Rick Perry

Over the least few days, the press has reported about Rick Perry’s revival, a prayer rally for a nation in crisis.  There are the normal complaints and reflections about the relationship between church and state.  Was it appropriate for Rick Perry to indulge the evangelical right?  Should this worry the secular left?  Will he impose a theocracy if elected?

I’m skeptical if Perry is as capable or religious as his followers may hope.  He’s not been that effective as the public thinks he is.   He was a cheerleader, probably a gregarious type, not all that bright when it came to books and ideas or thoughts.   He clearly has a knack for relationships, and for power.  He can please a crowd.  He loves that.

But he knows.  Any Republican is going to have to pander to the right wing evangelical crowd for the simple reason is that they are the footsoldiers of the Republican Party.  There’s no getting around that ANY Republican needs to bridge both the evangelical wing and the Club for Growth crowd.  The one brings money; the others bring votes.

The actual prayer rally was temperate.  They prayed for Obama.  There were some hard core fundamentalists there, but by and large it was apolitical.  Perry was wearing another hat, this time, one cheering on the resentful and powerless.

But evangelicals are fickle.  They could have gone the route of a more even tempered administrator like Mike Huckabee or extreme like Michelle Bachmann.  Just 35 years ago they helped vote in our first evangelical as president, Jimmy Carter.  So if there is one group that needs to be courted and tamed by the Republican establishment.

So in my view, the prayer rally is more about a political opportunist speaking the language convincingly to the most important supporters he has.   But what evangelicals will find is that he also, like so many before, will prove to be an unsuitable messiah, who like all the others will sell out the Kingdom of God before the throne of Mammon.  He  just knows how to speak their sweet language and make promises he will be unable to keep.  Evangelicals may think he was paying obeisance.  A careful observer will note he was trying to tame the beast.

Constantine, or Charlemagne, he ain’t.

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Theory of Moral Sentiments 1:2-6

[This is part of my steady series of reading Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, one page at a time.]

What is sympathy?  The source is our ability to conceive or imagine the same emotion as someone else.   We flinch when we see someone else get hurt.  One itches, another itches.  One yawns, another yawn.  “Grief and joy affect the spectator with … painful or agreeable emotion.”  Smith also calls this “fellow-feeling.”

Even stories:  “Our joy for the deliverance of those heroes of tragedy or romance who interest us” – the bystander imagines the sentiments of the sufferer.

Smith distinguishes between pity, compassion and sympathy.  Pity and compassion are concerned with suffering, while sympathy is a more general term for all “fellow-feeling.”  “Sympathy” is Smith’s word that is Girard would say represents the mimetic nature of the human mind.

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The Debt Ceiling

Admittedly, there’s a part of me that is fascinated by the debate and wants to see what happens when the insane, math averse side of the Republican Party throws its weight around.  Will its funders, or the supporters of the GOP, enjoy the US willingly reliquishing its economic authority?

The Dems don’t seem to have any counter balancing organization.  They’ve been held hostage by “realism” and are perhaps frightened by the economic and political power of the class that funds elections.

The question I’m considering is how are parties supposed to govern?  One is the politics of vindication.  One side gets complete control, or seeks complete control, and destroys the system enough to manipulate it permanently.   Politics is fundamentally about winning  and holding power.  It seems that the Republicans are fundamentally opposed to the Democrats wielding any kind of power.

But vindication can come through coercion or through mutual sympathy.   When we elect leaders, we don’t merely elect representatives, but we elect people who can make hard decision.  We do not vote for someone who always feels the way we do, but, through access to a wider variety of relationships with people representing institutions, can make better decisions than the everyday voter.  Ideology can be take a backbench to relationships based on trust.  And this is a crucial aspect of good governance.

One friend remarked, “what we need is to set term limits on everyone.”  I disagree.  Politics is a learned discipline.  It requires a soft touch, an intuitive sense of human relationships, and an ability to bring together the private and the public that take a long time to learn.  Term limits don’t diminish greed, but may exacerbate it as job seekers may be even more inclined to trade conscience for guaranteed work upon retirement.

One of the greater issues may be that our country has become more balkanized.  The extraordinarily wealthy do not engage the poor, but may be sheltered from them in a way that has never previously been possible.  Rural and urban America remains divided; the non-religious remain flummoxed by how religious values get mediated in the secular sphere.  Until we are able to occasionally diminish our need for certainty for the good, we will remain unable to make the necessary decisions to keep our government working.

