Foolishness, yes but not what Paul had in mind

Cardinal Pell has ventured out on the issue of climate change and has managed to demonstrate a level of foolishness on the issue that is a bit hard to credit someone who by reputation has a capable intellect.

I know Paul the Apostle referred to the Good News as "foolishness to the Greeks" but he was speaking about a message that was turning the world upside down with a message that was about turning the world upside down, in its critique of the social order, not trying to support "the powers that be, in the case the fossil fuel industries, to keep their hold on power.

The article the Cardinal Pell appeared under the title Can our Babel Succeed? Questioning the Moral Dimension of Climate Change

It has provoked several detailed critiques:
Tim Stephens argued that the Cardinal's scepticism was scientifically and theologically indefensible. In addition to canvassing some of the issues on the evidence Stephens noted that he seemed to be out of step with recent Popes theologically speaking (Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI) ... that God entrusted the planet to us and gave us responsibility to care for creation, and that we will face the consequences of not doing so.
John Cook of Skeptical Science advised Cardinal Pell to practice what he preaches and engage with the evidence when he enters the public debate. Joh provided a very clear account of the key scientific issues that were at stake.

Detailed point by point account of factual errors by Tim Holmes and Robin Webster from Carbon Brief "Cardinal Pell lecture peddles misrepresentations of climate science".

Theologically the good Cardinal is well behind the pace on this. Professor Michael Northcott, Professor of Christian Ethics at Edinburgh University has already written extensively on this issue, and was interviewed on Encounter on the issue earlier this year.

Of gods and men - reflecting on the film through Revelation

Occasionally a film will engage me deeply, its story, the characters, the scenes recurring in memory, touching the heart and challenging the conscience. Of gods and men is one of those films. Some friends of mine have been back to see it a second time, already.

As an account of martyrdom, of loving your enemy, and being present with the poor and marginal in the context of a very dirty war on terror in Algeria in the mid 1990's, based on a true story, this is a stunner. It is beautifully shot, and wonderfully acted. A patient exploration of a community of Trappist monks dealing with the issue of what their vocation and commitment to the way of discipleship means in a time of threatening violence and deep injustice. It is a retelling which recaptures the tensions around their decision-making process, in which we are reminded again and again that at the heart of what they are about is the cycle of worship and prayer, the chanting of the psalms and the reading of the scriptures that shapes what they are becoming and what in the end drives their decision to stay with the Muslim village that they continue to serve.

I won't attempt to do a review of the film, or attempt to tell the story in any detail. If you are interested in a range of views, from a diverse bunch of reviewers, from people of faith to those outside, check out the following links. They are some good You=tube extracts of scenes from the movie on some of them.

Interesting Links:

Of Gods and Men (film) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Of Gods and Men – review | Film | The Guardian
Of Gods and Men « Notes & Quiddities
OF GODS AND MEN (Why we need St. Benedict more than ever) « Ecclesiastical Graffiti
Of Gods And Men (2010,France) « Andygeddon
Of Gods And Men | Movie review: 'Of Gods and Men' - Los Angeles Times
Film review – Of Gods and Men (2010) « Cinema Autopsy
Father James Martin, SJ: “Of Gods and Men” | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS

What I want to do is to just point you to some of the theological issues and biblical context against which, as a Christian, I found myself trying to understand the path that they took.

The film title is taken from  Psalm 82 verses 6-7, underlined. I have reproduced the entire Psalm because I think it is worth thinking about in view of the trajectory of the movie. Who are the gods and who are the men? Is the movie title referring to the pretensions of those who think that violence is the key, as opposed to the monks who seek to treat all, including those who might do them violence as children of God?

 ¹ God presides in the great assembly;
   he renders judgment among the “gods”:
 ² “How long will you^[a] defend the unjust
   and show partiality to the wicked?^[b]
3 Defend the weak and the fatherless;
   uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
⁴ Rescue the weak and the needy;
   deliver them from the hand of the wicked.
 ⁵ “The ‘gods’ know nothing, they understand nothing.
   They walk about in darkness;
   all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
 ⁶ “I said, ‘You are “gods”;
   you are all sons of the Most High.’
⁷ But you will die like mere mortals;
   you will fall like every other ruler.”
 ⁸ Rise up, O God, judge the earth,
   for all the nations are your inheritance.

