The Lingering Lemon of Death

things i am wrong about #7 -- the bible and my earth suit

i've had a long dialog with the bible over my life. when i was growing up it was, along with aesop's fables and the "just so stories", a book of stories found to be helpful or instructive when addressing the question, "what does it mean to be human" and "why is it so hard".

when i was captured by faith, i hung out with people who believed the bible, when properly interpreted, was the step by step instruction book for life. "the operator's manual for the earth suit" was one of the phrases that was used. because i hung out with them, i learned to see the bible like they did.

there is this opposition in the "earth suit" reading of the bible between inspired writings / our writings. the "earth suit" understanding insists that all the words in the bible are the "inspired" kind, except for the occasional scribal error. because they are a different kind of word, they demand a different kind of response.

which is wonderful except that as i read the bible, the more i learned about how the bible was written, the more this opposition between inspired writing / our writing seemed odd and un-natural. even learning the stories about how the 66 books of the protestant bible made it from their original writing tables into the "best of writings about god" collection seems to speak clearly against this opposition. a council of bishops meets to discuss which writings will be gathered up into a canonical whole. i have never in my life sat in a room of more that three people and seen that group do the singular right thing. in a group of any size, any decision made by the group is always heavily political, some mixture of compromise, or exercise of power. but we are supposed to believe that this council somehow achieved a miracle, on the scale of the giving of the 10 commandments, an arrival at the singular correct answer, without any support for this other than the fervent wish that it were true, because it would make our lives simpler.

and, of course, centuries later the protestants decided that some of the books voted on by that council are NOT canonical, but that all the rest were the inspired word of god. it just doesn't work for me. if god wanted to privilege those decisions, he would have done something about it. moses got tablets of stone, what'd the synod of hippo get from god?

so we come to the point today where i am probably among the enemies of "earth suit" bible readers. because they need those words to be inspired. it is the inspired privilege granted to those words which is the basis for orthodoxy. any questioning of the inspired / un-inspired opposition is an attack on their whole way of life.

i don't need to attack that way of reading the bible, i just don't find it helpful. this marks me as "wrong about the bible" for most people who come from the evangelical tradition. for some, this would even qualify me as not being "truly evangelical" or even "truly christian", because i have stripped the bible of any sense of authority, placing it on a level playing field with all other writings men have ever made.

i have had this conversation, and failed to communicate, in person enough times to despair of the "earth suit" christians of ever hearing what i am saying. i am saying that it seems to me that the text does have some force or "authority", but that the "earth suit" explanations for the source and power of this force feel, at best empty, and at worst, like an impediment.

i love the fact that 200-300 years after the last word was written, with plenty of time to see what effect those writings would have, some people thought long and hard on what it would be good for christians to read together. i'm even happy that 1000 years later they changed their mind, based on what happened in the intervening millennium. i'd be up for, in another couple hundred years, for us to re-visit the canon, with the caveat that no document under 300 years old be considered, because there wasn't enough time to judge what power for good or evil those words might carry. that seems like an approach that takes the force of text very seriously.

i am very serious when i read my bible, about what the author meant, about how that verse has been understood throughout time, and about how i find a faithful understanding in my time. i am fine that some people find it helpful to believe that god did a miracle in creating the bible. i choose not to believe that. and i also choose, as i see this opposition between inspired / human, to not see myself as seeing the bible "correctly", to not swing to the other other pole of the opposition, the bible is not a merely human document. i am not sure, but i think it might be also seen as the church choosing it which causes it to be inhabited, since where we are gathered, there is god. the selection can cause the presence, and the presence can cause the selection, and there is no useful dialog about breaking the chicken /egg deadlock.

so there are now, i am imagining, two kinds of people, if anyone has read this far without falling asleep, who believe that i am wrong.

the "earth suit" christians can't see how, without their brand special privilege for the 66 books in the bible, i protect the bible from attacks of postmodern relativism, of secular humanism, of pagan polytheism or whatever

and some people are saying "wait, back the truck up to that part where you said that there was some force or authority in the bible which demands special attention. you are kidding, right?"

