Aedificium

Just came across this, in the latest Orion Magazine:

Doctrine

I love the church
of the osprey, simple
adoration, no haggling
over the body, the blood,
whether water sprinkled
from talons or immersed
in the river saves us,
whether ascension
is metaphor or literal,
because, of course,
it’s both: wings crooked,
all the angels crying out,
rising up from nests
made of sticks
and sunlight.

- Todd Davis

Indeed. It sounds like it could have come right out of Aldo Leopold or something.

Last week I wrote a bit of my personal, experiential observations of our local homeschool coop. So tonight I’m looking to make good on the promise I made that I’d write a follow-up that was more analytical and reflective. So be warned: this is more of an essay than the last piece, but I think it’s a useful exercise for me and perhaps for others as well.

As a preface to my analysis of Homeschooling, I should state up front what I feel the business of education is, or perhaps more accurately, what I believe it ought to be, whether it is college and university education, graduate education, or grade-school education. At the end of the day, my evaluation of education draws most of its inspiration from Wendell Berry, who has not really written systematically about his educational philosophy (so far as I know), but who nevertheless has plenty to say about it scattered throughout his writings. My thoughts on it, likewise, are directly related to my work in the academy, which is to say that it influences what I do in my teaching on the one hand and that my subjects of study shape the reasons I teach at all.

Like Berry, I see the education of young people as being centered on developing the creativity of the individual person in a way that encourages responsible action in the local community and the larger society as a whole. Education needs to embrace a role that leads students develop their humanity in relation to other people and to the physical land where they live. What we teach should be somehow connected to where we are in life (geographically and otherwise) and to where students are. Berry would say that education’s primary role is to instill knowledge that is experiential, relational, creative and imaginative, democratic, local in its orientation, and fundamentally interactive with the natural ecology of where we live. Just so. To the extent that education is individual-centered, I maintain that this individualism (in the classic liberal sense of developing the full potential of the student) is, nevertheless, rooted in the local community in that the “potential” is precisely the ability of the student to contribute to the life of the community through his or her own gifts, place, and so on. Finally, the purposes of education needs to encompass the concepts of goodness and wholeness, which is to say that we need to teach our young people the ability to judge what is good and whole.

Much of contemporary education, however, focuses on the development of “skills” that will make people productive not in their own local community, wherever that may be, but in the global industrial and consumer-capitalist economy. I agree again, here, with Berry, who argues that schools - by which Berry means public schools - are “mind dominated” by outside forces (the global industrial/capitalist doctrine) that essentially dictate what students are to take away from their education. In my work in New Testament, Judaism, Greco-Roman religion, Early Christianity, and Islam, scholars know this kind of imposed “mind domination” by the terms of “cultural hegemony,” stemming from work of Antonio Gramsci. Cultural hegemony is the essentially the ability of those in power (from small communities to global industry and national governments) to package thoughts. It is the ability to control “knowledge production” by packaging the hegmonic power’s ideology into the distillation and dissemination of culture. (more…)

In my recent reading of writing by and about early Christians I started thinking (again) of connections to the modern state of affairs within Christianity. This time it’s over the sheer number of variations on Christianity. This is, of course, the case today; we have the Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church, the SBC, ABC, UMC, and on and on and on. What strikes me, though, is that we define ourselves as Christian, but we also define ourselves in the terms of the type of institutional Christianity to which we belong. “I’m a Methodist!” We also define others in similar terms, as if it’s obvious that we are Christians anyway, so that doesn’t need to be said when identifying another: “You’re Methodist? I had always thought you were Catholic!” (I get this a LOT, by the way.) What is interesting to me is the identification we have with the denominational institution of “the church.”

Backing up 1800-1900 years or so, however, there was every bit as much diversity then as there is now, and possibly more. But the really interesting thing is that there was no real institutional “church” by which to define Christians. Christian identity was far less tied to institutions and their requirements for memberships, like belief, creeds, and so on (these did in fact come, of course, but not in the 2nd and 3rd centuries) than it is now. I’m tempted to say they were lucky that way.

The modern and postmodern church can learn from this. Forget the institution for a minute, forget the dogma and doctrines, forget the “rules” for “being Christian” as established for the last 250 years. Focus instead on the gift of its diversity. Focus instead on the fact that every ekklesia was a local community nourished by its understanding of the gospel messages in their own situation in the Empire, without being concerned with whether or not their understanding fit in with the authoritative, universal party line. Focus instead on praxis, on practice, on people being far more concerned with living their lives in imitatio Christi within that community and less concerned with whether or not their lives conformed with political positions or Churchly standards of conduct.

Sigh. Recovering the memories of this is a task worth undertaking, but it sure is exciting.

