Category Archives: Miscellaneous - Page 2

Two extremes

Posted by on October 6, 2010 13 comments

If you want to read something incredibly stupid, make sure to check out Mark Tooley’s dreck, “Mennonite Takeover.” This lovely piece of “writing” wonders if the malignant Neo-Anabaptists of today will someday repent of all the mean things they say about “traditional American Christianity,” you know, since mainline Christians have apologized profusely for killing all those Anabaptists back in the day it seems only fair. . .

On the other hand if you want to read something incredibly good, check out the second part of K.J. Swanson’s three-part article critiquing the politics of gender in evangelicalism and the Twilight series.

Blogging and patience

Posted by on September 9, 2010 9 comments

Earlier this summer at the Annual Gathering of the Ekklesia Project, and in subsequent conversations I’ve had about the nature of theological blogging the question of patience has been raised a few times. Normally the objection/question is couched in terms of the proposition that blogging, by virtue of its relatively immediate, easy-access nature is fundamentally antithetical to patient and reflective theological discourse.

I’ve thought a bit about this question and I think that, fundamentally, this concern is ill-founded. More precisely it is ill-founded in that the way in which the question is formed tends to reflect too hasty a view of the sort of discourse that actually happens on blogs. Clearly if one were to just look at a given thread of comments one could make the case that there is regularly a lot of speaking too soon, emoting, and irresponsible speech — much like there is in countless normal face-to-face conversations. So if we were to judge blogging simply by this I suppose we could say that it does not foster patience.

But this would be just as short-sighted as deciding that personal conversation is too heated, immediate, and emotional to be a viable mode of communication on the basis overhearing one argument. Blogging, like any other mode of conversation must not be evaluated merely on a micro scale, but rather from the standpoint of an extended series of discourses that unfold over time as various people have conversation after conversation with one another.

Certainly blogging does not “foster patience” in the sense that participating in once comment thread will inculcate patience into its participants — any more than one argument between friends will immediately teach them how to communicate better to one another. Rather it is precisely by bearing with the impatience over numerous discussions that patience is fostered and mutual understanding is cultivated. Again, this is strikingly similar to how patience is learned in most other modes of interpersonal discussion. Couples learn to be patient with each other, not through one or two arguments, but over a long shared history of  being impatient with each other.

To my mind the reaction to blogging that fears it to be incapable of patience reflects a misunderstanding of this fundamental point. Blogging is, in fact, a great way to learn about patience in that, if you wish to be in it in a sustained way, you must work, over the long haul through misunderstandings, disagreements, and flare-ups of inappropriateness. You learn patience by bearing with the impatience, remaining in dialogue and continuing to write, comment, and converse. Precisely as such blogging, far from being antithetical to patience is actually a superb venue for cultivating it.

UPDATE: Brad East’s latest post, Personal Reflections on Two Years of Blogging seems to me to make a similar, and supporting point to what I have tried to say in this post.

Nuking fish in a barrel

Posted by on July 23, 2010 37 comments

Dave Horstkoetter has a send-up of blowhard and all around terrible human being, Glenn Beck, and his comments about James Cone and black liberation theology at The Other Journal. Check it out.

Blogging as theological discourse

Posted by on July 19, 2010 18 comments

Ok, I’m back. After a week in Chicago for EP and then another week vacationing in California with the always-dangerous Andrew Kooy, I am back. Stay tuned to the Valdenkor blog for some forthcoming recountings of the culinary chronicles of Andrew and myself from the past week.

In the meantime, here is a segment from the conclusion to the presentation I gave with Jana Bennett at EP on “blogging as theological discourse”:

So, in conclusion if I were to venture some guesses about how we might best go about this open-ended and uncertain work of “seeing how this will work”, I would offer four guidelines, which I offer no less to myself than to others:

