Fallen Into Knowledge

The Pearl Church’s “Theology Reading Group” read Bonhoeffer’s Life Together this month.  I was struck, this time though, by the last chapter, on Confession.  This is a practice about which Protestants seems especially afraid.  While even Bonhoeffer sees the possible danger for abuse in practicing confession, his description of its power is compelling:

In confession the break-through to community takes place.  Sin demands to have a man by himself.  It withdraws him from the community.  The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous his isolation.  Sin wants to remain unknown.  It shuns the light.  In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the being of a person.  This can happen even in the midst of a pious community.  In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the  darkness and seclusion of the heart.  The sin must be brought to light…. Since the confession of sin is made in the presence of a Christian brother, the last stronghold of self-justification is abandoned.  The sinner surrenders; he gives up all his evil.  He gives his heart to God, and he finds forgiveness of all his sin in the fellowship of Jesus Christ and his brother.  The expressed, acknowledged sin has lost all its power.  It has been revealed and judged as sin.  It can no longer tear the fellowship asunder.  Now the fellowship bears the sin of the brother.  He is no longer alone with his evil for he has cast off his sin in confession and handed it over to God.  

Every year, some group places white flags in the park blocks to represent people killed in Iraq. This year the red flags represent US soldiers killed, the white flags each represent “at least” 5 Iraqis killed. The flags cover several city blocks.

Carl Schmitt’s conflict with liberalism lies in liberalism’s insistence on the “rule of law”  At the core of liberalism stands the assertion that law is prior to sovereignty, that a system of laws can be made to govern human society.  Schmitt thinks not: human life is too unpredictable, and can never be subsumed under a set of laws, no matter how complex.  At the end of the day, sovereignty is never located in law but in a person.  Schmitt’s famous “state of exception” is focused on just this point: the sovereign is not just the one who makes the decision concerning the exception, but the sovereign also emerges / is revealed by it.

For Christian Theology, political and otherwise, the status of Jesus as King subordinates Law -   Jesus is truly Lord of the Sabbath.

Schmitt finds the “rule of law” (and, consequently, liberalism) problematic because of the ways in which law constrains human relations.  Human relations, when mediated by Law, are mechanized; and humans are thereby objectified.  We catch a glimpse of this in the Mark 2, when Jesus and his disciples are innocently plucking grain on the Sabbath.  The disciples are grist for the law’s operation: insofar as they are recognized by the law, insofar as they are found under the law, they are recognized as lawbreakers.  Just as the doctor cannot diagnose “health” (so the truism goes) so also the Law does not recognize Justice or Goodness or Mercy - or even Subjects at all - but it can only capture deviants.  Thus, to be included in the law is to be a lawbreaker.  On the other hand, to be included, found, under a king is to be a Subject.

I have been thrilled to find theo-bloggers discussing contemporary European Philosophy, if for no other reason than because I comfort myself saying, “you’re not crazy afterall.”  Agamben, Zizek, Badiou, Schmitt: just jumping right in to these can present a challenge to someone whose education has been primarily theological; heck, they are challenging for anyone!  At the request of Adam, and because I have been too long absent from this blog, Here is a reading list for those theology students I know who are getting interested in Cultural Studies / Frankfurt School / Leftist Literature / Theory / Whatever We Call This Body of Literature:

Start With Marx!  Really this whole thing builds upon Marx (and Freud). Even those who think Marx is wrong are disagreeing with Marx. He provides the framework that the discipline of Cultural Studies is based. So where it start? Start with the earlier works, especially the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and the Grundrisse. Norton’s Marx-Engels Reader (edited by Robert Tucker) is the preferred text.

Next Up, Some essays:

Antonio Gramsci, “The Formation of the Intellectuals”

This is the first chapter of his Prison Notebooks

Walter Benjamin, “The Work of art in the Age of Mechanical Representation”

Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, “The Culture Industry as Mass Deception”

Louis Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”

Some More Books:

Michel Foucault: If you haven’t read anything by Foucault, start by reading The Foucault Reader (Pantheon), and then move to these: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Power/Knowedge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, and The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences.

Jean Baudrillard, Simulations. This slim volume provides for us a definition of his term, Simulacrum

Roland Barthes, Mythologies

Frederic Jameson, Postmodernism: Or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

What have I missed? What books and essays are essential for theology students trying to grapple with the current body of literature on Paul and Christianity by philosophers? I know Lacan is missing, but alas, I haven’t read any of his work.

I Preached on Sunday, on about 24 hours’ Notice. Here is the manuscript, its not as polished as I might have liked, but it practically fell off the tip of my pen (or keyboard, as the case may be). I was in Bend for the weekend with my family when I got the call, and while there I took some pictures, which can be found in the photo galleries. So, without further ado, the sermon:

We have been traipsing through Hebrews this fall, but today we are going to make a small detour.

And although its a bit out of our way, I think it will be helpful for us, &,etc.

Go up to the Mountain: We are not those who shrink back: Exodus 19-20As we have made our way through Hebrews we have seen how the author imagines the readers to be standing, like Israel, on the edge of the Jordan River, about to cross over into the Promised Land. They were afraid, though, because even though God promised it to be a super-abundant land: rich in resources and a place where Israel could call home, they also remembered the stories, the report of the 40 sent into spy out the land, who said to the people of Israel:

“We are not able to go up against this people, for they are stronger than we are.”

Israel was afraid, standing there on the edge of the Jordan: for even though the desert had not been a very good home for them, and they had often wished for something different: at least it was familiar. The author of Hebrews imagines us there also, standing at the edge of the Jordan River, and in Hebrews calls to us to leave behind the covenants we have made with this world, to leave behind what is familiar, and step into Christ, in to a Covenant that is completely different. Read the rest of this entry »

Environmentalism, in its origin, and taken to it logical conclusions is deeply subversive for capitalism and consumerism.

