Thin, Ephemeral, Light, Profoundly Unsatisfying

For a decade I worked at and became contextualized in a conservative Bible college. We understood ourselves to be true to the Bible (that was in the name of the school and the church I centered my life around. And my Bible was dog-eared, so it must have been true) and thus to God. And we understood that other types of Christians were classified under a few different labels, but they were all like hell-bound heretics. Not necessarily - for God could save anyone. Just most likely. I, quite honestly, didn't understand why they even bothered with the name "Christian." That was OUR name.

First were the old orders: Catholics and Orthodox. Then were the liberals. After that, and less on the heretical slide, were the weirder denominations (y'know, like Charismatics) and then the liberal Evangelicals (those who, like some from Wheaton, thought the world to be more than 6,000 years old!).

And I was pretty good at this safeguarding. I couldn't tell you that you were going to hell for your sins, but you were probably on not-safe ground traveling around in your Liberal Hippy Christianity Bug. On the way to hell, of course.

Weeeee! Jesus may or not be the Son of God, but I'd be on my way to hell if I believed in such an ontological destination!

This is fundamentalist Christianity 101. We take the Bible seriously and we know and are sure of what the Bible teaches! The Bible is the Word of God and it teaches what is true and if you don't believe what we believe about God through our understanding of the Bible, you don't take the Bible's revelations seriously! And if you don't take the Bible seriously, you don't take God seriously! You have no faith and your non-faith will send you to hell!

But I wasn't a strict fundamentalist. I was a conservative Evangelical. So that meant I was nicer in my fundamentalism. You're not necessarily going to hell... Just more likely to.

Roger Olson, post-fundy Evangelical New Testament professor, reminded me of those uncharitable descriptions in his post, Why I Am Not a "Liberal Christian." He gives several rubrics to identify if a person or church is a liberal Christian by what she, he or they believe. And that, in itself, is instructive. The first, for example:

How do they approach knowing God? Do they begin with and recognize the authority of special revelation? Or do they begin with and give norming authority to human experience, culture, science, philosophy, “the best of contemporary thought?”

As Tony Jones says, this is bunk. Neither I nor you nor Pastor Jack nor Roger Olson can "recognize the authority of special revelation" without having begun with (and giving "norming authority" to) experience, culture and other contextualizations.

But there's the awareness. The awareness of context and how that enables and helps and stifles and gives us room to build or not build - but mostly to be. And with the awareness comes the acknowledgement - according to a traditional theological view, if not a correct one - that we are adversarial to faith. Knowledge is forbidden in many corners of Christianity because knowledge diverts from this traditional view of faith. Knowledge could cause us to see that maybe things aren't the way we're led to believe they are.

The rest of Olson's checklist also sets up these dichotomies, though not quite as contradictory. Although the age of the earth and whether or not one accepts evolution isn't on Olson's list, the virgin birth and literal resurrection of Jesus are. In such a list, one must be sure of either the veracity or the nonsense of such claims - one can only be sure that it did happen or that it did not happen. Such a list based on what one is sure of in doctrinal terms fails to make sense to me anymore. Since in many of these positions, I find myself in between one point or another. And I sense very much the same position that I myself limited myself and other Christians to just a scant few years ago.

But then there's this definition, which struck a chord:

Historical theologian Claude Welch... boiled it (viz., “liberal Christianity”) down to a phrase: “maximal acknowledgment of the claims of modernity” in theology.

But of course my approach to viewing the bible and theology and Christianity and acts of faith is informed by modernism. Of course it is. How could it not be?

So is yours. So is Roger's. So is the pastor of the local Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church. And the Church of Christ across the tracks from it. As well as any atheist. That's because that is where we live and how we are contextualized: In modernism. My postmodernism is contextualized in modernism. Fundamentalism is a rejection of modernity - but it's contextualized and fully a product of modernism.

So a liberal Christian, then, is aware and accepts the fact that we live and breathe and think in a landscape thoroughly influenced by modernism. However, I - and most progressive Christians I know - would deny many of the claims of modernism: that we can become better people simply through knowledge, that the world evolves towards a more enlightened sense, that knowledge is fundamentally moral. But I won't deny that living in a post- modern world shapes my reality fundamentally. It shaped everything.

So I guess by this standard, I am a liberal Christian. Scare quotes optional.