It has been quite a while since I’ve blogged on homeschooling (actually, a while since I’ve written much of anything substantial), but the time seems right for it here. For the past 2 months, while the missus was keeping us afloat with her holiday job, I’ve been juggling orals, prospectus-writing, grading, attending class, entertaining family for Thanksgiving and visiting family for other Christmas-related activities. But the big consumer of time was keeping the homefires burning, especially the homeschool activities. For us, this involves a “co-op” one day a week (for the uninitiated, a homeschool co-op is pretty much school electives in actual classes taught by homeschool parents), gym class on another day, AWANA for the kids, Ballet for one of them, swim lessons on another day, and the three R’s, science, history, and, yes, Bible-history (a.k.a. “western civ in antiquity”) etc every day.

In all this, I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on the whole homeschool phenomenon, the stereotypes that go with it, and rationale for it. Most of my “token thoughts” here are based on homeschooling as I experience it and observe it. I know, though, that there are many homeschooler and unschool families who do not fit the mold that this will show, and I hope that some of you folks will comment on your own stuff on this site.

1. In Christian evangelical homeschooling, it is definitely “mom-centered.” It was hilarious how so many of the moms had no idea what to do or what to say when I was anywhere in the area. Usually I was ignored by moms who have kids the same age as my own. One one occasion I was noticed working with another kid and one woman, after looking a bit shocked, snickered and said to me “oh, you must be the token homeschool dad.” Hence the title of the entry here. I find this pretty fascinating; most of these women are your standard and typical evangelical-borderline-fundamentalist moms who feel simultaneously that the world is out to get them and especially their kids, and yet are clearly uncomfortable around men, who they will readily assert are the absolute, biblical heads of their households. I’d have thought that my being around would show a bit of support to the more paranoid, that they’re not in this homeschooling endeavor alone, but it didn’t really seem to be the case. Not every woman there, though, was so standoffish; for the most part, I got on well with many of the teachers whose own kids had come and gone from their homes and who were now in college or in their own careers. Among these, I was heartily welcomed and encouraged to consider teaching for the coop next year. Which brings me to…

2. Because my wife has been involved with these groups now for three years, most of the moms have heard of me, or at least heard of what I do. I’m an academic, a scholar, Ph.D student, teacher at the University, etc, and my field is ancient religion, Bible, and Christianity in general. Which is, to most people in these circles, fascinating, because they think that my kids will get the best apologetically-oriented treatment of Biblical history out of all of them. Well, maybe, but when I’m actually around these folks, it’s a mixture of paranoia and curiosity. See, the Coop exists to help homeschooling parents (read: moms, in this case) teach things that they don’t feel qualified to teach. Science, for example, or advanced history classes, or classical ballet, music, and so on. Greek and Latin are very popular with high school students (or at least with their parents who sign them up for them). Obviously not everyone has a facility for these things. But “Bible” and “Bible history” are not offered. The Bible is an open book; anyone can do it, and for certain folks in these environments, no one, NO ONE, not even Sunday school teachers, will be teaching their kid Bible except for the homeschooling mom in the home, unless it meets the “kid tested, mother approved” criteria of evangelical, conservative, borderline-fundamentalist interpretation. Only way to make sure your kid is getting the Bible taught “right” is to do it yourself. Knowing the Bible, its history, and the history of periods it describes, is not necessarily a prerequisite.

I think it would be a hoot to teach a “How to Read the Bible” elective to the high school kids in the Coop. I may yet volunteer to do so, but I know that most likely it wouldn’t run because the parents would be afraid of it. Which brings me to …

3. I don’t think I’ve ever been around a group of more paranoid people in my life. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought that these folks are afraid of getting caught doing something illegal. (They’re not in any danger whatsoever.) I think this has something to do with the way I was received by a lot of the people in the Coop. I’m an outsider, even though my kids are there. I’m a dad (and it’s no secret in this particular group that there are MANY dads who simply go along with the moms on the whole homeschooling thing and refuse to allow the moms/teachers any curriculum budget), I’m an academic, I’m in “religion,” I go to a “liberal” church, and I had critical comments to make about the organization’s affiliation with the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) during a casual conversation with some other moms and teachers. The HSLDA traffics in paranoia (kinda like the Bush Administration, come to think of it) and fosters the prevailing notion that everyone outside the walls of the Coop building is out to get them, and that only the HSLDA is equipped to protect you from the public school truant officer. With this mentality, it’s no wonder that anyone who isn’t an insider in the organization (and I’m technically an insider!) is not to be trusted. I think this is a sad state of affairs, because the public school system (here, at least) is very accommodating to the homeschooling crowd and even has offered special needs services for students to whom it would benefit, only to be flatly rejected by the Coop boardmembers because no public school people are allowed on homeschool premises for member families.

4. On the positive note, I will say that at least in the subjects covered in the Coop, I’ve run into some of the brightest and inquisitive young people I’ve ever met. They are genuinely eager to learn, whether it’s Chess, Dance, Public Speaking, Chemistry, or Calculus. There’s even a darn good debate team. I honestly can’t sit here and say that the quality of what these kids are learning is inferior to what they would get anywhere else, public or private. Neither did I experience the ambiguous reception I felt from the moms; apparently this didn’t rub off onto the students, because I felt like they REALLY liked having me around, which is why I’m tempted to offer that “How to Read the Bible” class. And the stereotype that homeschool kids are social introverts is (again, at this place) totally off-base. These kids act their age, which is a good thing.