Environmentalism, in its popularized form seeks to satiate the guilt-complexes that it produces in people through consumerism.

Example #1

Buying Carbon-Offsets.

Carbon offsets are the prime example of this: that we might allay the effects of our consumption by further consumption. in effect, by buying carbon offsets, we are not changing our relationship to the environment, but further enmeshing us in our current relationship with it. The consumer is lead to believe (and here pop environmentalism parallels the dieting obsession) that one can become “environmentally responsible” without significantly altering their lives. Or, that environmentally responsibility is mainly about managing consumption rather than by subverting it.

Example #2

Recycling. Recycling functions is a similar way for us: the activity of recycling serves for us a metaphor of continual consumption that is almost theological: the thing is always made new, and can always be made new. As such, we are freed to continue consuming because the consequences of our consumption, the waste, is perpetually redeemed. Again, our environmentally motivated action is further consumption.

Pop environmentalism, as described here exemplifies the way in which capitalism subsumes any criticism of it. Capitalism creates in any counter-capitalist movement another opportunity for consumption: Do you want to simplify your life? Then buy this book, or go to the container store where they have the solution to your clutter for a low price! Again, environmentalism taken to its conclusion is deeply inimical to capitalism: truly the only way to change our current destructive relationship to the environment is by (or includes as a necessary condition for success) our consuming less.

A Last Example

Organically grown produce: Standing in the supermarket isle we are shielded from the origin of the produce before us, and therefore for us the option is: buy organic or not. However, in all likelihood the significant environmental choice pertains to how far the produce has traveled in reaching the store: an organically grown apple that had to be flown in from chile fails us in the environmental responsibility department. The organic food movement has been a boon to capitalism, however, because it obscures the fact that if we commit to eating regional foods our diet would include less variety. We might not notice too much here in the Pacific Northwest, but even for us orange juice would be straight out. “Buy Organic” still places the emphasis on the “buy.”

One of the reasons for my not posting was that I have been preparing this site. Look around, there are pictures, videos, and sundry other goodies here. Also, make sure to update your RSS readers to reflect the new RSS feeds. Another reason is that I have started classes: and while the classes themselves are not difficult, I have used this “being in school-ness” to dive into reading some books that I have wanted to for too long: specifically, I have read a bunch of Agamben, a ton of Foucault, and even some Zizek. Stay tuned for posts related to these readings.

In 1774, the French chemist, Antoine Lavoisier, was racing to discover the properties of a substance Henry Cavendish called “inflammable air.” Lavoisier believed, as did the two other scientists who were also bent on beating him to the discovery, that this “inflammable air” might be created by de-phlogisticating otherwise ordinary air. See, the going theory was that in addition to the 4 Greek elements of air, fire, water, and earth there was this fifth element (and, no, its not love!), this fifth element was contained in combustible substances and was released during combustion. They needed something to explain the processes of rust and oxidation, and phlogiston was it. At any rate, Lavoisier was trying to remove all of the phlogiston from the air to isolate this “inflammable air” - or, aether, as it was sometimes called.
As you might expect, he didn’t succeed. Read the rest of this entry »

I haven’t died, although the few people who visit this Internet Outpost might have reason to think I had. Sorry about that. Most of my writing energy has been directed toward churchly duties. We are starting a sermon series on the book of Hebrews, and I have been banging out notes for that. Here are some now(!):

1. The book of Hebrews depends heavily on the Old Testament to make its argument. It is arguing from the Old Testament.
1a. We cannot assume that our audience is similarly familiar with the Old Testament.
1b. We must respect the authors movement in arguing. We cannot preach through Hebrews while ignoring the indebtedness on the Old Testament.
I think that because of this we need to “introduce” hebrews, to situate it.

2. The author frequently offers “applications” in the midst of the argument: these “parenthetical” sections are often exhortative in nature, and seem ripe for the plucking for sermon material. We must be careful not to be focus on these sections (because they are easy to preach on, relatively) to the detriment of the main argument of the book, which by contrast is harder to preach on.

3. Hebrews describes, in a sense, the mechanics of Christ’s work as embedded in Israel’s story. In that sense we can use Hebrews to (re-) build theology for the church from the ground up, as it were.

4. Everything in Hebrews relates back to Jesus either as the high Priest who accomplished the task, or to His death on a cross. These two are close to being the same thing.

Main Idea: Jesus’ role as a Superior High Priest establishes a new covenant, a new law and a new people: all these are results of and shaped by Jesus’ superior sacrifice of himself.

I’m a bit late to the game, but am also a sucker for Book-related memes. Which books do I find myself constantly recommending?

Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament.
This is theology done right, in my opinion. When I want to show that biblical studies and theology can speak to each other, or when I want to show theology to be engaging I recommend this book.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
I have found this a profoundly moving novel, and each time I read it I want to shout from the hills how great it is.

David James Duncan, The River Why
I recommend this because it is laugh-out-loud funny. Don’t read it in public unless you want people to give you more funny looks than they normally do.

Neil Postman, Conscientious Objections : Stirring Up Trouble About Language, Technology and Education
If I had three wishes, I might use one of them wishing to write like Postman did. This is his best book because in it he gets to talk about all of his pet subjects in essay form.

The Saga of the Volsungs
Periodically, people ask about my studies, and every once in a while I am asked to recommend a medieval text for which to read. I always start people with the Volsunga Saga. Its a great story, everything one would hope for in a medieval adventure tale. Also, it was a primary source for Wagner’s Ring Cycle and for another guy who wrote a book about a Ring. I also might recommend the other Icelandic Sagas, or The Tain