to both people i have the same answer. i once saw things the way you do, and i don't any more. i don't want you to stop talking to me, and i don't want to drive you crazy, but in spite of the many things i am unsure of, one thing i am pretty sure of is that i will not be changing my mind on this.

there is rejoicing

i live in california, where you can get a hand made local goat cheese at almost any grocery store, but you can't find decent barbecue.

lunch today in the city, at memphis minnies, was a very happy experience. for the benchmark is the beef briskett, and theirs is excellent. i had slaw and mac-n-cheese sides, and they were great too.

i am very happy, the list of places that i know about within 100 miles of my house which know how to cook brisket just doubled in size. if you live near the city, and know and care about the difference between grilled meat and smoked meat, head on over there, it will be worth the trip.

joining me for lunch were mark and ryan and holly. people of deep and magical quality, and we've all eaten the holy offering of smoked meat together before. ryan spread the gospel of A Theory of Everything, which was intriguing. , mark talked a little about the progress of his book in the wide world, which was a little sad, because it is a great book, and it is still looking for it's audience. i got to see holly's latest art, which i need to stare at some more, there's the tension of purity and broken-ness in it which is really compelling, but at first look they seem empty or lonely, but when she talked about one picture for a second i heard more about what was inside and it changed how i looked at it.

and now i am off to sit in a meeting and review the q3 priorities for strategic allocation of engineering resources. i may have to chew off my own arm to escape.

torture and democracy

"enhanced interrogation techniques"

the republican candidates, in a debate, responding to a question on the use of torture

when asked if they'd use torture to save american lives, everyone except mccain, said yes though always with an interesting little verbal dance ... and it was romney who used the phrase "enhanced interrogation techniques"

i am sick to my stomach.  i don't know what to think.  in the day of pollsters and spin, candidates don't say things they haven't already polled to death ... this to me is the stake in the heart of my vision of america.

i always thought of us as a nation where every single person understood, in their bones, something about freedom.

in my life as a software development guy, one of my common sayings, when the ugly truth about some project finally surfaces, "reality is a good thing".  meaning, in sort of a twelve-step sort of way, that the first step to solving a problem is seeing that you have a problem.

i am afraid that a few hundred years of tyranny are going to be required before we can see the problem that "protection over democratic principles" causes, to begin to understand freedom like we once did. but i guess reality is a good thing, somehow.

soul graffiti

"are you feelin me on this?"

one of the good things in life is to sit and and trade stories with mark scandrette. he walks in a world ripe with beauty. if you catch him and he gets on a roll, he will ask you, many times in the course of a conversation "are you feelin me on this?". its his way of checking in, of slowing down.

he has recently published his first book. i opened it up with some apprehension, fearing it would be a shallow substitute for the real thing. now i've read much of it, and had a chance to ponder a bit, i think Soul Graffiti might even be better than the conversation.

who should read this book? nobody. nobody should need to. we should all be cooking grand meals for our friends and discussing the implications of one thing or another, only to wake up the next morning and engage in some frighteningly intimate and dangerous acts of humanity and justice. then to dance, then to weep, then to walk, then to sit on the front porch and wait for the next story to come by and see if it is a story for us to listen to, or a story we are to make come true.

but we don't really do those things, do we. i think maybe this book shows a way, a glimpse, of courage, hope, of light. they are in there, in the stories and in the life mark is reaching for. it's not a textbook, everything mark does and writes about is so deeply contextual that it is immediately obvious that living in 2 miles from mark would result in a radically different set of stories. but it is more like a poem, which is true when it was written, and true in a different way as it is read.

things i am wrong about #6 -- syncretism is not bad

syncretism – The attempted reconciliation or union of different or opposing principles, practices, or parties, as in philosophy or religion. (from Dictionary.com)

in the stories of god and man before jesus was born, god gets mad at the people of israel for two things, they don't live justly, and they attempt to mix their monotheism with the beliefs and practices of the surrounding cultures.