I think I’ll make this the first part of a three-part post. Next up will be more reflective on the entire homeschooling phenomenon, and the last one maybe I’ll do a post on Why I Homeschool at all (although I kind of covered this in my very first post for Aedificium way back in February of last year; other entries to the subject in the Homeschooling Tag cloud to the right). And I’m very anxious to hear, in comments, from anyone who does NOT homeschool within an evangelical framework, as well as why you do so, as well as from folks whose experiences are closer to my own.

Family of four looking for church home that meets a majority of the following: 1) Church should willingly and unashamedly call itself a “Christian” church, meaning (2) it follows a local theology that its leaders and board members affirm as thoroughly Trinitarian and which (3) finds its central identity in the biblical concept of a called community that (4) engages the world, rather than insulates itself against it, is (5) committed to biblical and prophetic justice, and which (6) contests “the powers” of state, bureaucracy and empire with prophetic voice and action and which (7) maintains active and aggressive vigilance against its own potential complicity with those powers. Church should be ( Gospel- and missional-centered, (9) unafraid to name sin for what it is and (10) promote and teach the contents of Scripture as the Church’s “norming norm” even while recognizing the (11) necessity of critical reason, ecclesiastical tradition, personal impact, and interpretive flexibility among other churches throughout history and throughout the world in different circumstances from its own. Prospective church’s worship services should be (12) highly liturgical, with preference given to (13) weekly celebration of the Eucharist/Communion/Lord’s Supper and (14) worship in a building that actually looks like it has a sacred history and participates in the holy. Preference given to prospective applicants who demonstrate willingness to (15) ordain both men and women to ministry but which does not do so out of bureaucratic convenience or as political statements; applicants who refrain from ordinations entirely also considered. Churches claiming to have all the answers, or which lead members and attenders to think that they have all such answers, need not apply. To apply, email Aedificium Librarian at link provided on this page, or leave a comment below.

Been reflecting on some old themes lately, in particular the church/consumer/community issues that have occupied a number of posts on this blog. Basically, it feels like I am “between churches,” when in reality I am in no such position. I’m a member of one place, where I attend during the academic year and where my wife is an Elder, and during the summers I go to the place we’ve gone since 2001 and where we were members before moving away. Without a doubt, these two churches are my immediate church families. The two of them are so very different from each other, as two sets of parents may be very different from each other between spouses in a marriage. One is considerably to the left of the other; one is a deeply traditional evangelical church right out of the 1950’s. There are people that I love and dearly cherish in both.

And yet.

I feel the pull, indeed the temptation, to engage in that favorite American pasttime for lifelong (Protestant) church-goers, which is the temptation to visit another section of the religious superstore that is America and shop for something else. And the thing is that I know which section of the superstore I’d visit, kind of like I know what kind of computer I’d buy right now if I could afford to get one at all.

The problem is that I feel much more part of a particular religious tradition that I’m not even a member of than the ones I am officially involved with. As someone who views religions as communities of memory, to use Robert Bellah’s phrase, this perplexes me, especially because the very “community” I feel so drawn to is not one where I have a storehouse of individual memories. Most of my individual memories in religious communities vis-a-vis my religious upbringing are in evangelicalism and fundamentalism. Yet I no longer feel at home in these “isms,” for a variety of reasons, and with my present left-leaning mainline church I have no mnemonic links whatsoever. I’m not part of the community where most of my community memory lies, and I’m not part of the community where I am a member of because I share nothing with the communal memory of the place, although I do sympathize with much there from a purely intellectual standpoint, which is not (and has never been, at least for me) an adequate reason for becoming involved in a community of faith of any sort. In the one tradition, my mnemonic roots run deep, but the tree is dead, where in the other, the tree struggles to survive because the roots, though green, are only penetrating through cracks in the concrete, if they penetrate at all.

I think that one reason so many of us feel unsatisfied by our particular church communities is because our experience with the community memory is incomplete. It is incomplete because the memory is either not perpetuated, or it is not understood, or is incomplete (as in missing important parts). Many of us, likewise, feel like we are unconnected to community memory in our faith traditions because we have other social and interpersonal relationships with people outside those particular communities that nurture “alternative” memory that, for whatever reason, are more compelling than those maintained by our faith traditions. I suspect it is a combination of all of these, with some aspects being more dominant than others in life.