Michael J Gorman in Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Following the Lamb into the New Creation (Cascade Press, 2011) observes in terms that are relevant to the story in the movie and the rejection by the monks of the offer of protection by the Algerian military, that:

The current dearth of martyrs in the Western church may be welcome, but its accompanying amnesia of past martyrs and our ignorance of martyrs elsewhere in the world are tragic. In addition to failing at practicing the community of saints, this lack also feeds the desire for national heroes and martyrs. In church history, there has also been a strong correspondence between truly Christian heroes and martyrs and the presence of religious-like commitment to the nation state and its heroes and martyrs - ie., civil religion.

This is very relevant in thinking about the rejection by the monks of military protection and of the attempt by the guerillas to bring their weapons with them when they invade the monastery in search of medical assistance,

The Book of Revelation is associated by many Christians with violence and fighting and may seem a strange biblical resource to bring into consideration in the context of non-violent, enemy loving practices of the monks. That association is substantially wrong.

A further consideration of the relevance of the message of Revelation, with its focus on the slain Lamb and the waiting of the saints to the story of this movie is signaled by the comments by Gorman towards the close of his discussion in Reading Revelation Responsibly, in the chapter entitled "Following the Lamb: The Spirituality of Revelation". This account captures much of what the monks were grappling with in reading the decision to stay. To read Revelation correctly is to understand what their stance was all about. Revelation lived out at the end of the twentieth century.

The resistance (discerning, imaginative and self-critical) required of Christians can be likened to warfare in search of victory. But because this victory is of the victorious slaughtered lamb, Christian resistance to empire conforms to the cruciform pattern of Jesus Christ and his apostles and saints, faithful, true, courageous, just and nonviolent. ... It is important here to emphasise how Revelation conveys a spirituality and ethic of non-violence ... Jesus has already demonstrated both how God deals with evil and how god's people are to deal with evil.  ... not in a show of violent power, but in a paradoxical and subversive act of not confronting evil on its own terms. ... Revelation knows that true spiritual existence is warfare, but it defines victory in the cosmic battle as faithfulness. Neither the Lamb, nor his followers fight in any other way than faithfulness , even to the point of suffering and death. (p.183)

The other important resource that fills in some of the background that is not dealt with in the film and assists in coming to grip with the Prior, Christian's approach to Islam, is the wording of a testament written not long before his death.

The folowing testament was composed by Dom Christian de Cherge in Algiers, December 1, 1993 and produced in Tibhirine, January 1, 1994. It was opened on Pentecost Sunday, 1996, shortly after Dom Christian and others of his Trappist community were murdered in Algeria.

In an early scene in the movie he is seen composing this document, visible on the desk are The Rule of St Benedict, The Little Flowers of St Francis and a copy of the Koran.

If it should happen one day—and it could be today—that I become a victim of the terrorism which now seems ready to encompass all the foreigners in Algeria, I would like my community, my Church, my family, to remember that my life was given to God and to this country. To accept that the One Master of all life was not a stranger to this brutal departure. I would like them to pray for me: how worthy would I be found of such an offering?

I would like them to be able to associate this death with so many other equally violent ones allowed to fall into the indifference of anonymity. My life has no more value than any other. Nor any less value. In any case, it has not the innocence of childhood. I have lived long enough to know that I share in the evil which seems, alas, to prevail in the world, and even in that which would strike me blindly. I should like, when the time comes, to have a space of lucidity which would enable me to beg forgiveness of God and of my fellow human beings, and at the same time to forgive with all my heart the one who would strike me down.

I could not desire such a death. It seems to me important to state this. I don’t see, in fact, how I could rejoice if the people I love were indiscriminately accused of my murder. It would be too high a price to pay for what will be called, perhaps, the “grace of martyrdom” to owe this to an Algerian, whoever he may be, especially if he says he is acting in fidelity to what he believes to be Islam.

