Murder, Justice, and Ethics Most Foul!

            Murder on the Orient Express is the first Agatha Christie book that I have read. In fact, it is the first murder-mystery that I have every read, so this was a new experience for me on many levels. I would say that it was a pleasant experience. Christie’s writing is clear and concise. She is not heavily descriptive but does not contrive moments when important clues are offered to the reader. It is an easy but fun read with a good twist in the end. It is the conclusion of the work that has left me thinking.

           

Spoiler Alert! This whole reflection is based on the conclusion of Christie’s book. So if you don’t want to know whodunit, then you probably should not continue reading. Seriously, stop reading. I may not say what happened, but I don’t want to be held responsible for ruining your fun and exciting read. So here comes the spoiler:

After reading Christie’s work I am left with the question, “when is it ok for a group of people to take justice in their own hands?” In this work a man commits a horrible crime and because of his connections with the mob and the money he has he is not convicted. The man is allowed to go free even though everyone knows he is guilty. Not only has this man murdered a kidnapped child, the characters in the book argue that he is responsible for the death of the child’s parents and one other person. Thus the man has the deaths of a multitude of people on his hands and he does not go to prison; he is not punished. To many in the book such an injustice cannot go unheeded and a group of people connected with the crime and family involved decide to take matters in their own hand. This man ends up murdered by twelve (or thirteen?) other people.

When is it ok for a group of people to take the law, or justice in their own hands? Were their actions just? Did they do the right thing? I hope this is not an easy question to answer.

First, we have a system of laws to keep society from resorting to a mob mentality. As a rule, the whim of the mob is seldom the best thing. Think of the scene in To Kill a Mockingbird when Atticus Finch is in front of the jail doing all that he can to keep a mob of men from lynching the innocent (although presumed guilty) Tom Robinson. The mob is seldom right (except in the random Simpsons episode) and the law is supposed to protect the individual from mob rule. Yet when that system of laws breaks and does not see that justice is served what then? The legal system is far from perfect. It can be manipulated. It can be misused. It can cause an innocent man to suffer and allow the guilty to go free. When this happens the purpose of the law falls away, people are not protected, and it is easy to see why some might feel that the best recourse would be to take matters into their own hands.

Second, consider the notion of justice. There are many different approaches and understandings to the concept of justice from MacIntyre to Rawls to Aristotle and many more. Justice could be a working towards equilibrium, a fair distribution of goods, or a punishment that is comparable to the crime. Justice could be relational and communal or abstract. However justice is understood, it is important to remember that the legal system is not always just and laws do not always serve the cause of justice. That is why our lawmakers have the power to change them. The system is constantly being fixed (and broken and fixed and broken). So in the case of The Orient Express one could argue that justice was not served, that an injustice was allowed to continue, and it was imperative that the group of people did whatever they could to make things right.

Third, consider the punishment of death. Is it just to take someone else’s life? I imagine that many, considering the man murdered a child and was responsible for the death of others, would say that it is right to take his life. They would argue that the crime is so severe that the only recourse would be to kill the man. What does that achieve? In his work Discipline and Punishment, Foucault considers the idea of the purpose and goal of punishment as a deterrent and corrective for the convicted. Taking a life may serve as a deterrent but offers no corrective, no option for penance and/or reform for the convict. Is the individual so far gone that his or her life no longer has any value? Leaving such a question up to a small group of people (not an impartial jury by any means) is dangerous at best.

            If I were to take issue with Christie’s work it is that this moral dilemma seems to be addressed very lightly. Hercule Poirot, the great thinker, does not give the matter deep thought, does not wrestle with what might be the “right” thing to do. What is important is that he solves the mystery. This gives short change to an important question that drives the motive and much of the book. Here is where I would encourage you to watch the movie.

 There are a number of television/film adaptations of this book. The 2010 version (AgathaChristie’s Poirot version that was on A and E) is one that shows the Poirot struggling with the ethical dilemma. Poirot is torn because he understands the danger of allowing a group of people take the law into his own hands. Yet he also understands the dilemma they faced and why they made the decision to murder a man who seemed to have sense of morality at all. This movie adaptation shows the pain and the worry and the anguish that Poirot wrestles with in deciding to not implicate the group of people. 

What is right? What is just? Christie’s book asks such questions but does not delve into them. I guess that is the difference between a fun mystery and a good novel.

Clean Your Room!

            Philosophers get their bread and butter in large part by wondering and thinking and sounding smart about epistemology (how we know). Anthropologists join philosophers in wondering about the basics and the nature of humanity. They have written large, difficult to read texts making the non-studied individual feel inadequate. That is how they make a living.

