A New Dark Ages

These thoughts were inspired by a conversation over at John Hanson's blog, De Gustibus, we all need something, and I'd like to acknowledge my double debt to Brother John, not only for initiating and hosting that conversation, but also for a gentle and generous comment here that agitated me to write again.

Robert Maynard Hutchins coined the notion of “The Great Conversation,” which is defined as, “a characterization of references and allusions made by authors in the Western canon to the works of their predecessors.” This notion became, in due course, the seminal idea upon which Hutchins and others ultimate built “The Great Books.” The question as it came up on De Gustibus considered the status of religion in the Great Conversation, and the sense that religion is being relegated to a marginal and mostly honorary role in that Conversation. I think this is an important question, but it is not today's question. Today's question regards the health of the Great Conversation itself.

I'll begin by illustrating and expanding a bit on Hutchins' idea. Melville's novel, “Moby Dick,” is built upon references to the Old Testament, from the first sentence, “Call me Ishmael,” to the last, “It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan.” Here we see a pattern of references he could assume would be meaningful to his readers. References which would enable him to say less, but mean more. His novel does not stand alone, but it builds on that which came before, and indeed, I suspect that more people today associate the name “Ahab” with the Great White Whale than with Jezebel or Elijah. Melville entered the conversation.

At this point, I'd like leverage this example into three related digressions:

1. If “Moby Dick” is a part of the Great Conversation by dint of its references to the Bible, doesn't this mean that the Bible is also a part of the Great Conversation? Yes. Isn't this obvious? It certainly was to the authors of “the Great Books,” who in their introduction made the point that they didn't include the Bible in their collection simply because they expected any of its readers to already have multiple copies. Indeed, if we remember that the Bible is not a book, but a collection of books, we can already see the Great Conversation at work within the Bible, as one book quotes another.
2. Hey, isn't the Great Conversation supposed to be about the Western canon? The Bible is a lot of things, but it is mostly written from the very different perspective of oriental culture. The first thing you have to understand about Western culture is its acquisitive nature. We claim the Bible. You don't like it? We don't care.
3. What about other cultures? Don't they have conversations too? Isn't it both arrogant and limiting to focus on the Western canon? Alright then. The second thing you have to understand about Western culture is that it is arrogant. But yes, it is limiting, which is both good and bad. What gets sometimes gets lost in the “Dead White Male Lit” vs. “World Lit” debate is a willingness to acknowledge what both sides have right. There is a distinctive Western conversation (nods to the right), but it is itself in conversation with other culture's conversations (nods to the left). The Bible, one of the foundational documents of the Western canon, is very much a case-in-point, but hardly a unique one. I'll cite Hesse's “Siddartha”, Achebe's “Things Fall Apart,” and the cinematic conversation between Kurosawa and Leone.

But now we get to the question. What is the health of the Great Conversation today? How might we assess it?

This is a critical time for the Great Conversation. Even in the early 50's, Hutchins wrote about how then-recent events had challenged (but in his estimation, unsuccessfully) foundational values of Western culture. And perhaps it was revulsion to Hitler's racial interpretation of Nietzsche's elitist notion of Übermensch that lead Mortimer Adler to push the egalitarian notion that the best education for the best is the best education for all. And the Great Books grew out of this, as an explicit attempt to make the Great Conversation accessible to all. These challenges, while they have not yet overwhelmed us, remain unabated. And all the while, technology has been producing profound changes in the nature of publishing, driving down costs and increasing bandwidth, to the point where anyone with access to a public library, a Google account, and an axe to grind, can set up shop and hope to reach billions. The absence of a public library notwithstanding, this blog itself is a case-in-point.

My thesis is that the Great Conversation has all but collapsed. As more and more people have entered in, and as time-to-publication has fallen from years to milli-seconds, the Great Conversation has pivoted. We no longer consider so much the great minds of the past, nor do we hope to engage the great minds of the future. We write for today's comments, which after a week's time will live forever unread on Google: cache without value.

My thesis is that these are the New Dark Ages: that we've walled ourselves off from the past and future of the Great Conversation, in favor of more vigorous but ultimately ephemeral chatter. We know more facts, but possess less understanding, less wisdom. We are trapped in the ignorance of now.

But I see hope. Whether through nature, or through God, our excesses are inevitably corrected. Difficult times, which is simply another way of saying times that involve changes we don't understand, are times when we're compelled to look beyond us. And we face difficult times, perhaps difficult enough to tear us away from our inward gaze. If not now, soon.

Peace

Is Death a Social Construct?

Over on Kirby's blog, G. M. Palmer posted a link to Easter, a remarkable poem by Jill Alexander Essbaum. Kirby felt the poem was “very secular.” This seemed to deeply miss the point of Essbaum's poetry, which struck me as a poignant reflection on a central paradox of Easter.

As Christians, we celebrate Easter as Christ's victory over death. We declare death vanquished. Yet we know, God's victory over death is ultimate, not present. Death surrounds us, and our own mortality presses in. We proclaim victory in defeat; we celebrate in despair. The ones we love pass on, and the threads that tie us to this life grow weaker, while the threads that pull us to, and we believe through, death grow stronger.