I know the contempt in which Algerians taken as a whole can be engulfed. I know, too, the caricatures of Islam which encourage a certain idealism. It is too easy to give oneself a good conscience in identifying this religious way with the fundamentalist ideology of its extremists. For me, Algeria and Islam is something different. It is a body and a soul. I have proclaimed it often enough, I think, in view of and in the knowledge of what I have received from it, finding there so often that true strand of the Gospel learned at my mother’s knee, my very first Church, precisely in Algeria, and already respecting believing Muslims.

My death, obviously, will appear to confirm those who hastily judged me naive or idealistic: “Let him tell us now what he thinks of it!” But these must know that my insistent curiosity will then be set free. This is what I shall be able to do, if God wills: Immerse my gaze in that of the Father, to contemplate with Him His children of Islam as He sees them, all shining with the glory of Christ, fruit of His Passion, filled with the Gift of the Spirit whose secret joy will always be to establish communion and to refashion the likeness, playing with the differences.

This life lost, totally mine and totally theirs, I thank God who seems to have wished it entirely for the sake of that JOY in and in spite of everything. In this THANK YOU which is said for everything in my life, from now on, I certainly include you, friends of yesterday and today, and you, O my friends of this place, besides my mother and father, my sisters and brothers and their families, a hundredfold as was promised!

And you too, my last minute friend, who will not know what you are doing, Yes, for you too I say this THANK YOU AND THIS “A-DIEU”-—to commend you to this God in whose face I see yours. And may we find each other, happy “good thieves” in Paradise, if it please God, the Father of us both. . . AMEN!

Dom Christian de Chergé, OCSO from Bulletin 55, May 1996

‪

Folk festivals, the church and the practice of tradition

I spent a good deal of the Easter holiday weekend at the National Folk Festival here in Canberra. The experience got me thinking about the importance of tradition for both folk music and the church. I thought that there was something in the handling and sustaining of tradition as manifested in the festival that might be worth unpacking that might be helpful for the church in thinking about its engagement with the tradition. so let's see where this line of thinking might go.

The National Folk Festival (NFF) offers a huge range of music under the label of "folk" and provides an opportunity to display at a moment in time where the traditions of music are being taken by their current practitioners. Individual strands of musical tradition display a huge range of difference in performance - some seeking to represent a particular tradition in what is viewed as its authentic form, while others work on adapting it to say things in a different cultural context or because they have access to a differing range of musical skills. At the NFF this year, 2011, this difference could be seen in the contrast for example between The Peter Rowan Band and The Baylor Brothers. Another example would be in Celtic music where you had the expression of traditional Irish instrumental music by The Kellys, focused on tunes from a particular region, County Clare, contrasting with Australian performance of the tradition more broadly by Sunas or by a slightly more upbeat interpretation by younger performers in The George Jackson Band.

The various sub-traditions within the broader, or "great" tradition of folk music have in common an emphasis on the quality of their perfomance, sustained by the practices and disciplines of learning from and showing respect for those who are regarded as exemplary performers of the tradition by way of their musical and performance skills, and their willingness to pass on those skills to those who wish to be discipled in the tradition.

The sub-traditions are sustained by people living in an ongoing engagement, both informally and formally in gathering to share what they have learned and to learn from one another. There is a remembering of the past, a re-expressing in the present and the hope that the tradition will be picked up and continued in the future.


All of this seems highly relevant for thinking about the place of the church in a time in which the institutional and cultural supports for the church as an integral part of society are fading and its future will be to return to the past as a counter-cultural community.  Those who want to be part of the community of followers of Jesus share with the folk music community that they both inherit traditions that are in tension with a broader culture that focuses on consumption, not participation, on the individual rather than the community and both will require intentional discipling in the skills and practices that are integral to their respective traditions if they are to survive and thrive.

A poetic take on theology

Kristin Jack, from the Servants to Asia's Urban Poor, in his powerful collection Poetry and Prophecy  observes:

I am so weary of creedal system,
even more of doctrine,
for spirit will not slide
underneath a microscope,
or flow inside a formula
no matter how elegantly precise.

But I am all ears to Poetry and Prophecy,
the wild song that rides
upon the Wind and on the Light,
as ode to Love and Wonder
sung to the One and only Word
that ever truly took shape. ("Theology" p.39)

U2 - theology

I have been meaning for quite a while to compile some resources on theological responses to U2.