            Emma Donoghue touches upon both of these issues as well as others in her novel, Room. In this work a mother and son are held in captivity for the first five years of the boy’s life (the mother had been there longer). While in captivity the mother has to make decisions about how to teach and raise her son. She teaches him to read, mathematics, how to think, as well as other things. The ordinary day is like a school day, giving structure and purpose to things. They even have a television to watch. Yet unlike Plato’s allegory of the cave, the glimmer of things on the television are not real but are portrayed as imaginary. The shadows remain shadows. What is real is the room and everything in it. What is real is only the universe that the young boy knows. Through the book we follow the boy trying to make sense of a larger world in comparison to the one room world that he had known for so long.

            Just so it can be said, I think Room is a very well written, well-put together book. The story is told from Jack’s (the 5 year old) point of view, his grammar reflecting his understanding of what is real and what is imaginary. 95% of the time Donoghue pulls off this feat, but every once in a while Jack thinks something that does not follow the usual thinking patterns of a five-year-old, even one as different as Jack. That aside, it is a very good work, a very good novel that offers a number of different questions without offering any answers. This is a sign of a good work.

            How many of us feel as if we have been living in a Room but have not realized it until we “escape.” Consider this specifically from the religious point of view. So much of religious education is teaching a grammar that reflects a belief. In Room Jack’s grammar reflects his world-view and to a degree his standards of faith. Following the leading of Bushnell and more currently Macintyre, Lindbeck, and Hauwerwas (among many, many others) there is a strong school of thought that suggests that in religious education we need to help children (and adults) learn and develop a grammar of faith that is reflective of the community. It is one thing to say “Christ is Lord,” but that speech-act carries a deep sense of meaning that further shapes how one speaks. We learn how to speak of God, Christ, and our faith. We claim that our faith tradition offers a salvation from and liberation in life, but are we simply putting ourselves into a room and shutting the door? Jack’s mom worked hard to make the nightmare of the Room a place of safety and security for her son. Do we not do the same with religion?

            Let this sit for a moment and then consider: are we being honest with ourselves? Should we be? There is a safety and security that comes with the grammar of faith that we embrace, and that can be a good thing. People’s lives are saved through the safety of faith. Yet are we free? Is there a world out there that is calling us to take a chance, to engage at “face-value” and what would that be?

            On the one hand, there is the danger that we can create our own Room of reality that will isolate us for others. We can create a grammar and narrative that will only see things in one way and will not offer a place for engagement. The one-way epistemology was the practice of a mother and son held captive. The only way to survive was to shape reality into something that held some sense of goodness, but to control that understanding without any outside input.

            On the other hand, we can have a grammar that shapes who we are, but leaves the doors and windows open to engage with the world. We can have a narrative of what it means to be human and at the same time let that narrative be shaped by experiences with the outside world. This is a much more open understanding of how to be a community.

            Obviously there are many religious communities that fit the former and many that fit the later. I believe that we need to engage the world, that we need to be in a constant flux of back and forth, but with an understanding that there is a reality from which we speak. We have a Room we can return to, we can invite other to, and from where we find our sense of identity. That Room can be a nightmare or it can be a salvation.

Book Reports!

Well, I've listed the movies I watched and now the books that I read in the past year. I have to be honest, I am a little disappointed that I did not read more. Twenty-two books, 6,586 pages does not seem like a lot. This year I will see if I can do better - it doesn't help that I am only on page 631 in War and Peace and I keep reading a lot of journal articles.


A Fortunate Life - A.B. Facey
The Wizard of Oz and other Narcissists - Elanor D. Payson
Dishwasher - Pete Jordan
The Foucault Reader - ed. by Paul Rabinow
The Art of Reading Scripture - ed. by E. Davis and R. Hays
The Coming of the Body - Herve Juvin
A Layman's Guide to Protestant Theology - William Hordern
The Secret of Overcoming Verbal Abuse - Albert Ellis and Marcia Grad Powers
Middlemarch - George Eliot
The Magician's Nephew - C.S. Lewis
Freakonomics - S. Levitt and S. Dubner
A Bief History of Christian Worship - James F. White
The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
Children of the Self-Absorbed - Nina W. Brown
After Virtue - Alasdair MacIntyre
Prize Stories 1993: The O. Henry Awards - ed. by William Abrahams
Autism, Asperger Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Barbara Quinn and Anthony     Malone
The Nature and Purpose of the Church - World Council of Churches, Faith and Order Commission
The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History - John M. Barry
Revisioning Christian Unity: The Global Christian Forum - Hubert van Beek
The Girard Reader - ed. by James G. WIlliams
Fusion: Turning First-Time Guests into Fully Engaged Members of Your Church - Nelson Searcy with      Jennifer Dykes
Twilight of the Idols - Friedrich Nietzsche

Do You Understand The Words Coming Out Of My Mouth?

