Category: the folks at aufs

Some hate for The Tree of Life; Or, my apparent obsession with AUFS

I wrote an initial comment over at AUFS on my first impression of The Tree of Life.  And the more I think about it the more I can’t stand the film.  This is a reflective position and not a commentary on aspects of the film.  However, the movie lends itself to being processed in a larger cultural and political context and I think the context demands more of the movie than it offers.  I think the movie can be viewed in part if not entirely as Jack processing his childhood.  So Jack wakes up aloof from his beautiful wife (who I don’t think he says a word to).  Lights a candle for his dead younger brother.  Goes to work and sits atop a high tower.  Calls the other alpha male (his father) to apologize for something about the dead brother.  As I process the movie another conversation at AUFS comes to mind in which Brad states that the church has never been able to appropriate or face up to modernity.  That may be true but why is there any need when you have a movie like this which causes modernity’s implosion in the psyche of the man who builds modernity (powerful ‘modern’ architect).  This modern man traverses and encompasses all of evolution in order to find meaning for the death of his brother.  Oh, and who was that middle child again?

I don’t think it is helpful to minimize the white middle-class male experience but how can this expression not invite scorn in our context?  What if Jack was the First Nations man I encountered walking down the street a month ago.  I suspect he might have a few more things to ‘process’ from his childhood experience but he has no high tower in which to brood.  In this neighbourhood being young and native tends to invite things that do not allow for contemplation and so he is jumped and hit with an eight-ball over the head.  He continues on down the street with blood flowing down over him.  Oh wait, where was I again?  Oh yes I was up to the dinosaurs.  The AUFS view of this movie is all the more striking with its general tenor of liberation.  There seemed to be nothing here that would change the modern capitalist man or system.  He found his inner-peace.  Isn’t this the kind of thing that gets disemboweled over at AUFS?

It’s funny I was actually planning to right a post on my ‘conversion’ experience that I attribute in part to the posts and related scholars and thought that floats around at AUFS.  I am trying to shed vacuous and bankrupt theological language or at least press it for its implied meaning and implications.  This is a good time as I am entering into the ordination process with my conference and need to comment on our confession . . . well, we’ll see how good it turns out.

In any event I am not trying to take some jab at the general thinking and expression at AUFS.  I just find the engagement with this movie to be a little dissonant with the larger environment.  I should also point out that many of the comments were not actually made by AUFS regulars.  But as I mentioned in my comment over there I was really surprised it did not get a harsher review.   I suppose it provided some good intellectual and aesthetic fodder . . . and maybe that is all that it amounts to though the movie and the conversation seemed to be pointing to more.

There were two audible responses to the movie in my theatre.  First was a loud yawn.  This was only a partially accurate review in my mind.  I was sucked into the ‘evolution’ (but would have been just as happy to see it as an I-Max piece) as well as moved by many other visual landscapes.  Some of the social and psychological commentary was suggestive and provocative (as Brad elaborates in his original post).  The other audible review was probably more accurate.  It was a sarcastic wow-wee.  Of course this probably spouted by a white middle-class male.

Closeted transcendence

Over at AUFS they have just concluded a book event engaging Adam Kotsko’s recent work Politics of Redemption.  Adam has just posted a response to the event and in it engaged one of the topics raised which is the highly debated but perhaps hardly debatable question of transcendence/immanence.  I thought the response was quite diplomatic without interest in any sensational jabs (the jabs were quite under-stated but still present . . . well fine perhaps ‘jab’ isn’t even the right word).  In any event I thought of commenting directly there but it would not have been in keeping with the event as a whole and since I am still waiting for a copy of the book I don’t have much to contribute.

I did, however, want to pick up on one line.  Adam writes,

Even at its best, though, I can’t see how one can argue for divine transcendence — it’s always going to be an argument from authority, because it’s fundamentally an argument in favor of authority.

Continue reading “Closeted transcendence” →

Inwardness or Inwardism?

I have quite enjoyed following Jeremy Ridenour’s blog.  I find his contributions reflect a clarity and charity (sorry those were the two best words I could think of) that is seldom found in this nook of the blogosphere.  In his final comment on a recent engagement with Adam Kotsko’s The Politic’s of Redemption a thought has continued to linger in my mind.