Why? JH has lamented the lack of the surreal over on Lutheran Surrealism. Let's have some here.

Is death a social construct? I'm thinking, yes.

Peace

Authority — a draft

It's been a long time since I've felt as though I had anything to say here, which I regret. The following is a lightly edited comment that I made on Kirby's blog, which I believe is worthy of further development.

---

Kirby,

The question of authority is something I wanted to take up, and run with a bit.

Sounds like a plan...

If I might anticipate your thoughts a bit, let me start by positing that divine authority, and only divine authority, will not fail. Note that for atheists, this reduces to the simpler premise that all authority fails.

A corollary, which requires the additional premise that we are not gods, is that all human authority fails. This is one of the foundations of Nuremberg prosecution: as all human authority fails, you can't evade personal responsibility for your own actions via appeal to authority. You are responsible for the choices you make in the authorities you follow.

A core problem for those of us who accept the theological premise “God is,” and therefore believe that there is an infallible authority, is in discerning and interpreting that authority. For some, this question is mooted by God himself by direct revelation, but very few have been given the gift of standing with unshod feet before a bush that burns but is not consumed. For the rest of us, it is not so easy, and the very real phenomenon of false prophesy means that we can't simply take the word of those who claim the gift of direct revelation. Even the disciples doubted. We're again confronted with the premise that all human authority fails, and that prophets are human.

Turn now to scripture. Scripture has passed through human hands, and it is established beyond all doubt that the transmission of scripture, while remarkably good, has been less than perfect. Fundamentalists will cite 2 Timothy 3:16-17, All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. (NRSV) as an internal proof text for scriptural infallibility, but this is a weak argument. Fallible sources often claim infallibility, but all human authority fails. In any event, it is very far from clear that the intended meaning of θεόπνευστος — God breathed — is anything like what fundamentalists mean when they use the word “inspired.” Ironically, they're not being literal enough in their reading of a central proof text.

The existence of variant texts is certainly clearer to us than it was to the reformers, who were inspired by finally having direct access to imperfect, but original language, texts, and so were in a position to call into question readings of the Vulgate, and arguments for the infallibility of the RCC hierarchy that had been built upon them.

So I see the claim of “scriptural infallibility” as well as “papal infallibility” as theological versions of the Nuremberg defense, resting on the same error. Human authority cannot be trusted blindly, since all human authority fails.

What then? Do I deny all human authority, or claim exemption from its demands upon me? By no means. We all depend on authority, and are subject to its demands. I am no exception. But we cannot use authority to evade personal responsibility, and therefore authority must be tested. And indeed, for this, I can cite scripture as well, for it often speaks of testing by both God and man to ascertaining righteousness, faithfulness, apostolic authority, etc.

Returning again to scripture, we might ask what its uses are. If we test it against the claims of 2 Timothy 3:16, useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, it passes, albeit with a few caveats. If we test it as a source of scientific knowledge, it often fails. It is our personal responsibility if we ignore the results of those testings, both where it succeeds and where it fails.

Peace

Political Correctness in the New Testament

In a comment on Kirby's blog, I noted that “political correctness” is nothing more or less than the notion that our words and deeds should conform to our beliefs. As I've thought about this subsequently, it occurred to me that while "political correctness" in its current meaning dates to the 70's, and the conservative backlash to a few minutes after that, that the underlying idea is sound, and that I've encountered it in sources of far greater antiquity.

So I invite you to consider the first commandment,

Exodus 20:7 (RSV) You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

and with it, the following exegesis by Jesus of Nazereth:

Matthew 6:9 (RSV) Pray then like this: Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

Consider that first petition, “Hallowed be thy name.” This is often misunderstood. Jesus is not asking that God's name be holy, for God's name is holy. Jesus is asking that God grant us that we conform our words and attitudes to our belief in the holiness of our Lord God, and the sanctity of his name. Is this not political correctness? Of course it is. Yet many of the same conservatives who bristle at “political correctness” pray this prayer every day without a twinge of irony.

And I believe it is worth considering what the first commandment was intended to proscribe. I do not believe it was the “God damns” that have been largely replaced in modern invective by more offensive speech. After all, “God damn” is formally a prayer. A flawed, self-centered prayer, but a prayer never the less. No, I believe that the usage was the casual elaboration of “I promise…” to “With God as my witness, I promise… .” For indeed, we may well find that God is a witness against us. Indeed, there's evidence to this in Jeremiah:

Jeremiah 5:1–2 (RSV)  Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look and take note! Search her squares to see if you can find a man, one who does justice and seeks truth; that I may pardon her. Though they say, “As the LORD lives,” yet they swear falsely.

And this leads us to a second commentary on the first commandment, which shares much with Jesus's, in the Epistle of James:

James 5:12 (RSV) But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, that you may not fall under condemnation.

And while James is placid and magisterial, Paul of Tarsus knows how difficult this really is,

Romans 7:15 (RSV) I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

It is not easy to set aside traditional patterns of language and attitude to account for a new truths, for habituation has a powerful hold on us. This difficulty accounts for much of the strident attitude by modern advocates of political correctness. Self policing our words and deeds is hard, as we undermine ourselves thoughtlessly and continuously. Paul was right, and we need to pray.