ah christians, we don't want god to be mad at us, so we try to live justly and we try not to mix our monotheism with the beliefs and practices of the surrounding cultures. we call this "syncretism" and when we are taught, we are taught that this is a bad thing, to be avoided at every turn, lest we end up getting judged.

i first want to start by saying, that many christians are WAY more worried about syncretism than they are about living justly. almost to the point where,if i am careful enough to make sure that my christian faith is untainted by buddhist, native american, or african tribal influences, i have essentially purchased an "anger offset" and i am allowed to live a little bit unjustly. if you, like me, are one of these christians, you might want to crack open that story book again, cause it's right there in plain sight. here's just one of the many places where syncretism and justice are mentioned together ...

If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your forefathers for ever and ever. Jeremiah 7:5-7

but this is about syncretism, not justice, right? so on with the rant about syncretism.

except i can't.

not yet at least.

because i can't shake the feeling that these two issues are somehow related.

i'm going to have to put that in the long term files and see if something comes out some day. it feels like perhaps a there is there, lurking and waiting to be read. however, i can't read it now.

so, with a reminder that this is something i am wrong about, just add that to the reasons that what i am about to say is wrong.

christianity is a pure thing, which must be protected from the degradations of syncretism.

i can almost believe that, and almost get on the train of trying to stay faithful to pure christianity, so that god doesn't get mad at us. except for one tiny detail

"christianity" as i have been taught it, is riddled with 4,000 years of syncretism.

book #1, genesis. there's the heavens and earth. ancient cosmology. useful 15,000 years ago when people asked themselves important questions like "why is there something rather than nothing" and "ok, but why does the something suck so badly?". nobody believes that cosmology now, "heaven" is just more empty space stretching to infinity, god is not "out there". but in those days it was certainty.

so the creation story is told, and does not begin with "let me correct your view of heaven and earth, because the earth is just a little round ball in the middle of a lot of empty space". instead it reads more like "since you insist on seeing creation that way, let me tell you a story which will subvert your conclusions about your place in the universe". syncretism then.

every song we sing about heaven is accommodation to that ancient cosmology. do we stop singing them because we now know that the sky is not the house of god because we went there and it was empty? no, we keep singing to the empty sky. syncretism now.

thousands of years later, plato pops up with this wild idea that everything that we can see or touch is just a shadow of a more real essence. zip, incorporated into the cosmology, we now know that heaven is filled with the platonic ideals that we know about in part, but can't ever achieve, being burdened by mortal flesh. syncretism then and now.

so the greeks get to play, but if a people group on the margins of western civilization struggle to understand the revelation of god in light of the things they have always known are true, that is evil bad syncretism. as opposed to our good and righteous syncretism.

it just doesn't fly. i don't think syncretism is inherently wrong, in fact, i think that it may actually be impossible to NOT have a syncretistic belief. as soon you you see a single idea from outside your culture, you begin to analyze and either adopt or integrate.

and as i have these thoughts, i wander through the old testament, and begin to wonder about the hebrew god. was the revelation of god to the hebrews an accommodation to their un-challengable beliefs about how the universe was made? was this god saying "ok, if you insist on seeing the world through the lens of action and reaction, sin and sacrifice, let me tell you my story in a way which will subvert your conclusions about your place in the universe"

things i am wrong about #5: empire

this is definitely "fighting words" territory, so many plenty of people are sure that i am wrong about this. what's wrong with america, where do we need to go from here?

i read something so short and perfect, that i can't write about it, i can only point you at it.

"According to the Bible, well-being comes from the creating, transforming God. God’s loving and persuasive power is manifest in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. His teachings, his followers’ understanding of his Messiahship, and the interior life of the first Christian communities, were all in antithesis to Empire: the coercive power it employs, the religion it exploits, and the idolatrous loyalty it demands in the name of patriotism. The divine power manifested in the Bible offers an alternative. Persuasive, liberating and empowering love defines God’s Realm." from A Christian Proclamation against American Empire

what they said, that's the thing.