I didn't get a chance to do any reading or studying yesterday, so I am still without anything profound and earth-shattering to say. Don't worry, I'll get back on the ball soon.

I am doing a burial today that poses and interesting question. It is a last minute deal for a family that is not connected at all with any church. The father (who is being gently laid to rest) never went to church nor did the son. So what can I say and what can I offer? I could just assume they are Christians and use language of life and salvation. Maybe they are in some confused, weird way, but probably not. I could speak in broad and shallow platitudes that will offer just about as much comfort as a Helen Steiner Rice poem on a Hallmark card. Who is Helen Steiner Rice, and how did she become so great? (Ambassador of Sunshine my a**)

The family asked for a minister so there must be something to my presence; something that speaks to an awareness of the presence of God. So I do think it is important to speak to God's presence in one way or another. I will assume that there is some level of grief and I think it is important to speak to that grief. Yet I do not know if I can speak to the hope I find in Christ in a way that they will understand. I will use scripture because that is my tradition and will speak to some hope that is found in Christ, but I do not feel I can speak to eternal life through Christ.

What I think I can do is talk about the love of God, how this man is God's child and is now at rest (or something like that).

MacIntyre, Hauerwas, and others make a big deal over language, grammar, and community and here is where I think the rubber hits the road. These people are not a part of a church community and do not have that language. They are looking for something and I can only answer it with language that I know. However there is an "inner" language that I must withhold to a degree unless moved otherwise.

Of course I could just take advantage and have an altar call during the burial, but I'm afraid of people falling down the deep, deep hole as the come up to embrace Jesus. The idea of someone dying trying to accept Christ is kinda funny.

Now Everybody Hug and Pretend You Like Each Other

I have finally finished reading MacIntyre's After Virtue, and gosh darn it, I'm pretty proud of myself. I think I mentioned the book on the podcast and did not recommend it for the layperson, or even the unambitious undergraduate student. It is not an easy read. Actually, I am afraid that someone within those two categories will read it and find it very easy and I will feel stupid. So don't read it. It is too hard. It is beyond us all! Run in fear from the dreaded After Virtue.

For some information about MacIntyre's project, see my previous posts. There is to much going on for me to encapsulate in one snide blogpost, so I will pull out one aspect of the book that led me to think. As a community we need to be clear about our values, ideals, and identity.

Again, one of MacIntyre's major points of complaint is of individualism; the individual comes before the society. Thus there is not a sense of a common task or shared goals of a community, rather it is of individuals. "What is best for me?" comes before "What is best for the community?" This will lead to conflict within a community among individuals, or so claims MacIntyre. I tend to agree, because often what is best for me is that you not have that big piece of chocolate cake. Instead I should have it.

If only we had a sense of direction as a group of people, a community.

Might one suggest that the Church could have a sense of direction, a goal, a purpose? Maybe those writings in that Bible thingy and the ideas of that Jesus guy can give us a sense of direction and purpose. Maybe we can say, in light of our understanding of the Gospel as understood through Jesus Christ, what is best for our church community. Ah but it is not as easy as we would think for we in churches would have to actually talk to each other and come to some kind of agreement of our sense of identity and shared values in response to Christ. We would have to agree on things like baptism, mission, preaching, social witness, etc. Yes, we would have a sense of our identity as a community and might be better positioned to grapple with different issues. Yes, as a community we may have a sense of purpose, but what about my own personal, individual needs?

Can Baptists do Theology?

Reflections on a Theology Conference

On July 23 and 24 I attended a Baptist conference on Theology in Puerto Rico. It was specifically for American Baptists.

It was refreshing to be able to talk openly and freely about being American Baptist from a theological perspective. I didn’t have to explain the difference between American Baptists and other kinds of Baptists, I didn’t have to explain terms like “soul freedom,” or “church autonomy,” and I didn’t have to talk in a fluffy, pastoral way about the importance of identity, credentials, or history.

Here is one basic take-away: we need to claim who we are, our identity.

All of the plenary speakers, Townes, Leonard, and Ramirez all spoke to the ideas of sharing stories, claiming history, and claiming a memory that looks to liberate narrative and symbols. So often our idea of what it means to be American Baptist is based on our memory from the past 50 years when we have more than 400 years to pull from.