But in case one would think that this is a neutral or positive label to the Evangelical Gatekeepers:

If I ever wake up and find that I think like a true theological liberal, I hope I will be honest enough to stop calling myself “Christian.”

This conviction - one I shared just a scant decade ago - is based on some idea that a liberal Christianity is weak and lacking distinctive features. Which is odd to me, at least on this edge of "liberal Christianity" (or whatever it is I am).

I and those like me follow a religious practice that is, in Roger's words, "[T]hin, ephemeral, light, profoundly unsatisfying." We lack prophetic voice and identity, apparently. (Post-Evangelical Eastern Orthodox Frank Schaeffer apparently argues the opposite, claiming that all Protestants, and at the height of that, Evangelicals and Fundamentalists, lack Christian identity because they don't hold to liturgy. None of this surprises me, I suppose. In building and maintaining our own tribes often we tear down others that are less recognizable). My actualization of my faith has been called many things, but lacking in prophetic utterances has hardly been one of them.

But here I stand. Thin. Ephemeral. Light. Profoundly unsatisfying.

We are Eucharist wafers, apparently.

The fundamental problem I have with all of this is that Roger defines us all by what we "believe" - ie, what we profess to or acquiesce to as being real or true. And when I say "all", I mean "all." We all, according to this theology, this perspective, will enter or be denied entry to heaven and the presence of God by whether or not we agree with and can check off certain beliefs that are, frankly, not consequential to our current reality. Does it - in the grand scheme of things - matter whether one can agree with the Nicene Creed? Is that what Jesus required to enter his Kingdom? Did he ever mention those as prerequisites, as keys to the gates, as the entrance points into which one comes into the sheep fold?

No. But Jesus wasn't a very good gatekeeper, I guess.

Conversations and Ruminations Post-Massacre

"Love Will Tear Us Apart."

- Joy Division

I get really heated about politics because I see policy as an important (though not THE most important) way to protect and love my neighbors - a cause that I believe that Jesus has called all of his followers to. Actually, that's not why I'm heated about it. That's why I think it's necessary, but I'm actually angry and/or deeply disappointed that so many fellow American Christians have a total disconnect between policy that would best serve "the least of these" and what they perceive as the Kingdom of Heaven - which they see as merely a place you go after you die.

photo © 1970 Dave Gilbert | more info (via: Wylio)

Of course, I also have many friends whom I disagree with merely on how to apply policy to best serve the needs of the whole community. And I love talking with them, and having policy discussions, and discovering the truth behind the typical talking points. I learn a lot from them, I sharpen my thoughts and begin to view those I disagree with (those supposedly on the other end of the political spectrum) as every bit as human as I, and I begin to drop my guard and give them credit where credit is due. I like to think they also benefit from debating with me.

The problem, however, is that oftentimes we get caught up in the waves of rhetoric that surround us on all sides. We can't help it fully. We don't live in vacuums. Even trying to talk about scaling back the rhetoric looks, to some thoughtful people, at this time like an attack on groups of people - or as if I were saying that the massacre happened as a result of some pundit's foolish talk.*

It helps, as friend Carson notes and Jon Stewart held a rally to promote, to buttress our opinions and statements to bring the tone down, of course. But, noticing some of the comments on Carson's post, changing your tone doesn't work when you're dealing with the tone-deaf...

Which is what's happening in much of the media. I commend Keith Olbermann for pledging to scale back (from what I've heard, he did not use the infamous/famous "Worst Person in the World" line and calling the health care travesty in Arizona the "AZ Death Panel" - at least through Monday night), but for how long will this last?

While I was on the treadmill this morning, I noticed that CNN was showing the Congressional memorial for the victims at least through Minority Leader Pelosi's speech as well as Majority Leader Cantor's. Fox News, on the other hand, was using the opportunity to give Palin free reign to defend her despicable, violent speech (it's free speech, apparently, and you can't criticize it as long as it's hers... That's what the Constitution says, don'tchaknow?).

Truly, I want to be in a space where I can continue to dialog with my friends. But this country is toxic right now. It doesn't have to be. We can choose to turn away the hateful rhetoric. We can tell Congress that we can no longer afford to

Or, we can forget about living in The Greatest Country in the World (one of plurality of ideas and cultures) and move into our gated tribal "communities" based on social/racial/political/class/religious tests. Unless that's what we're already in?