We have a tendency to think of “memory” only insofar as it helps us with something. We can probably blame Freud for this more narrow view, who saw memory as an aid for therapy of the individual and frequently as the source of individual and collective neuroses. When we think of memory only in this “therapeutic” way, we neglect other important aspects of community memory; we ignore various stories, rites, liturgies and litanies, language, and physical and sensory experiences. People who value sensory, physical, and bodily representation and expression of our participation in a community are not likely to be much impressed with worship in many Protestant denominations, such as most Baptist traditions (my own), that place little or no spiritual value in elements of worship that aid in re/presenting community memory in these ways. Similarly, for “think-tank” denominations, such as presbyterian and numerous fundamentalist traditions who perpetuate a more logical and systematic presentation of the community memory, liturgy that involves anything more than a book and the mind is usually going to be regarded as so much excess baggage that is little more than a distraction from the real work of the mind and the spirit.

I dunno. Mostly just “thinking out loud” here. I’m very much a sensualist who places a tremendous amount of value in the role that the body and the senses play in being a full participant in individual and community memory. I value the stories, both the positive and the negative, of community memory. I value the work of the mind to be analytical and critical even while an engaged and full participant in community work. I also value the companionship of like-minded individuals, of whom I have met many, but (alas!) few in my own geographic area. Are our communities of faith able to incorporate a more “total” or “wholistic” approach to representing and expressing their memory so as to permit membership that doesn’t, at the same time, leave an empty component in our experience in that memory?

“Cypher, the Matrix isn’t real!”

“Oh, I disagree, Trinity; I think the Matrix can be more real than this world.”

Lately, I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading in memory and social theory, and I’ve been working my way through Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality. The thoughts here are inspired by Berger and Luckmann’s work from 40 years ago, but I’ve taken the liberty of combining them with some of my recent work on the book of Revelation and with the Wachowski Brothers’ trilogy of Matrix films.

Berger and Luckmann argued that practically from birth, what we understand to be “real” is a social construction that is imposed on us through a variety of instruments of the dominant culture of the world that we find ourselves in. When that dominant culture ultimately has the power to impose its cultural perspective (or worldview) on other ones, and proceeds to do so, the result is a programmatic presentation of “the real” that says “our” reality, whatever it is, is the ultimate one, and this by necessity must replace any alternative ones. In other words, once a culture establishes a hegemony over others that would not normally be inclined to share, appreciate, or employ the instruments that the culture uses to construct reality at home, it is in a position to say to everyone else that the way we are is the way everyone should be. This kind of imperialism doesn’t have to be through military force or violence against earth, air, and flesh (although it can be, and often is); more pervasive and dangerous is the seductive nature of the instruments of cultural imperialism. Violence and seduction are, and have always been, two of the most potent agents of social control and the imposition of “reality.”

To viewers of the Matrix, this should sound familiar, and one wonders whether the Wachowski Brothers had a copy of Social Construction of Reality around when they produced the films. The entire trilogy turns on the questions of What is Real, and What is the Matrix? In the trilogy, we learn that the Matrix is the reality constructed by the dominant Machine World that, through violence and seduction, is imposed on the world of human beings in order for the Machine World to maintain its hegemony and its control of human life. Morpheus, played by Laurence Fishburne, recognizes that there are at least these two realities, and he challenges Neo (Keanu Reeves) to recognize that he has to choose which reality he is going to accept, since both are Real. In Berger and Luckmann’s terms, the Machine World is able to force its worldview, its reality, onto the Human through the instrumentality of the Matrix. For those living in the Machine World, the majority of humans do not realize that their reality is artificial and constructed and have no need for or interest in knowing otherwise. The dominant culture of technocracy, as it were, has defined what is real and literally constructed the instruments to make sure that things stay the way they are. Theirs is the “ultimate reality,” as Tillich might express it.

In any event, the story of the Matrix is that the reality imposed by the dominant Machine World is not the only reality, and in fact needs to be challenged because the human race is not destined to be batteries and puppets that empower the force of empire and its artificial instruments of violence and seduction to keep control over those who resist.

And if this sounds like a familiar story, you’re right. This is exactly the story of the book of Revelation. Revelation is a call to see the Matrix for what it is and an invitation to look behind the screen to see the ugliness of the reality of its version of the Machine World, that is to say, the Empire, the violence of the Beast and the seductions of the Whore that are the instruments of imperial worldviews of reality. For the author of Revelation, the Roman Empire is the latest version of the Matrix, an artificially constructed reality that had plagued Israel in a number of x.0 versions since the days of Egyptian bondage. But as with the theatrical Matrix, Revelation recognizes the reality of the Empire/Machine world every bit as much as it recognizes the world of the Saints/Zion. Both realities exist and coexist and join together through complex processes of mimicry and symbiosis and are locked in a struggle that simultaneously defends and destroys the other. The Matrix and the Empire are paragons of the power and order of the Machine World and the dominant force of Imperialism in all its forms. The heroes of Zion and the persevering Saints of first century Asia, on the other hand, recognize the reality of the Matrix of Empire, but refuse to accommodate themselves to imperial control; for Morpheus, Neo, Trinity, John of Patmos, Christ, and the embattled saints of Asia, imperial reality is a Beast operating the machine mainframe, a reality that ultimately will lead to nothing but the utter destruction and annihilation of this world as well as the other. Revelation and The Matrix thus show that these competing worlds exist in symbiotic opposition to each other, but are not condemned to eternal conflict. As the Oracle tells Neo, “One way or another, Neo, the war is going to end.”