This is meant to be a first stage of a literature review and perhaps an article at a later date. So here we go. There are a number of different approaches that have been taken to this issue:

Biographical
Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2 by Steve Stockman (New edition, Relevant Books, 2005)

Sermons on U2 lyrics
Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalogue edited by Raewynne J Whitely & Beth Maynard
(Cowley Publications, 2003)

Theological reflections inspired by U2

Achtung Baby: Meditations on Love in the Shadow of the Fall by Stephen Catanzarite (Continuum, 2007)

Theological Readings of U2 
Religious Nuts and Political Fanatics: U2 in Theological Perspective by Robert Vagacs (Cascade Books, 2005)

One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God by Christian Scharen (Brazos Press, 2006)

We Get to Carry Each Other: The Gospel According to U2 by Greg Garrett (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2009)

Blogs
Beth Maynard U2 Sermons Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog. It started with a book. We're still watching it happen.

 Occasio - U2 Theology sermons category

Wendell Berry as theologian

Rereading Wendell Berry's novel Jayber Crow brings into focus just how good a theologian Berry is.

Jayber Crow besides being a good read as a novel would repay attention by theologians interested in ethics, pastoral care, ecclesiology and the character of God.

Getting the Blues - theology in a minor key

Stephen J Nichols has produced fine piece of theology in a minor key, on what the blues teaches us about suffering and salvation. (Brazos Press, 2008)

This is a wonderful piece of work for someone like myself who has enjoyed musicians like B B King and has heard the tributes to musicians like Mississippi John Hurt by the younger generation of acoustic blues musicians like Eric Bibb but is only very vaguely aware of the roots of this musical tradition.

Nicholls proceeds with humility and respect. It is not his tradition and story."But" he says "I can listen and I can try to understand."

In that journey of trying to understand Nicholls gives us some geography, history and biography of key figures in the history of the blues. Out of this he gives us a theological reading - in a minor key.

A theology in a minor key- or the blues for that matter ... is no mere existential scream. In fact, a theology in a minor key sounds a rather hopeful melody. Good Friday yearns for Easter and eventually Easter comes. Blues singers, even when groaning about the worst of times, cry out for mercy; they know that, despite appearance, Sunday's coming. (p.15)

Nicholls provides a useful discography for the beginner like me. Hopefully he may have solved the issue of the birthday present list for years to come.

Christendom is hard to get away from...

Moving between churching, being reminded of the main stages of the Easter story and the National Folk Festival was an experience that raised lots of interesting theological questions.

Maunday Thursday with its once a year inclusion of foot-washing in the Anglican liturgy left me ambivalent and aware of how complex meanings and symbols of power and service can get. The call by Jesus was to wash one another's feet. To have those in power in the church wash feet looks appropriate at first glance. From another angle the act can result in the subtle association of their position and role with sacred power by those in clerical positions. Without anyone intending it is almost impossible to completely dissociate themselves from the memory of the Gospel story in which Jesus washes the disciples feet.

The National Folk Festival offered some interesting images for discipleship and community. We had renderings of the prophets - critique of injustice and the call for the powerful to be brought low and lashings of the wisdom literature wit reflections on how to live in all sorts of situations and relationships. Much of the music and songs, as well as the craft of performance is passed on through forms of mentoring and discipleship and disciplined practice. Exemplary performers of the craft of musicianship are acknowledged because they are just that exemplary performers. It is not the same thing as professionalism.

The choice of hymns on Easter Sunday made me acutely aware of how much the imagery is shaped by themes of battle, crusade etc. Much of the language does not have strong warrant in the Gospel stories. The wonder of a new creation (Tom Wright is strong on this theme) doesn't get much of a run. Even where there is warrant in the NT for the victory metaphor it is often presented without reference to the fact that Jesus had rejected the way of violence on the path to his arrest. Again there is deep confusion here - the centuries of christendom have left their imprint on our language of worship and we just accept it without thinking - without stopping to ask the question as to how this language might strike someone with only minimal knowledge of the NT but some knowledge of the Church's implication in the crusades.