*The point that most of my progressive friends are making when bringing up the rhetoric debate is that it leads to a poisonous environment, not that it was directly involved in the shooting. But nuances sometimes fail.

Chicago Tuesdays: More Miguel Plugs

First, there's this:

It had the look and the excitement of a political convention, and indeed it was: a convention of Chicago’s grassroots...

At the beginning of the New Chicago 2011 mayoral forum, held Tuesday evening at the UIC Forum, members took turns calling out their organizations from the podium, and in turn each section erupted in cheers.

It’s likely to be the largest crowd for a mayoral forum all season – well over 2,000 people — but for some reason, you won’t hear much about it in the city’s mainstream media...

In his opening statement, Del Valle drew the clearest line between his campaign and Emanuel’s, telling the audience, “You understand the need for a neighborhood agenda, not a downtown agenda, not a big business agenda, but a neighborhood agenda.”

When the candidates were asked about immigration reform, Del Valle drew the most sustained applause of the evening, attacking Emanuel as “the one individual most responsible for blocking immigration reform, as a congressman, as chief of staff,” continuing to a passionate crescendo over the rising cheers of the crowd: “How can we expect him to protect the residents of this city’s neighborhoods?”

He also made a clearest distinction with Emanuel’s program for schools: “We can’t continue to set up parallel systems of education, on one track selective enrollment, magnets and charters, on the other track neighborhood schools. It’s time to strengthen neighborhood schools.”

Then, here's your key to the audio for this conference referenced here. And some great shots from the event can be seen here.

And here's an interview with Dr. Quentin Young (a longtime hero, activist for equality, a big advocate for Harold Washington and single payer health care) on how Miguel can finish off Rahm in the qualifying race:

Q: What do you like about del Valle?

A: He’s atypically straight-laced, clean, effective and committed for a Chicago pol. None of the other candidates come close to Miguel for leadership both in the legislature [he was a state senator for 23 years] and as City Clerk. He hasn’t gotten rich; he doesn’t give favors. He was an early supporter of [Harold] Washington, and I think you can see in his style and politics—what Washington tried to do for the city...

Q: During the residency hearing, Rahm seemed so calm, so polite.

A: While Rahm conducted himself impressively, I don’t think he can withstand the give-and-take of the primary race. I think the part of him that I find politically unattractive—the boss mentality, "take no prisoners" attitude, will emerge.

Of course, the interviewer can't keep his mind off of Rahm long enough to keep it positive. But, for my Single-Payer Health Care-focused mind, there's some money right here:

Q: So what’s wrong with the new national healthcare plan?

A: It won’t solve any problems. Costs have risen since it passed and will continue to do so. Having a bill that squeaked through puts a break on serious reform. [Young blames Emanuel, “a powerful mobilizer of the Democratic vote,” for the three-vote margin in the House].

Q: Would you have been happier had no bill passed?

A: Yes, it would be better to have a clean slate.

How important is Dr. Young's endorsement? It's pretty big for progressives in the city. According to The Ward Room's Edward McClelland:

Young, the former chairman of medicine of Cook County Hospital, is a healthcare activist who heads Physicians For a National Health Program, a Chicago-based non-profit that lobbies for a single-payer health care system. A Hyde Park acquaintance of Barack Obama’s, Young sat on the committee Obama created to draft a health care plan that would cover all Illinoisans. Young’s Movement roots go deep: he provided medical care to civil rights demonstrators in the South, and protestors at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. He also served as a physician to Martin Luther King Jr., Harold Washington and Studs Terkel.

The hits keep coming, of course. But without the big platform and name of an Obama staffer, without the resources of a millionaire politician intricately connected to big business who could pull ads out of his backside, with cold weather keeping people (like me) indoors, and with a huge gap that needs to be tightened within a few short weeks, can Miguel pull ahead to give Rahm a run for his money? I would like to believe so. All this positive media coverage only gives me more hope.

I mean, we're talking about a Chicago pol who didn't accept a security detail. I mean, how anti-Machine is that? We're talking a pol in the 21st Century who isn't taking money from mega-corporations or Chicago vendors. How gangsta anti-Machine is that? And what does the city need right now more than anti-Machine?

More here.