The story, of course, continues now. The Matrix of Empire is a constructed instrument of persuasion designed to convince others that the pax romana and pax americana is the ordained and one legitimate ultimate reality. But Revelation and the Matrix show us that, confronted with the reality of imperial pax, we who were called out of Egypt now need to be called out of Babylon, out of the power fields of the Machine world. And here in the Matrix, there are too many who know that something is seriously wrong with the seductive doings of empire, who know that we ourselves are complicit in the violence done to the earth and to each other in the name of maintaining things “as it was was in the beginning, is now, and shall be forever more.” We feel the splinter in the mind and its driving us mad. And if we are truly to come out of Babylon, as the Seer of Revelation cries out to us that we must, we have to take the plunge, and find the courage to take the Red Pill, and hack into the Matrix.

Instead of Death: A Sermon for Ordinary 10

Texts: 1 Kings 17.17-24 (Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath); Psalm 146; Luke 7.11-17 (Jesus and the Widow of Nain); Galatians 1.11-24. Sermon title adopted from William Stringfellow’s book of the same name.

The situation was miserable and the outlook bleak. The Land was cracked, dry, and parched, not altogether unlike the way it looks around here in the middle of August; and no rain was in the immediate forecast. Crops had long since failed; oil jars and lamps had long since been emptied. The entire Land and the chosen people Israel were parched and dying of hunger and thirst.

Some miles away, at the capital of an apparently strong kingdom, a ruler was working overtime to keep his subjects happy and alive with a smorgasboard of political and religious policies designed to keep things the way they had been, and have been for a long time, policies that had been in place to safeguard the health and security of his people since the days of Solomon. Israel, after all, lay on the great road from the riches of Egypt and the power of Assyria, the one the economic and food capital of the world and the other the undisputed military leader and enforcer of the region. It was certainly in the state’s best interests to keep the financiers and the military police happy, and if it meant sacrificing a little piety here and there, or giving up the poorest people of the country to the state or even to death, well, such were the costs of living in an international economy. If it means that the widows and the orphans and those without a way to contribute to our security and way of life lose out, so they must have reasoned, so much the better; they’re off the books. Or, as Dickens might have put it, “If they’re going to die, then they’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population!” Better to keep all but the wealthiest people under the thumb of the state than to allow those who hate us to come in and destroy our way of life. And, these rulers reasoned, since we know, of course, that God is on our side, we absolutely must keep worshiping him in the way we always have for him to take care of us. The Word of the Lord is the same as it’s always been since he gave it to us.

The scene I’ve described sets the political, economic, religious, and indeed cultural background for our two primary passages today. The story from 1 Kings about Elijah is set against the background of Israel’s living in the shadow of the Assyrian Empire during the notorious drought and famine under the reign of a strong but paranoid king named Ahab. In the Gospel, Jesus is living and moving under the deeper shadow of the Roman Empire. Our studies of the history and of the archaeology of first century Palestine are making increasingly clear the amount of sheer poverty that existed as a result of Roman policies of taxation and industrialization of local industries in Judea and the surrounding provinces. We are also aware of corresponding and increasing religious conservatism in the context of both the Kings and Luke passages; the one entrenched the long-standing practices of Israel in order to safeguard the security of the nation against its enemies, while the other adopted the same policies in the Jerusalem Temple establishment in order to protect the people Israel from annihilation from an oppressive empire that was already installed and controlled the Land and its People. “They haven’t killed us yet,” the Jewish leaders thought, “so better to maintain the church’s status quo, lest the Romans destroy us and our holy place.” And so, under Ahab’s reign and under the rule of the Romans 800 years later, we find, in the words of the Psalmist, more

trust in princes,
in mortals, in whom there is no help (Psalm 146.4)

than

those whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD their God…
who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry (Psalm 146.5, 7).

The texts tell us that the power of the princes of the world is one of death, no matter how great the temptation is to see all our institutions as righteous and effective. The Psalmist, again, tells us that when

princes and mortals die,
when their breath departs, they return to the earth;
on that very day their plans perish (Psalm 146.4).

The prophetic word is one that challenges these powers with an alternative that we can choose instead of death. In the case of Elijah and the widow and her son at Zarephath, Elijah has issued a challenge to King Ahab and his politics and his religion by announcing that God and God alone has power over life and death, and to prove it, yhwh has decided that no matter how well-laid the king’s plans are, they cannot compete with his own ability to grant or withhold rain on the Land, which, in an agricultural society like Israel, was tantamount to controlling life and death itself.