However, what might be the case is that the current Republicans are ideologically opposed to a working government, and are disinterested in a functioning economy as long as Obama is president.

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Norway and Christian Extremism

The man who killed at least 68 people was apprehended.  He confessed to the killing.

The headline by the New York Times called him a Christian Extremist.

Plenty of pundits are offended at this insinuation.  Some even blame Muslims for pushing him over the brink.   But while we search for some kind of motive, some sort of identity, a way to understand this act, so beyond any kind of sympathy, we’ll find any logic to his act slip away.

Some will blame conservatives and conservative thinking.  But few conservatives would do such an act.  Like others, some will be callous about he murders.  But they would not pick up a gun, search for a camp and start shooting.    It may be that the Manichean element in our political discourse contributes to the ease by which one justifies the casual ending of an enemy’s life.   This is usually not enough.  You may think of someone as wrong while not thinking of them as an enemy.

His attachment to Christian fundamentalism was thin.  He didn’t consider himself religious – it doesn’t look like he attended any church in Norway.  He mocked the liberal religion of the Church of Norway.  More likely, they were soft and pliable, too flexible for his ordered and righteous mind.  He was much more at home in the land of certainties, in right versus wrong, and assured he was on the right side.  It is only when one is so sure of one’s complete righteousness, one can demonize those who think differently.

But there are other ingredients for this lethal combination.  Was it video games? Probably not.  Was it simply white nationalism?  Not really.  He did have a rigorous sense of Norwegian identity, with the resentment of being displaced oozing from many of his comments.

But finally, none of these ideas will be satisfactory.

And our dissatisfaction with any clear answer, perhaps, is one reason we call such acts “evil.”  They seem beyond the notion of human sympathy that is a crucial part of our everyday experience.  They are inexplicable, and seem to arise from nowhere.    Did not a part of his mind react when as the children ran from him? Did not a part of his mind demand that he stop, and feel some sort of wound as the children he was murdering?  How was it possible that these would be slaughtered like farm animals?   Even a hardened conservative can find themselves weekping at the loss of a loved one.

And yet, I feel guilty that anything about my faith would have contributed.    But what was it?  Nothing recognizable to me.  Still, the easy way, perhaps, is to assume there was no connection.  There may not have been.  My feeling of murderous rage has usually been contained toward yelling at the computer screen, or the occasional bout of helplessness – rage not at any particular person, but toward institutions – banks, airline companies.  But yet we are responsible, in some way, for those who take on the same identity that we do.

But the prime minister of Norway said it well – that such an act would not diminish their commitment to and open and peaceful country.  This is, perhaps, the only response we can give.  That whatever happens to us, we will not be bound by the fear and hate that enters our lives, causes its terrible damage, and desires us to respond in kind.   We remain faithful that the world need not be like this, and that there will be a time when we will not be afraid of each other’s differences, but have the strength to relish them rather than be scandalized.

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Rowan Williams in the New Statesman

Rowan Williams writes 

 

But there is another theological strand to be retrieved that is not about “the poor” as objects of kindness but about the nature of sustainable community, seeing it as one in which what circulates – like the flow of blood – is the mutual creation of capacity, building the ability of the other person or group to become, in turn, a giver of life and responsibility. Perhaps surprisingly, this is what is at the heart of St Paul’s ideas about community at its fullest; community, in his terms, as God wants to see it.

David Ould, who writes for the traditionalist Episcopalian site, Stand Firm in Faith demands some kind of verbal hat tip to Jesus.  He implies that a prophet is a prophet only if they make a statement that is distinctively Christian.

I find this a little amusing.  It’s as if a statement cannot be Christian unless it has tacked on to it some kind of deliberate referent to Jesus.  It’s like a verbal magic spell (“support the poor, for Jesus.”  “Eat Veggies, for Jesus.”  “Don’t Kill Babies, for Jesus.”)  The numerous implied statements by Williams that invoke the Christian tradition are ignored or dismissed because they aren’t in the face of non-believers.

Can one can make Christian claims without making a distinctive appeal to Jesus.  This requires some mental work and imagination, but it is entirely possible and worthy to do.  And must what is valuable in the Christian tradition be distinctively Christian?  And why must it be so?

