Fallen Into Knowledge

I went today with a group from the church to Dog Mountain. It was a zoo - really, there must have been neighborhoods in Portland that were desolate. BUT, all the wildflowers were in full bloom, which was spectacular. Really. Look for yourself!

Last week a neighbor noticed that one of my fields was getting unruly, and asked if he could let a few horses loose in it so they could eat down the grass. No problem! Well this morning I drove by it and noticed that there were no longer three horses munching away, but four. And one was really small.

Sure enough, I found evidence that it had been born just the night before.

Here is a synopsis of yesterday’s sermon on Matthew 6:1-18, which was completed at the last minute and at great expense. For the full (audio-ized) monty, check the Pearl Church’s site.

“AMERICAN JESUS.”
Last summer a few of us got together and watched some Jesus movies: we did this as a way to help us think about how Jesus and the church shows up in popular culture. In the American films that we watched, the message Jesus preached was about inward transformation: that was to be the essence of Christianity. How are we to be “set apart?” How are we to be seen as distinctive?
On Easter, Mike preached that we, as a people, as a church, are not only to be characterized by the Cross, but also by the Resurrection. Preaching from 1 Corinthians 15, Mike proclaimed that in light of Jesus’ resurrection, we are to be a People of Resurrection, a people characterized - not by sin - but by life.
That’s all well and good, but…what do we do now? How do we live as those who are “alive in Christ?”

(more…)

Sorry about the paucity of posts. (Alliteration!)

Read this instead. In short, members of congress were challenged to eat as if they relied on food stamps: they were challenged to limit themselves to $21 worth of food for a week. 1$ per meal. Perhaps all elected officials should experience poverty, at least for a bit.

Ted Kulongoski, Oregon’s governor, also took up the challenge

I went looking for the Bull of the Woods wilderness, and found snow. I actually didn’t get anywhere close to the wilderness. I was stymied by snow after driving 10 miles up a gravel road, and then continued walking for several more, all in search of the pristine old growth forests - some of the last still standing in western Oregon. I didn’t quite make it, but at least got to eat lunch in the wild:

I also discovered that I can, in fact, sleep in the back of my station wagon. If I lie diagonally. Barely.

David, who I tagged (once upon a time, in a land far far away), has tagged me back. Apparently he thinks that after two years my list might have changed. Quite so.

Actually, over the last couple of years I have spent less time in theology and more time studying literature and philosophy: though, it must be said, I am ready to return to theology. However, my revised list may not be the “most influential books ever,” but these are some books (and thinkers) that I am mulling over right now.

1. John Milton: “Paradise Lost.”

When I first read this (over two years ago) I did not like it. But Milton is dealing with some serious theological ideas. Specifically, I have thinking about the role of language after the Fall and how that Fallen language changes the ways we relate to each other.

2. Louis Althusser: “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”

Perhaps Althusser stands in here for a whole school of thought that I have been thinking about: The Frankfurt School. This text is particularly pessimistic about “culture,” but Althusser most clearly describes the process in which we are shaped by “culture:” we are “always already interpolated as subjects.” That is, and to borrow from Heidegger, we find ourselves thrown into a culture, and find ourselves as having been shaped by it.

3. Dick Hebdige: “Subculture: The Meaning of Style”

Along similar lines as above, I have been thinking about how sub- and counter-cultures interact with the “mainstream” culture. The reason should be clear: on the whole, the church functions like a sub-/counter-culture in the societies in which it find itself. Hebdige thinks about how artifacts of a culture are re-invested with meaning by a counter culture, thus allowing a counterculture to distance itself from the “mainstream.” It seems to me that Christianity in America has been largely been overwhelmed by the values of the “mainstream,” and if we are to distance ourselves we have to act thoughtfully in order to make that distancing representative of our beliefs to those from which we are distancing ourselves.

4. Giorgio Agamben: “Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life”

So, part of being “Post-whatever” is distancing ourselves from the Enlightenment. One of the most enduring legacies of the Enlightenment is Humanism: the belief that humans have intrinsic values, are fundamentally equal, and have “inalienable rights.” Much good has come from this belief, to be sure. But, strictly speaking, its not quite biblical. Agamben is wrestling with just how we are to think about humans as we leave Humanism behind. And we are, like it or not. Much of Christian theology, also, in the last couple of centuries have assumed Humanism: they did not need to defent their humanism, nor, probably, even thought much about it. But now, a Christian Anthropology needs to cease riding on the coattails of the enlightenment.

5. Wendell Berry: “Home Economics”

This book pretty much stands in for all of Wendell Berry’s work. As you may know, I have been concerned about “ecology:” How we live on God’s earth. My concern, partly thanks to Wendell Berry, has been widened beyond simply “conservation;” it has been widened toward sustainable communities.

What I am reading now:

I am reading “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” somewhat half-heartedly, and also De Lubac’s “Medieval Exegesis: The Four Senses of Scripture.”