  1. Blogging as a mode of faithful discourse must be open to critique, re-formation, and revision in light of the voices of others. Blogging, by its very nature is open and participatory towards a variety of discursive voices. Moreover, blogging tends to generate a variety of discussions outside of the medium of blogs themselves.
  2. Blogging generates a multi-level discussion. It is precisely in attending to these discussions with care for the voice of the other and allowing them to shape future discussions and explorations of the themes discussed that we blog faithfully. In short, blogging must be shaped by the conversation it generates if it is to be truly fruitful.
  3. Blogging as a mode of faithful discourse must embrace its open-ended and fundamentally itinerant nature. Blogging, if it attempts to accomplish the work of books and journal articles, will simply be a poor exercise. Blogging’s piecemeal, fragmentary, and dynamic nature must be embraced, and precisely so, be discovered as a mode of open and unpredictable discourse. It is a dialogical space for pilgrims, wayfarers, and strangers who are enabled in this space to discover unexpected conversations about the call of God on our lives. In this sort of itinerant space we have the opportunity to allow ourselves to be known, in all our facileness, haste, and vulnerability, and to simply be conversationally present without pretension to over-importance, establishment, or self-validation. This, at least, is what I believe theological blogging must aspire to be.
  4. Blogging as a mode of faithful discourse ought always to be shaped and birthed from a life of lived prayer in the context of the church in its mission to the world. Blogging, at its best should arise from reflection on the concrete life of the church for and in the world, and, precisely as such, it must be grounded in prayer, that is, in the cry for the kingdom which gives the church its shape, life, and calling. To seek any form of faithful theological discussion outside of a common life of prayer for the coming of the Triune God to transfigure, renew, and interrupt us, is to engage in false and futile pursuits. This is not a pious gloss. Prayer is essential for good conversation about God. This applies to blogging no less than to any other mode of theological conversation. Perhaps more so.Blogging as a mode of faithful discourse must, by the Spirit, learn proper patience in the midst of the immediacy of response that blogging tends to generate. Haste is perhaps the greatest temptation of blogging. Only by being given over to patience, the fruit of the Spirit which takes shape in our life together under Christ’s lordship, can we pursue this sort of discussion in a truly fruitful manner.

The discussion in the workshop was, I think, quite good, especially in that it allowed a number of folks who have been involved in the online discussions on this blog to engage in face-to-face conversation about the whole dynamic of theological discussion in the medium of blogs.

Off to the Ekklesia Project

Posted by on July 5, 2010 12 comments

Well, I’m taking off this morning for Chicago to attend this year’s gathering of the Ekklesia Project, where I’ll actually be presenting at a workshop on . . . you guessed it: theology and blogging. I hope to see many of you guys in Chicago, and if I have internet access, maybe I’ll even do a little live blogging play-by-play for you for the plenary papers. Maybe . . .

The perfect steak

Posted by on July 1, 2010 17 comments

I got sick of all the incorrect and terrible articles buzzing around the interwebs on how to grill steak, so I’ve set the matter to rights. Check it out.

Best. Review. Ever.

Posted by on June 29, 2010 13 comments

Its been a while since I’ve indulged in something linking to a movie review, but this is just too damn good to pass up. Drew McWeeny’s review of the latest Twilight schlock is just utterly fantastic:

Here’s where I have a problem.  I don’t care if they get married or not, because in this film, “get married” is just code for “now we can do it.”  Their marriage isn’t about building something together or creating a family.  Their marriage isn’t about time they’ve spent together and time they want to spend together.  It’s all hormonal.  It’s all impulse.  Bella Swan is defined as a character purely by who she wants to sleep with, and I don’t care if she actually consummates the act or not.  This movie is driven from start to finish by the real estate between her legs, and if that sounds blunt or harsh, good.  I want it to sound ugly, because I think it is ugly.  Deeply ugly.  She’s the weakest, most dependent lead in a film that I can imagine.  There is nothing interesting about Bella aside from her desire for these two boys.  It is a narcissistic teenage fantasy taken to a disturbing depth.  Nothing in the world of these movies matters beyond the resolution of whether or not Bella is going to bone Edward.  And when.  And how.  And whether she’s going to bone Jacob as well.

There is talk of love, but there is nothing like love in these movies.  These are not stories about love.  They are stories about infatuation, temporary teenage madness.  And, hey, man… I may be ancient at this point, but I remember what it’s like when you’re a teenager and everything feels so important, and I’ve seen films that get that frenzy just right and they still manage to feature real character work and stories that are interesting and actual events.  You can make a great movie about the rush of teenage love.  You can use it as a backdrop for all sorts of stories.  But for that to be the thing that holds us as an audience, we have to believe that there’s something behind it.  I have yet to see anything in any of these movies that would connect these characters beyond narrative convenience.

Bella doesn’t love these men because of things they have done together.  Instead, everything they do together is because they “love” Bella.  It’s a pissing contest.  And both of the guys are just as poorly defined and as grotesque as Bella in what they represent.  Edward is her “dream man,” and as depicted in the films, he’s basically a control freak who treats her like an object to possess.  He lies to her.  He manipulates her.  He is unable to tolerate her interacting with anyone else.  Ladies… if you have a chance to marry a man who acts like Edward while you’re dating, do it.  And then you can look forward to broken bones and mysterious bruises and a slow and methodical separation from friends and family until you exist only for him.  Which is obviously what you’re looking for, right?  Ooooh, romantic.

