Religion and Postmoderism part 1

This past weekend I attended the Religion and Postmodernism conference at Villanova University. The focus of the conference was Athens and Jerusalem – Politics and Religion. It was a very engaging conference with a number of great papers presented. Since I am still a kind of neophyte in the field, I found myself struggling at times to follow the discussion, and at other times I was able to keep up with the discussion. Partly it depended on the topic of discussion – I can only study so much. I was happy to see that my tweed jacket fit in well with other’s tweed jackets.
What I plan to do in the next couple of entries is reflect on the papers presented. I missed the first paper which was presented on behalf of Metz, so I will start with Sharon Welch’s presentation. I do not presume to have the capacity to fully explain, or even partially explain the works, but I hope in reflecting I can engage some further thoughts, and sort some of the cobwebs out that were formed in my own mind.
Paper 1 – Sharon Welch – “Politics after Empire: Dangerous Memories, Cultivated Awareness and Enlivening Engagement”
Welch started with the question of power in American politics, citing Kane’s The Power of Story, claiming that we are stories. For example we have the story of EuroAmerica and the story of Indigenous America, and while the two overlap, they are not necessarily the same. In thinking about story, we are drawn to the question of evil in the story of politics. Welch suggests that destroying evil is insanity, and cannot be accomplished. She also rhetorically wondered if peacekeeping is also helpful with the question of evil in politics.
The story in American politics that engaged evil in a positive way is the Civil Rights movement. In that movement, direct action coerces evil in a way that could be positive or negative. (I think that what was Welch was saying, but I may be getting it wrong). Welch seemed to suggest that a dualist view of evil is not helpful, but a non-dualist approach offer another view. She turned to Buddhism for insight into this approach, specifically “Engaged Buddhism.” In this approach, emptiness and knowing versus non-knowing are emphasized. This is an approach that views knowledge as a gift to share and to receive. The ideal story is to share the emptiness where speech can be heard and shared.
At this point I was nodding off, and I very well may have missed one or two major points Welch was trying to make. I think Welch is trying to find a way for different stories to influence each other in a non-coercive way. Further, for a way for one group of people with one story to name an evil that comes from another group of people’s story. The Buddhist approach offers a way for engagement and sharing of knowledge that does not force or coerce. I do not think one can truly share without “persuading” (that sounds nicer than coercing). What if an Evangelical Christian was sharing with a Jew? It is the story of the Evangelical to try to convince the other (in this case the Jew) to convert. If the Evangelical did not try to do this, then he or she would not be true to his or her story. Further, by suggesting a method of interaction that comes from a specific story (in this case Engaging Buddhism), is in essence forcing one story upon other stories. I admire the idea, but wonder if it would work in reality.
Regardless, one should start with truly knowing one’s own story, otherwise one could be swept up into someone else’s story.
I’m sure I bungled up a lot of the details, but that was the basics of what I took from Welch’s paper.

Roman Catholics in America

Utah Phillips laments the grouping of history in decades (i.e. 80s, 90s, 50s, 60s), because time doesn’t fit that well into neat ten year packages. Patrick Carey avoids the grouping of decades in his book Roman Catholics in America – the recent book that I read. Instead, Carey groups the time by the movements that occurred over the dates through which they occurred. For example, 1776-1815 is “A Free Church in the Republic,” and 1866-1899 is “Towards Americanism.” It is a good way of looking at time that tends to the story of Catholicism rather than the bland meta-narrative of America that tries to force things into decades.
With that said, Carey’s book is good… very good. He is through, organized and focused. What I am trying to figure out is what is Carey’s agenda. What was Carey trying to push, or argue with his book? I would first suppose that Carey is arguing that there IS an American Catholic history. Carey is suggesting that there is a story to tell, but we’ve heard that before. I think Carey is arguing that Catholicism was always a reaction to Protestantism. For example, the Trustee controversies was partially caused by the republican context of the culture. Constantly, Catholics are reacting to American culture. Along with that, I think Carey is pushing a more “progressive” understanding of Catholicism. While Carey goes to great lengths to be fair, there seem to be more emphasis on the left side of Catholicism than the right.
Overall, it was an excellent book that give a great look at the history of the Roman Catholics in America.