He concludes his post,

Comments: On a personal note, yesterday I taught Bonhoeffer’s religionless Christianity in Sunday school at my mainline church. The class seemed to take quite nicely to his critique of Barth and Bonhoeffer’s idea of a suffering God. However, most were quite uncomfortable with the idea of abandoning piety and a personal relationship with God. I think Bonhoeffer’s critique is Lutheran in character because he worries that this turn inward is a false start. Luther continued to emphasize that Christ is found on the cross not inside the heart of the individual believer. If Bonoheffer’s ultimate aim is to promote a Christianity that is solely focused on living in this world, then we have to come to terms with the fact that inwardness is an obstacle to being in communion with one another. It breeds narcissism and self-righteousness. Encountering God on the cross requires that the body of Christ tear down the crosses society has erected to serve the disenfranchised. God can only be found in the midst of suffering because God in Christ has let Godself be pushed out of the world onto the cross.

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The Gospel According to Adam Kotsko; And a Kotskotian Conspiracy

I recently checked the price of Adam Kotsko’s recent book The Politics of Redemption and fortunately it came up with “Look Inside” feature.  I came across a content and tone of writing that may not regularly surface over at AUFS (note well that I am saying nothing of how the two forms relate . . . yet).

Christ restores connections that have been cut off, yet he doesn’t repeat the logic of possession by trying to control those he encounters.  He forgives sins, but is remarkably reticent about how the forgiven should behave in the future, reflecting how often “sin” functions as a stigma rather than a good-faith moral assessment.  He is chastised for his self-indulgence, and in his interactions with others, he very often seems to playing with them.  His persuasiveness is therefore based not on rational argument, but first of all on his general way of being in the world – his simply willingness to be with people whom others shun or simply ignore, his evident enjoyment of them.  His way of being does not end just with him, but spreads to others as a kind of “contagious sovereignty,” an empowerment that is predicated on empowering others rather than dominating them.  Several of those he empowers are sent immediately to continue the work among their own people, implying that no implicit instruction is needed.  His actual public teaching fits within this general pattern, mobilizing surprise in order to invite his readers to come to their own conclusions, a technique that is perhaps also motivated by the sheer pleasure that accompanies an unexpected narrative or discursive twist.  Perhaps the clearest indication of Christ’s approach is the feeding of the multitude, where simple generosity and sharing result in a wholly unanticipated abundance.

Pages started breaking up too far apart to continue reading with any coherence after this quote.

Two things struck me.  First this could have been plucked almost directly out of some of Jean Vanier’s works (especially content related to fear that surrounds this quote).  Secondly this quote led me to a conspiracy theory.  The Adam Kotsko of AUFS is a kierkegaardian pseudonym of the same name (to further nuance the matter) introducing an aesthetic form to the clear the way for his later moral and dogmatic expressions.  It all makes sense now!

Nourishing an Impoverished Theology

Over at AUFS another lacerating post and comment thread has been levelled against possible symptomatic trends in theology that divert attention from the ‘flesh and blood’ powers that actually affect people (the target this time is a post by Ben Myers).  I particularly appreciate the description of powers as flesh and blood.  I am becoming increasingly convinced of the need to teach and demonstrate the practice of description, a phenomenology of sorts.  This position is not incompatible with a discursive interpretation of situations but it demands an account of how discourse is constructed.  If we move simply from discourse to discourse we begin trading in unreliable fictions which is how I understand APS’s critique of Myers’s post.  This was a feeling I also got from Myers’s earlier post on writing.  The sentiments were pleasantly structured but they never seemed to ‘touch down’ (this of course being a personal response unformulated as a criticism at the time).  I suspect I am entering theoretical waters I am unable to swim in but I want to work out at least this thought.

What we are doing in theology or any other discipline or perspective may be the manufacturing, editing and recycling of discourses but this does not mean there is no evaluation and no resources outside of discourse.  The trouble with theology tends to be something like a multi-layered discourse on incarnation without someone’s flesh touching fire, experiencing ecstasy, or willfully sacrificing.  In this way theological discourse becomes a layering and protecting of nothing; and so an engagement with nothing but postures and prose.  APS called Myers out on this and demanded that if he look (at least in Europe) one will find matters quit to the contrary.  Theologians do indeed need to step back and simply look at what is going on around them and describe it, not as though they will arrive at some homogenous neutral view but that they become engaged in flesh and blood.  And here APS’s response also falls short (as all descriptions do).  In his description there is no account for ‘progress’ under right-wing policy.  If someone would come to Winnipeg’s West End and ask about Harry Lehotsky you would soon be inundated with stories of man whose vision of dignity and quality of life for a forsaken community changed countless lives and all this based on a right-wing approach to government and economics that was the result of repeated frustrations with left-wing approaches to social support.  In this description I make no meta claims about economics only that a man engaged the flesh and blood powers of oppression found tools more readily available under a right-wing government (this description of course needs to be contextualized within the Canadian context and historical which greatly affects its possible transferability).  In any event I struggle with over the top claims like the ones made by APS.  I take them to heart as a theologian or Christian (as I have become increasingly grateful for the overall contribution many of the folks at AUFS make) because they are needed but then his post must be further problematized or at least nuanced because of the varied stories of engagement.  An apparent global perspective does not trump and cannot trump a local engagement with flesh and blood.  This, again, should not be read as an attempt to overturn APS’s post but simply to add description which may allow resonance with others for getting on in the task of ‘progress’.