But neither Elijah nor the LORD are without compassion, as merciless as this divine decree might seem. After such a word to the king, Elijah is naturally a fugitive. And, with the Word of the Lord rejected by his own people, he leaves and takes the Word to “them.” “We” have rejected the life-giving Word of the LORD, and so those who bear his Word are obligated to take his Word to “them.” Elijah flees to Sidon, to a “suburb” called Zarephath, where he meeds and stays with a widow and her son, who is himself little better than an orphan as a result of his lack of father and protector for his mother. Where God has delivered a Word of judgment against those who consider that they and only they have received his Word and who believe that they and only they have God on their side, the bearer of the Word goes to complete outsiders, indeed, to those considered to be the Enemy (as Queen Jezebel herself was a Sidonian) who might recognize “the LORD your God,” but whose recognition is hardly at the expense of the Ba’als of virility and sexualized Asherahs of fertility. And it comes to a widow, and a minor son, of all people! People who have nothing, and whose plight is made even worse by the very drought and famine of this yhwh, uttered from the very mouth of the prophet she is now putting up in her house. And sure enough, even after the miracle of the never-ending bread and oil, the widow’s son eventually dies, and she casts the blame squarely on Elijah himself. But the Prophet of God, the bearer of the Word of the Lord, will have no truck with the death of the widow’s son; for he knows that while her son has capitulated to death caused by the powers and policies and institutions of Ahab and this world, the Word of God brings life to those who will receive it. Instead of death, the widow’s son receives life! Elijah, angered over the death of the son of his host, cries out to God to restore the woman’s son to her. Yhwh is the God of life! Even for those who “we” say are not “eligible.”

Like Elijah, Jesus rejects the finality of death of this world, and especially the alleged authority of those who think they have power over life and death in today’s Gospel passage from Luke. Jesus, on his way to a town called Nain, bumps into a funeral procession carrying out a dead man, who happened to be his mother’s only son; like the widow of Zarephath, this woman was a widow and, with the death of her son, was almost automatically consigned to a life of destitution and perhaps even prostitution under the “rules” of the day. Jesus was moved to compassion for her and her inevitable future of a living death; and like Elijah, Jesus rejects death, both that of the woman and that of her son! By the life-giving Word of the LORD, Jesus restores the life of the man and gives him back to his mother, and thumbs his nose at the powers of death in the world. The Psalmist tells us that

The LORD sets the prisoners free;
The LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts those who are bowed down;
The LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the strangers;
he upholds the orphan and the widow (Psalm 146.7b-9a).

Instead of death, the Lord grants the gift of life! This is the Gospel, this is the message of Easter, this is the message of Easter, and this is the message that we must bring as bearers of the Word of the Lord. Against the institutions, ideas, policies, economies, corporations, governments, and so on that can only lead to death, we as Christians and Easter People who would follow the example of the Lord and of the Prophets who anticipated his coming must bring the Word of the Lord to those places that might make us a bit uncomfortable, places where we’d probably rather not go; do things we’d rather not do; say things that we would really rather not say.

This is not only evident in the Elijah and Jesus stories, but it is also the thrust of Paul’s point with the Galatians in Galatians 1.11-24. This passage is infamous as Paul’s ironically self-righteous, self-justification of his apostolic activity. But beyond all the evident frustration in this part of the letter, what Paul is doing is he is pointing out that God’s intervention overturns our life of comfort and predictability, which is bound to bring us into conflict with that predictable, comfortable world’s powers of death. God’s apostolic and prophetic call disrupts Paul’s life, as it must disrupt our lives, in that he comes into direct conflict with his established traditions, his accepted religion, his comfortable church. The Word of the Lord, the Word of Life instead of death, is a word of intercession and intervention and disruption that is not going to be welcome. It is not going to supply pleasant and enjoyable fulfillments of our needs. Paul’s point is a warning that we in the church today do not take seriously enough; if we are to be prophetic witnesses to the Gospel, to bring life instead of death, to practice resurrection, as the poet Wendell Berry says, the reality is that that prophetic Word may very well need to start with our own people; our own community; our own government; our own church.
What is to be our response, then, to God’s action of bringing life instead of death? The Psalmist tells us once again: It is to

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
I will praise the LORD as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God all my life long! (Psalm 146.1-2).

The Gospel of Life, The Kingdom of God, tells us, as the Psalmist does, that through the power of life over death

The LORD will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord (Psalm 146.10)!

One thing that I hear a lot about is idea of “a” or “the” Christian worldview. In high school I voraciously read everything I could find by the late Francis Schaeffer, to many the patron saint of the idea of a Christian worldview. In college, the “Christian worldview” seemed to be the operational principle behind the entire curriculum. I still read about it in our alumni newsletters and magazines, and see or hear about conferences where “Christian worldview” is the entire focus. It’s an ubiquitous phrase on the radio, and it’s all over the various newsletters and other types of mailings we get several times a week. And thanks to an old friend, who recently emailed me his enthusiastic endorsement of “The Truth Project,” which I had forgotten about and which is intimately affiliated with James Dobson and Focus on the Family, it’s kind of recaptured my imagination for the moment. In other words, a “blogworthy” topic.

So, I have to make a confession.

I have absolutely no idea what it is, and even less of an idea of where to find it.