Or if Edward’s love isn’t the right kind for you, then maybe you can get lucky and earn yourself a Jacob.  A guy who is hot enough that he knows you will love him, and if you don’t, then it’s just a matter of time.  After all, look at his abs.  He doesn’t offer anything more substantial than Edward in terms of emotion or support, but he does have those abs.  He’s also got body heat, so obviously he is a better choice for Bella.  He has one scene where he actually tells her that he has not imprinted on her as a mate, as is the way with his kind, but that doesn’t matter.  We’re still supposed to believe that this is important, that this struggle over this pathetic, empty dishrag means something.

I love women.  I love all sorts of women.  And because I love real women, actual flesh and blood human being that happen to have a slightly different arrangement of chromosomes than I do, I despise these movies.  I hate them for what they offer up as a value system.  I hate them because there are girls who mistake their own chemical response to the male leads in the movie as an actual affection for the story that’s being told.  They invest on the surface level, and in the meantime, there is this poisonous cancer, this vile insidious message that’s being sold to them underneath.  I hate these movies because they tell girls that this is their value in the world.  Who you bang defines you.  You are worth your vagina and nothing more.  You are who your man is.  That is all.

I just want to point out that this is the first time that the categories of “awesomeness” and “Things that make you want to gouge your eyes out with your pinky, shove scalding hot pokers in your ears, and repeatedly slam the door of a 1950s-vintage, American-made sedan on your head” have become unified in one post.

H/T: Brad E.

I need you in my world

Posted by on June 21, 2010 14 comments

Things have been way to serious around here lately.

Most Overrated Theological Books?

Posted by on May 16, 2010 90 comments

In a rare, in-person meeting of the minds this weekend in Nashville, Nate Kerr, R.O. Flyer, and myself solved a great many of the world’s theological problems. One, however, we still need your help on. At some point we took it upon ourselves to try to figure out the most overrated theological book of the 20th century. While we couldn’t get near to narrowing it down to one, we came up with some possibles. Here is our top ten (in chronological order):

  1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship (1937)
  2. H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (1951)
  3. Jürgen Moltman, Theology of Hope (1964)
  4. Karl Rahner, The Trinity (1967)
  5. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (1984)
  6. George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine (1984)
  7. John Zizioulas, Being as Communion (1985)
  8. Sallie McFague, Models of God (1987)
  9. Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon, Resident Aliens (1989)
  10. John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory (1990)

It should be roundly emphasized that we are not saying that these books are not good and important. Indeed some of our absolutely favorite books are on this list. However, the question remains as to whether or not the attention and enthusiasm these books have received has been overblown. Please bear that in mind before unleashing your rage.

Now, over the next week we’ll be narrowing the list down to five, taking into account any comments you all have. Also, feel free to nominate some other books. The one that receives the most nominations will be added to the final vote as a wildcard. Enjoy the harrowing work of narrowing this list down with us.

Yeah, I know

Posted by on April 30, 2010 8 comments

Sorry for the sparsest April I’ve ever given you folks. I do intend to rectify the situation soon, rest assured. My time has been spent of late with family, hectic work, and as much rest and exercise as I can squeeze into the mix. But I promise you are not forgotten. For the moment I’ll leave you with the  words of Craig Keen, which, of late, have been ruling, shaping, and transforming whatever theological thoughts come through my head:

Agape–and here I must ask one to listen hard to what must remain counterintuitive–agape opens wounds, it doesn’t heal them. It opens the walls of communities, it doesn’t guard them. It tells a story that even the most far-reaching and flexible narrative cannot get its arms around. It lives not for us, but for them. It is not a perfection that is hard to come by. It is a gift, even if a rare gift. It is not taught by hard times, but in spite of hard times; just as it is taught in spite of good times. It is an openness that prevails even when one can no longer cope with the chaos of another day, cannot say how the events of one’s life are steps on a journey. Agape is perfection, holiness,  because it is a kind of ek-stasis that unravels every communitarian fabric, every story, every virtue, every habit.