The archbishop has taken some heat from the conservative press, but he still asks some fair questions:

First, what services must have cast-iron guarantees of nationwide standards, parity and continuity? (Look at what is happening to youth services, surely a strategic priority.) Second, how, therefore, does national government underwrite these strategic “absolutes” so as to make sure that, even in a straitened financial climate, there is a continuing investment in the long term, a continuing response to what most would see as root issues: child poverty, poor literacy, the deficit in access to educational excellence, sustainable infrastructure in poorer communities (rural as well as urban), and so on? What is too important to be left to even the most resourceful localism?

The archbishop need not be right – but he can clearly speak on this issue as a person with moral authority.  He is justifiably speaking from his knowledge of a moral tradition of wisdom.  It makes some uncomfortable.  It seems political.  It may or not be prophetic.  It is worth reading and understanding.

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On seeing pleasure and pain in others

I.  On the Propriety of Action; Section I O the Sense of Propriety; Chapter I.1 Of Sympathy.

When we see people in pain or joyful, we feel.  We may not get any direct benefit from their emotion, but we “derive sorrow from the sorrow of others”and  are interested in the their fortune.  This description of “sentiment” is seems to describe an empirical reality as such that it is universal, although some may feel it with “most exquisite sensibility,” and “The greatest ruffian, the most hardened violator of the laws of society is not altogether without it.”

This is Smith’s understanding of sympathy – not necessarily approval or disapproval, but that we feel what others feel.    I am riveted by sentimental You Tube videos; I enjoy the winning of my favorite team; I am sad when a family member faces a disappointment.  Girard might consider this obvious as well, for we do imitate one another.  He might add that we learn from one another how to by sympathetic.

Are we blank slates?  Or is this innate?  Pragmatically, until babies can survive on their own, perhaps the question is moot.  We have to learn to survive from someone, so perhaps we are built to be excellent imitators of both action and emotion.  Still, are the captains of finance sympathetic to the needs of the suffering?

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Adam Smith and the Theory of Moral Sentiments

I’ve decided that over the next year I’m taking on a new project:  reading Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments.  I first read parts in Divinity School, when it was praised by my professor of ministry.

Over the last three year’s I’ve also been a part of a study group that has been focused on Mimetic Theory and the writings of Rene’ Girard.   Both Adam Smith and Rene-Girard are helpful in understanding culture, I suspect; Adam Smith didn’t have an understanding of “mimetic theory” but does discuss “creative imagination.”

I’ll be taking it in very short segments, and although I hope to do this daily, I’ll be satisfied with three posts a week, one per section.

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Joplin, MO

With the number of disasters that have happened in the last year, I wonder, if in the midst of all the tragedy, people are connecting the dots between weird weather and climate change.   It may be too raw for people to consider.  They may choose merely to blame chance and fate.  The possibility, however, that we are collectively responsible seems too unbearable.

Prayers for the families of the victims, and for mercy.

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On Osama

Say unto them, [As] I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?

There is no particular feeling that Christians must have about Osama’s assassination.   Christians may cheerfully celebrate the death of any tyrant, or be surprised at an assassination’s precision, or skeptical of the merit of all violence.

I can understand the reaction of any person whose family member was killed the attack on 9/11 or our consequent wars abroad.  I can see the explanations who blame our own government’s sordid history.   But although the killing may have vindicated some, marked a completion for others, we may still affirm a reverent agnosticism about God’s presence in that violence.

Certainly scripture repeats the sense of joy when defeating one’s enemies; it also reveals and limits that joy.  The tradition demonstrates our tribe’s eagerness to destroy our enemies for good reason:  they would destroy us also, and are intent on doing so.   Although I personally cringe when I witness any delusional, premature triumphalism, the delicious taste of victory and revenge is appealing. It offers a seductive, compelling kind of meaning.

Still, the truth is this:  we still have enemies.   Others will arise.  Perhaps Bin Laden had unified our own balkanized, fractured society.  Both those who oppose and support capitalism; those who oppose and support gay liberation, could each take some shared concern thatOsama sought to destroy all the markets and liberalism the west held dear.   This truth was not up for debate, the evidence was there in his speeches and videos, at Ground Zero.  He made it easier for one president to invade two countries without asking for any financial sacrifice.