But I do know what people think they mean when they refer to “a” or “the Christian worldview.” Not coincidentally, it is primarily conservative and evangelical Protestants who have been the leaders in this pack, since its primary characteristic is its dedication to the Bible. In fact, although there are (and should be) major differences between a “Christian worldview” and a “Biblical Worldview,” in most of the discussions I have seen or heard in print, online, and on-the-air the two of them are used interchangably. Rhetorically, this has the effect of saying that a Christian worldview is a Biblical one, and if a worldview is not fundamentally based on the foundation of the Bible, it is definitely not Christian. It ignores the possibility that one can have a profoundly Biblical worldview and not necessarily be a Christian worldview; and it also cannot conceive of the possibility (even likelihood, unfortunately) that a profoundly Christian worldview is not at all biblical, no matter how much Bible goes into such a worldview’s prooftext(s).

It is also worth pointing out that I can understand why many think that such a thing exists and why, if we could actually achieve it, it would solve all the social and moral ills of our society, which in turn would bring us back to formative Christian ideals of the United States in the 18th century. It is a rhetorical move against increasing tendencies to secularize the founding fathers of the United States; by demonstrating that the Fathers in fact were Biblical in their religion and morality, combined with the above observations that a Biblical worldview must necessarily be a Christian one, these modern-day apologists are able to essentially impose a particular twentieth century interpretation of Christian faith to enlightened Deists who would be flabbergasted to know what is being done to them today for predominantly sectarian Christian political interests. In other words, the idea of a Christian worldview serves rhetorical and political purposes for those who hold to its possibility. But this is not helpful, because in a nation that Constitutionally cannot mandate any particular faith as “preferred,” let alone enforced, there are simply too many varieties of Christian experience for a singular Christian worldview, as much as I might admittedly wish for otherwise from time to time.

So. “The” Christian worldview is simply not possible. We just need to ask “which one should it be?” The “liberal” one? Or the “evangelical” one? Or perhaps we want to go with a denominationally sanctioned worldview. The Methodist one? The Presbyterian? Or the Baptist one? Or, even if we settled on The Baptist Christian Worldview, would it be the Southern Baptist, the General Associatoin of Regular Baptist, the Conservative Baptist, the American Baptist, or Independent Baptist, Fundamental Baptist … and so forth.

But I did give myself an out; I said “a singular Christian worldview” about eight lines up. If there can be no question of “the” Christian worldview, what about “a” Christian worldview, and allow for the fact that there are many Christian worldviews that, unfortunately, think tanks like Focus and Truth Project and Battle Cry and so on would cringe at being associated with as “Christian worldviews?”

I actually do not really like the term worldview all that much. I see it as a convenient catch-all term for pigeon-holing “group think.” For this is basically what a worldview is. It is a way of admitting that we all have a way in which we view life that consists of the sum total of our experiences as individuals and as members in various networks of communities. Each of us probably has an individual worldview that might consist of “categorical imperatives,” to use Kant’s phrase, which are either adopted wholesale and uncritically by what we have experienced, or which are hard-earned and fought out through serious criticism of our experiences as individuals within communal histories. In this light, to earn this kind of worldview is to earn a way of coming to terms with who we are as individuals and as members. We are always both. It is possible to speak, perhaps, of my worldview, and it may be possible to speak of the specific worldview of a local community in place. But as a rhetorical and political term, and an apologetic one, it pigeon-holes groups who fall outside of what “we” think and who are in opposition to us.

I do not believe that there is such a thing as “the Christian worldview,” but I do think there is the Christian Apologist’s Worldview that, despite making a lot of noise, in no way speaks for the rest of those of us who do not consider ourselves members of that ideological community. In another post, after we’re done with exams and papers and so forth, I’ll follow this up with the importance of local education in developing an authentic worldview that leads to ethical action and that I believe might justifiably be called A Christian and A Biblical worldview that may even be consistent with a worldview of the founding fathers.

For those readers who have been looking forward to the second part of my original “Failing Religion” post back in … what, March, was it?… I apologize for the delay. But I’m ready now.

It is a little tough to find a good entree to the topic here, so perhaps a story is the way to go. Beloved Wife spent her morning listening to the teens in our church announce their intent to seek confirmation as members in our church, for which each prospective confirmand would read their own personal statement of faith and the church Board would vote to confirm the statement and the “stater” as a member of the community.

Sounded good, if a little routine and rather “going through the motions”-ish. While this was happening in the hall, I was leading a small gathering of folks in our continued study of the Epistle of Jude. Eventually we caught up with each other after church, and Beloved Wife, member of our voting Board of Elders, was clearly distraught, having been absolutely shocked and appalled by what she was hearing from our teen-aged Seekers and which was being approved as Christian statements of faith and worthy of membership into our Christian community of faith. I’m actually being told that “appalled” is not even the right word, even though it’s true; she feels more “betrayed.” Suffice it to say that if she did not know where she was, she would not have been able to discern the difference between our Christian church, our community of faith in Jesus of Nazareth, and any typical Unitarian-Universalist congregation, based on what was acceptable as “Christian” statements of faith.