Here is where I look smart – MacIntyre’s book, After Virtue, talks about the narrative of the community informing the identity and the virtues of the individual. The community has a story about moving towards the good (doing the right thing) and in those stories we find a continuity of virtues guiding actions. The individual has a history in the community and is shaped by his or her personal history as well as the narrative and history of the community.

We are Christians. We are Baptists. We are American Baptists. We have a story, an identity, and it is right to let them shape who we are and how we live.

If You Don't Go to Church Then You are Going To...

Down with church-shopping!

I say this for a couple of reasons. First, it just doesn’t do well for my self-esteem. I feel much better about myself when people visit my church and then stay there. You don’t need to go elsewhere, I have everything you need right here, so why keep looking? I guess it is ok when people leave other churches to check out my church, but otherwise I am against it.

Heh

A more serious reason why we need to be careful with church shopping and poor attendance is that when people jump from church to church they never become a part of a community. If someone is not a consistent part of a community than that person does not learn the values and virtues (and theology) of that community. That individual will not grow.

I have recently been engaged in a “conversation” on Facebook with a whole bunch of Baptist pastors concerning style and aesthetics of worship vs. theology of worship. Obviously a stodgy individual like myself will be for theology over anything fun, beautiful, or moving.

As I have been following the conversation and offering my humble thoughts from time to time I have noticed a theme suggesting the notion that in a well thought-out and crafted service the theology will be implicit. One need not lecture theological doctrine or force people to memorize creeds. The people worshipping will embrace the theology of the community, probably unknowingly, and will live out that theology.

I’m still plowing through MacIntyre’s After Virtue and just read the following statement which is apropos:

…morality is always to some degree tied to the socially local and particular and that the aspiration of the morality of modernity to a universality freed from all particularity is an illusion; and second that there is no way to possess the virtues except as part of a tradition in which we inherit them… (third edition, 126-127)

So here is the kicker. If we are not a consistent part of a local tradition, engaged in the practices on a regular basis, then we will not know or understand the morality/theology of that community. To shop around, or have spotty attendance is a decidedly a-theological move that will lead to an atrophy of faith. Yes, people will enjoy the spectacle of worship from time to time, but the grammar of the community/faith will never be learned.

So go to church, damnit! Preferably mine, but if you must, find some other one, make a commitment, and try to get there on a regular basis. Unless, of course, you are happy with your less then mediocre relationship with Christ.

I'm Right Because I Can Yell Louder!

There are a couple of things I could comment on – maybe the brouhaha about painting pink toenails on a boy. My 5 year old has had purple fingernails for the past week, at his request, so I guess I am an abusive parent.

I’ve been looking at the idea of creation and the Kingdom of God in the New Testament, but that is old hat.

My sister gave a very powerful testimony at a church last week showing the power and theology of and in narrative.

But I think I will talk about close-minded liberals.

This past weekend another one of my sisters (not the testimony giving one) got married. It was a different ceremony than I am used to, a lot of emphasis on Ephesians 5 and the idea that the husband is the head of the household. My response: if that is what they want then good for them.

I shared this with the local clergy group the other day, noting that it was not my theological or liturgical cup of tea but not condemning it when one pastor asked me if there was a place from where I could make theological objections (or something like that). I think he was pushing my passive acceptance of the patriarchal model of marriage. After some conversation I asked him and the others if they thought such a marriage could be considered Christian; all (not including the Rabbi, she abstained) said no. One person proceeded to describe such a model for marriage as evil. They all said that they would not allow such a marriage to occur in their church.

Here is the thing. These people are very passionate about marriage equality and a Christian acceptance of gay marriage. There is a lot of complaining about those “conservatives” who will not open their minds and accept gay marriage as a very Christian act. That is all fine and good, but how can they then say that a different model of marriage, which many other Christians embrace, is not Christian and even evil? How is their close-minded approach to one view of scripture any different from the “conservative” approach? Something doesn’t smell right with this.

Ok, here is where we have some fun. I’ve started to read After Virtue by MacIntyre. I’ve only read the first three chapters but from that much I have found that he is working hard to convince the reader that the major approach of morality ethics today is one of emotivism. Very, very basically this approach says that truth is subjective but presented in an objective way. His example, “This is good,” really is “I experience this as good and want you to do the same.” MacIntyre is claiming that our morality is based on such a subjective, experiential approach. So what I encountered with my liberal colleagues was a response steeped in emotivism even as they would claim that their response was scripturally and theologically sound.

So the moral is: don’t be so sure of yourself because you are probably wrong.