame that person, tame his message, and, moreover, tame what happened to him in Jerusalem all those years ago. That's one reason why you don't see many Easter cards, Easter gifts, and Easter decorations; why the stores aren't clogged with shoppers during Lent; and why the holiday is still, essentially, religious.

As I thought about it, glad that it hasn't gone over the top with cards and presents and such, I couldn't help but wonder how often I go through this holy week with little more than a "whatever". How I regularly attempt to tame Christ, to not be radically shaped by the events of Easter.

So I turned to my trusty Book of Common Prayer and found, as always, encouragement in its pages. I'll just share a prayer from Holy Week here...

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Have a good Easter, y'all!

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Obama Speech

Well, I've been absent from the blog for quite a while now, but after Paul sent me the link to this video, I thought I'd share it here. Obama gave this speech on race in America, and I just thought it was the best thing I've heard out of a politician's mouth in ages. If you haven't already heard it, check it out...

 

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