And so where our religious education has failed Americans in general in their responsibilities as members of both local and global socio-political-cultural communities, it is failing our young people today even in our own communities of faith. I can only speak, of course, from my own experience, but I can safely say that my Muslim and Jewish friends in this country admit of the same problem in their own faith communities. In a word, the problem is that our churches today have simply not learned an appropriate, Christian response to the very fact that we live in a pluralistic world and have largely been unable to steer a course between a theological wishy-washiness that doesn’t even resemble anything remotely Christian or hyper-biblicistic stance that is unable to see the good in that which is not “us.” In other words, the failure of Christian faith communities in both the mainline and evangelical worlds is resulting in the inability of these communities to define who they are in a way that is “Christian” in any meaningful way.

What is interesting is that the mainline and evangelical Protestant wings of American Christianity seem aware of this, at least to an extent. In very broad, admittedly unfair, general terms, mainline Christians have historically excelled at recognizing the social and political importance of the Gospel of Jesus and the good news of the Hebrew Prophets, but overtime these aspects have overshadowed the importance of actually teaching the Text itself, which is now only incidental in the mission to work towards a just world. To be sure, I believe that this is absolutely a crucial component of the Gospel of Christ, and any Gospel that fails to preach and live out this most evident and tangible call of the Prophets and of Christ is half a gospel at best. But it is increasingly evident that this aspect of creating a just world is assumed, not taught, and accordingly the young people in today’s social-justice-aware mainline churches have no idea what the Bible’s actual teachings are on justice, poverty, stewardship, ethical community politics and economics, and so forth. The result is that the majority of these young people who stay in a faith community see little or no difference between Christianity and other religions and faith traditions who may be undertaking the same thing, and feel themselves to be free to hold any beliefs they want so long as their community supports them as Christian members.

The mainstream evangelical world, on the other hand, has historically been strong in its Christian and biblical education and in perpetuating its community identity through identification with its interpretation and knowledge of the Bible. Evangelicalism’s emphasis on the biblical basis of salvation theology through the Messiahship of Jesus is perhaps unparalleled except for Fundamentalist churches. The emphasis on Jesus’ Messiahship is, after all, the defining difference between Christians and those of other faith traditions and communities, and evangelicalism’s emphasis has preserved that identity perhaps more than any other “flavor” of American Christianity. On the other hand, my long experience with evangelical communities is that where they are strong in basic bible knowledge and in promoting Jesus as the Messiah, the tendency has been for the last 3 or 4 decades to emphasize this aspect at the nearly complete expense of the socio-political dynamic that is so strong in the mainline churches, along with an over emphasis on the God-given authority of the State and the nearly complete absence of emphasis on the prophetic critique of power in the prophets and in Jesus’ life. (Which leads, by the way, to a complete misapprehension of the book of Revelation, but that’s a topic for another day.) The implications of these shortcomings are enormous, and they are disturbing, and fortunately more and more people (mostly between the ages of 20 and 40, from what I can tell, although obviously there are exceptions) are being convicted by evangelicalism’s complicity in the apocalyptic state of affairs that we currently find the world in.

I know that these are generalizations, and that there is a huge group of silent witnesses, as it were, between these two typical representations. But the bottom line is that mainline Protestantism and mainstream evangelicalism are both at a crossroads. The former are in jeopardy of losing their rich heritage and identity as socially-conscious Christians, and the latter are in danger of losing the once-honorable badge of “evangelical” as more and more younger evangelicals are shifting their attention to the traditional emphases of liberal protestant churches. The mainliners are terrified that if they “go biblical” in their social program they will be identified as “fundamentalists” and believe they will have no choice but to join with “the powers,” as they believe evangelicals have done. On the other side, evangelicals cannot see how to become more socially prophetic and critical of “the powers” without either becoming “godless liberal relativists” and cultural pluralists or feel like they are abandoning “the clear teachings of the Bible” on a proper Christian relationship to the State.

Once again, I think it comes down to religious, and in this case specifically Christian, education. Neither “side” demonstrates an ability to provide a more authentically prophetic Biblical and Christian interpretation of either Bible or World. Churches such as the one I belong to need to reassert their Christian identity through deeper wrestling with the Word, and churches such as those who emphasize the Word made Flesh need to reaffirm their presence in the World that “judges not, lest ye be judged.” We are beginning to see some glimpses of both beginning to do just this, which is tremendous. Still, we have a long way to go, and a lot of work to be done. I feel that the first task to accomplish is to simply talk to each other, and not in the way Democratic and Republican politicians do, and certainly not in the way liberal and conservative Christians have done. Let’s actually sit and read the text together and learn how an authentically Christian prophetic ministry can speak to power, affirm justice, and serve as stewards in this world in a way that is recognizably Christian, even while we recognize our indebtedness to those who do not share our specific faith.