May our words and deeds conform to our beliefs. Amen.

Peace

Combinatorial Prayer

Father, find me, draw me in. Jesus, save me, here I am. Spirit, heal me, draw me in. Father, teach me, here I am. Jesus, lead me, draw me in. Spirit, find me, here I am. Father, save me, draw me in. Jesus, heal me, here I am. Spirit, teach me, draw me in. Father, lead me, here I am. Jesus, find me, draw me in. Spirit, save me, here I am. Father, heal me, draw me in. Jesus, teach me, here I am. Spirit, lead me, draw me in. Father, find me, here I am. Jesus, save me, draw me in. Spirit, heal me, here I am. Father, teach me, draw me in. Jesus, lead me, here I am. Spirit, find me, draw me in. Father, save me, here I am. Jesus, heal me, draw me in. Spirit, teach me, here I am. Father, lead me, draw me in. Jesus, find me, here I am. Spirit, save me, draw me in. Father, heal me, here I am. Jesus, teach me, draw me in. Spirit, lead me, here I am.

Peace

Scholasticism

I'd like to propose the hypothesis that part of the continuing distance between Lutheranism and Catholicism is due to their differing stances on Scholasticism.

Luther rejected Scholasticism, and favored arguments based on Augustine (he was an Augustinian monk, after all), the earlier Fathers, and Scripture directly. Part of this comes out of Luther's critique of monasticism, which Aquinas, Scotus, and other Scholastics held in high regard. Indeed, from a Lutheran point of view, the Summa was a scholarly apology for the religious status quo of Aquinas's day. There's no hint of critique, just a panglossian sense of whatever is, is as it must and should be. Our subsequent and sustained divergence from the Catholic Church and the structures reflected in the Summa is a living refutation of that, at least for us. Between the Aquinas's scholarly defense of a static and hierarchical world-view and Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda lies an almost unbridgeable difference in understanding the place and purpose of the Church in the world.

Part of the Lutheran skepticism, though, came from the primary intellectual stance of the Scholastics, that all truth points to God, and that some truth, some knowledge of God, was accessible to non-Christian thinkers. In this, the intellectual commitments of the Scholastics are more acceptable to the modern man than Luther's Christian exclusivity. Looking at Scholasticism more positively, which is to say, from outside of the circle of specifically Lutheran critique, the triumph of Scholasticism was to reconcile Aristotelian rational philosophy with Christian theology.

This gives rise to an entirely separate critique of Scholasticism, which perhaps appeals more to the modern man, who would applaud the implicit universalism that underlies Scholasticism, while noting that both philosophy and theology have moved on since the days of Aristotle and Aquinas respectively. In this, the Catholic instinct to defer reflexively to the Summa denies the fundamental intellectual commitments that underlay it. Stated metaphorically, the Summa was a milestone, not a goal, and the effort to reconcile all truths to a single universal truth ought to be addressing, embracing, and reconciling the new truths of our era, including but not limited to the truths of science, and our better understanding of the ancient near-Eastern cultures that incubated our faith. In this, the best work of our era (at least, that I'm aware of) comes from Polkinghorne (an Anglican priest and theoretical physicist) and Gould (a biologist and secular Jew).

Peace

While I take responsibility for the content of this note, I'd like to acknowledge my debt to my current diakonia teacher, Bruce Rittenhouse, for the phrase "philosophy and theology have moved on," and the argument that this phrase distills. There is in this condemnation enough in his remark for both Catholic and Lutheran, and perhaps in that a basis for moving on.

The Battle of the Evil Gods

The Divinity School Coffee Shop is a staple of life at the University of Chicago. The Coffee Shop's motto is ”Where God Drinks Coffee,“ and the shop has cool and quirky attitude. Most (perhaps all?) of the employees are students at the Divinity School, which is relevant in what follows.

Like any self-respecting coffee shop, there's a tip cup out. But unlike most, the tips are used to decide head-to-head match-ups on the question of the day. Think "March madness" meets the Gallup Poll meets Change Wars. The tournament (single elimination, sixteen contestants) is set up by the employees (remember, divinity students?!), but the outcome of the tournament is a function of the tip-based voting. The clientele of the coffee shop is overwhelmingly university people: a bit more of a graduate student place than an undergraduate place, and a place that draws a lot of faculty from the main quads. (This means that professional school and biology faculty are somewhat under-sampled, whereas humanities, social-science, and mathematical sciences faculty are somewhat over-sampled).

Anyway, the most recent competition just concluded, a "Battle of the Evil Gods," and I think this is interesting as a touchstone for assessing the actual interests/priorities of this particular group of communities.

Here is an image of the final blackboard, which gives you a bit of the ambiance of the place, linked to a simple bracket diagram which is easier to read:

Note that the coffee shop is located in the basement, with classy brick walls, an expresso machine, etc.

Good luck reconciling either the cast of villains or the results of the voting with any preconceptions.

Peace