Well, I just finished reading and taking the notes on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. It is a slow read for such a short book (108 pages). Part of the reason why it took so long to read Witt’s work is that he writes in aphorisms (short and compact sentences). It is not something you can glance over, but something that demands a lot of time and attention. It was difficult reading this work because I know that Witt rejected a lot of the content in he later teachings and in the Philosophical Investigations. Yet I still found some interesting and useful ideas.
One idea is that everything must make some kind of consistent sense with everything else. In a church setting this is something that I think we neglect due to laziness. For example, we say it means something to be ordained, but we do not hold onto that meaning unless we find it helpful at the time. That is inconsistent. Or we say that we are called to a certain way of living as Christians, but we do not hold closely to that way of living. When we are inconsistent, we are projecting the true picture of Christianity that we ascribe to. Either we change the picture or we change our “grammar.” We need to be consistent. Witt broke down the parts to the bare examples, but I think we can apply his ideas to church life and beyond.
The other thing I (and other scholars) am interested in is Witt’s idea of the ethical. In 6.421 he claims that “ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics is transcendental” In 6.422 he states “ethics has nothing to do with punishment and reward in the ordinary action.” It seems like Witt is trying to connect with something greater than he can articulate. Why do people do good things? He then moves to the mythical, which he describes as inexpressible. I think this is a good description of God. Yet the problem arises when we still try to talk about God, knowing that we cannot talk about God. How can we talk about God when there is nothing we can say? In other writings, Witt claims that we are showing the nature of God when we talk about God. I wonder if this is true of all religious speech. When we claim that we are to love our enemies, are we showing the nature of God? When we claim that we go to church to praise God, what does that say about the nature of God, and our relationship with God. Finally, what would it mean if we claimed that all religious language falls short and only expresses the divine through a glass dimly? Then do we have any truth we can claim?
Are you lost yet?

Popular Baptists?

I just finished reading Roberto S. Goizueta’s Caminemos Con Jesus: Toward a Hispanic/Latino Theology of Accompaniment. It is a good work with a lot to glean. One of the points that Goizueta makes is the influence of popular Catholicism. The terms itself is interesting because it suggests that there is a different Catholicism then just “popular Catholicism” (PC). PC is what is practiced by the people, it is the rituals and customs that are particular to a group.
I wonder if there is a “Popular Baptists.” Actually, I fear that there is a “popular Baptists.” My impression is that the “popular Baptist” movement consists of a herd of people waving their arms in the air, voting the way that Dobson or Falwell suggests and loving the bible more than they love Jesus. I am a Baptist that believes in soul freedom, in dissent, in church autonomy, in the authority of scripture (but never over the authority of Christ) and so on and so on. I am probably not a “popular Baptist” for a lot of reasons. When I consider Goizueta’s idea of PC I wonder if I should stop calling myself a Baptist. It seems to me that PB have gone to far from the original, basic ideas of the Baptist movement, so either they have stopped being Baptist, or I can no longer be understood as a Baptist. The difference is that Goizueta’s PC still have a connection with the greater tradition of Catholicism. My gut feeling is that part of my role is to call the PB back to the greater tradition of the Baptist movement (which suggests that we do have a tradition). It is a cause that will no doubt end up in martyrdom, but what else do I have to do?

finishing my crazy rant of what I hope to do

Ok, lets try to finish my prospectus and then onto other thoughts. Baptist ordination – it does mean something, it is just that most Baptists haven’t done a good job articulating ordination. So here I am, with all of the answers (hardly). My theory is that Baptist theology is not something that we can particularly say but something that can be shown (see early Wittgenstein). The way Baptist act around the minister, talk about the minister and treat the minister shows the theology of ordination. What I aim to do (if I ever get to that point) is to look at one or two churches, and consider how they have treated the minister over time – always comparing with the “teachings of the tradition” – the manuals and writings of the time. This is really very cursory, but hopefully you get the idea. If not, leave a comment.
My hypothesis is that one changes in ordination via one’s relationship to the church/community. No longer is the individual just a member of the congregation, but is now a leader of the congregation. Yet there we still hold to the idea of Priesthood of the believers, so the change is not one of hierarchy. Instead it is of relationship. The minister now represents something greater, something more profound than him or her self. The Catholic idea of Sacramental Consciousness offers a good way to articulate this change. We just need to change the word from Sacrament to Sacred so people in the pews wont freak out.
That’s it. Make sense?