Following the Kick-Ass Jesus; Or, Caged Faith

I was recently made aware of what should be an unsurprising website Jesus Didn’t Tap.

Jesus Didn’t Tap was one of the first Christian based MMA clothing companies to hit the scene. In the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, to “tap” is to quit or give up. The message of the Jesus Didn’t Tap line is that Jesus didn’t quit after going through unimaginable suffering and pain when he was crucified on the cross. The company aims to represent both the competitiveness of MMA and honoring God in all of their designs and hopes it will help spread the Christian message of salvation to a whole new audience. (from the website)

This is unsurprising and, for me, now a surprisingly clear example of heretical faith.  It is not heretical because it is ridiculous.  It is heretical because it believes that faith can be expressed analogically.  I will briefly qualify that statement by saying that I am unqualified to speak about ‘analogy’ as it is used in systematic theology and so these comments may or may not relate to a larger discussion.  My observation is simple.  Faith cannot be analogical because faith cannot be reduced from entirety into examples of totality.  This website reflects a belief that the ‘kernel’ of faith can be translated into the medium of fighting.  As a sport I actually have a relatively high regard for certain forms of MMA but this is viewed from a larger complex of social, ethical and personal perspectives.  What is at issue is the belief that you can ‘close’ the door of cage and function faithfully and independently within a confined space.  This is not a new insight but it is claiming more ground in how I view faithfulness.  This is how I would understand the word ‘piety’ as it used by folks at AUFS and also Hauerwas’s criticism of American as too ‘spiritual’.  Piety or spiritualism reflect those actions and postures which assume some effectiveness despite the realities of a larger context.  As it is Thanksgiving in Canada ‘piety’ might mean thanking God for a prosperity that comes at the direct cost of others without the means to object.  It is an act isolated from its relations.

I do not have the book on hand but Kierkegaard in his preface to The Sickness Unto Death speaks of faith as that which fearlessly encounters all of life.  In this way I have become much more receptive to ‘secular’ and ‘materialist’ expressions that attempt to thoroughly examine the functions at play in religion and culture (a critique of ideology it is often called).  To the extent that an expression distracts or insulates from an identifiable aspect of life it must be deemed unfaithful because it rejects the basic theological premise that the whole earth is full of God’s glory.  The basic posture of the Christian must remain to see, to hear, to feel, to taste, to smell.  This connects to the reason I began a new blog.  The hope was to learn the discipline of description.  I am not sure how I feel about the idea of accuracy in description (and I certainly reject any notion of neutrality) only that we tend to go through our days bypassing the basic acknowledgment and engagement with our senses.  Our mind already has enough patterns to live by assumption and guesswork and not take the time to recognize the utter uniqueness of everything (a bit grand of a statement I suppose).  So when I see examples like the one above I am reminded not of how ridiculous they are but of how tempting it is to cage faith in containable expressions allowing other forces free play in the ‘real world’ the one in which people live, breath and die; the one fallen and full of the glory of God.

I came across this quote from the website as though it was looking to enhance my point.

When Jesus stepped inside the cage of life to take on the cross, human legs did not kicked his out from under him. It was not human hands that broke his arm during the arm bar of adversity. It was not a human fist that knocked him to the mat for our sins. It was not a human that kept him inside the triangle choke of suffering. It was not the fighter’s sent by Satan to tap him out that beat him.

God gave him strength while on his back being pounded in the face by the elbows of sin. Those same hands that formed the universe. Those same hands that held you and me before the foundation of the world.

Take a jog out to the mountain of the skull. Out to the cross where, with holy blood, the hand that placed you on the planet wrote the promise, “God would give up his only Son before he’d Tap Out on you.

Truly, Jesus Didn’t Tap! – Are you tapping out on him?

Introduction to After the Postsecular and Postmodern – Excerpts and Comments

For anyone interested, the editor’s Introduction for After the Postsecular and Postmodern is available at Scibd.  One of the editors and several of the contributors in this volume are regulars at AUFS.  As I started reading through it I thought I would past chunks that stood out or reflected the direction or intent of the volume (I have not yet seen a copy).  I have inserted a few comments, some of which are critical but of course they are then very provisional as I am working from something that points to a whole that I have not seen.  I have tried to keep the comments then on how this piece structures the project.

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