Does this mean that “community” is to be jettisoned in some lonely return to individualistic pietism? Is there no story of the holy life? Does virtue, does habit, have no complicity with perfection? No. Not this. There are indeed a community and a story and a habituation that are hallowed. However, this community is ecclesial, gathered–and gathered by what can never be lodged in that community–gathered by what will only disruptively dwell there. And so, the story of the community, however wordy it gets, however effectively it appropriates the events that befall it, must always come to silence–before an ex-propriating mystery that cannot be said. So, too, one’s habits, as helpful as they are as a kind of collection of our worldly goods, are to be offered–in the freedom of the gift, the gift that is the Holy Spirit.

~ Craig Keen, “The Human Person as Intercessory Prayer,” 6-7. In Embodied Holiness.

Christianists?

Posted by on April 14, 2010 30 comments

Andrew Sullivan has become known for his use of the term “Christianist” to describe those who, claiming Christianity as their warrant, propagate and promote a distinctly conservative, quasi-theocratic political program. Thus it generally refers to the religious right, and other such conservative Christian groups and movements that seek, under the banner of their faith, to obtain and wield social and political power.

The rationale for the term is pretty straightforward. Basically Sully doesn’t want people of this political orientation to be perceived as the true or only representatives of Christianity. Just as many Muslims protest certian theocratic and radical political agendas being identified with “Islam” so Sully protests the Religious Right’s political agenda being identified with “Christianity.” Thus, just as it has become common to speak of “Islamism” as a particular political ideology which does not exhaust or define Islam as such, the argument is we should learn to speak of “Christianism” in a similar way.

Not all Muslims are Islamists. Likewise not all Christians are Christianists. The former terms name theological and doctrinal allegiances, while the latter speak of specific political agendas that dishonestly present themselves as pure iterations of the religion they adhere to.

I get all this, and it makes sense to me. My question though is if this is really a good idea, terminologically speaking, and what its really supposed to do. On one level, sure, I’d love an easy way for the world to understand, simply through terminology that I have nothing politically in common with the ideology of the Christian Right. But, is the coining of the term “Christianist” really worth the trouble? And doesn’t it smack of a sort of self-righteous distanciation?

“Well, I am a Christian, but so-and-so is a Christianist.” Does not this language do little more than absolve us Christians of our responsibility for those who propagate these ideologies? Aren’t we just distancing ourselves from them precisely for the purpose of making sure everyone knows that our hands are clean? Who does this language really serve? It seems to me that it only serves us, satiating our desire for no one to think that “we” are in any way connected to “them.”

I’m not saying I’ve totally made up my mind. Maybe it will prove to be a useful term. But for the moment I find it hard to find anything really helpful about it unless I’m in a mood to feel innocent, at a safe distance from the actions taken by the Christian Right. At worst, one could argue that this language is an attempt to dodge some very real repentance that we may need to undergo. If we’re the Christians and they’re the Christianists, we don’t need to repent and seek to redress the wrongs being done, we can just be content to lob rhetorical volleys of well-crafted descriptors.

What do you think?

You can’t make it up

Posted by on April 5, 2010 13 comments

Scroll down to the friggin product details.

Change in format

Posted by on April 1, 2010 19 comments

As some of you may know, over the last couple years I have grown less and less interested in writing on theology and biblical issues. I’ve tried to to keep it up, I really have, but I just can’t get the same enjoyment out of theological reading and writing anymore. So anyways, at the same time I’ve had a burgeoning interest in sociology of religion and comparative religous studies.

In light of this I’ve finally decided to bite the bullet and start posting exclusively on these topics. I really have enjoyed writing and thinking about theology, but a time comes for all things to end. I hope the new blog format will be enjoyable to all you readers.

The the impotence of proofreading

Posted by on March 23, 2010 6 comments

This poetry performance will be jarring music to the ears of any English teacher or editorial professional. Too good. (Adult language if you care about such things.)

H/T: Goannatree

Supersized eucharist?

Posted by on March 23, 2010 5 comments

According to one study, it looks like over the last thousand years or so our artistic representations of the Last Supper have seen the food portions get bigger and bigger:

Has even the Last Supper been supersized?

The food in famous paintings of the meal has grown by biblical proportions over the last millennium, researchers report in a medical journal Tuesday.

Using a computer, they compared the size of the food to the size of the heads in 52 paintings of Jesus Christ and his disciples at their final meal before his death.

If art imitates life, we’re in trouble, the researchers conclude. The size of the main dish grew 69 percent; the size of the plate, 66 percent, and the bread, 23 percent, between the years 1000 and 2000.

Probably doesn’t mean all that much. Still a bit odd and amusing though.

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