However, we treated Osama like a God.  We constructed him as an embodiment of evil, framed him as a madman, evading any inconvenient reflection about what he represented.  It was easy to do.  He dismissed the power of non-violence.   He did not seek peace, nor forgiveness.  He thought that the west, and its Muslim sympathizers, only understood the power of the gun and deserved it’s judgment. It was enough that he carried the sword and encouraged others to do so, and perhaps that’s all our leaders needed to know.

Although we want the future to become clear, aside from God’s victory on the long side of history, the details will remain obscure.  I doubt there will be more targets for the angry then there already are.  And I’m not sure how deeply Osama will become a martyr, for after the recent events in the Middle East, there are more heroic, less violent martyrs from which to choose.  We don’t know if this will bring us some space, greater focus, or direct us to important issues.

But aside from the exhilaration of unity, it will not establish the Kingdom of God, and whatever grace we feel will be temporary.  Victory’s sweetness won’t redeem our own mistakes, change the minds of our remaining enemies, or lead us into full employment.

And although it is useful for us to make moral critiques of our leaders, we must remember that leaders must engage a messy world.   Their choices are limited, and few of them are good.  In this case, we were fortunate.  Instead of invading an entire country at great cost, Obama kept his promise find OBL with reverence and gravity, as a leader who understood his own power and responsibility.  He used evidence that was found without torture. He chose against alternative attacks that would have most likely caused enormous damage to life and reputation.  He clearly understood that he’d bear the consequences of a failed attempt.  And he nonetheless went after an enemy who provided great political cover for previous presidents.  The tradition does not insist that our political leaders be saints; it merely hopes they be wise, with God’s grace and mercy.   Their decisions will be imperfect.   But may they understand the consequences of their actions and do what is just, knowing randomness and luck determine the fate of the most well considered decision.

Those of us committed to the tradition, may nonetheless take the challenging view against a culture that understands vindication as the ultimate lens of correct judgment.  The Holy Spirit that Jesus breathed upon the disciples was established like so:  if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.  When we are mocked, challenged, disabused, we forgive so we may not be like them; and when we cannot forgive the sins of others, we remain like them.  This description of the Spirit revealed that only forgiveness has any hope of halting the violence as culture’s dynamic force.   It does not mean we have been unrealistic:  those who do forgive will inevitably be faced with carrying their own crosses.   They may become victims themselves.  And this is a choice our political leaders cannot be expected to make as a choice on behalf of others.

We must also remember that this world is broken, and we have no choice but to participate in its brokenness.  We stumble along, not knowing what the future brings, sometimes hurting people along the way.  We may become soldiers, not merely to defeat our enemies,  but to protect the innocent, knowing that there will be individuals so wounded they cannot admit the healing possibility of grace and peace, and insist on revenge and retaliation, seeking to wound, harm and satisfy the urge to punish.   We become soldiers aware we may kill people just like us.

Clearly, when we do take a life, the tradition says we do not behave like God; but we may also never know what acting like God would look like, except as Christ, who remained vulnerable, without judgement, and offering his own life so that others would live.  We say violence can not permanently end violence; it merely relocates it, while it waits to reappear another time.

The cross exposes the mechanics of violence and its secret pleasures, revealing its limits, disenchanting our urge to destroy, placing the responsibility on our own heads.  The blessing of empire, as Paul and early Christians knew, was to be able to conduct violence with relative impunity and attribute it to God.  The blessing of God is that forgiveness may allow us to see a glimmer of a world that works differently, that understands violence is about our own envy and fear about God, and not from God herself.

We should always tell the truth of the kingdom: the world need not be this way. It does not, however, excuse us from having dirty hands.  May we not be so righteous that we cannot do the work in this world, believing only in the virtues of the next.   But also may the love we show one another, through God’s grace, be the ablutions that wash the stain of blood and victory from our own fingers, even in our own righteousness.

But my confession:  if this killing means our troops come home a little earlier; that our country focuses on the economy; if we can breath a little more easily,  I’ll take it.  But I also pray that the Lord’s mercy will be infinitely more generous than my own.

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Faith and Doubt

A parishioner once took me aside and asked, “I just don’t believe in all of this stuff.  I look around at all the people here and wonder, ‘does everyone else believe this?’ and I’m amazed. Am I the only person who thinks like this?”

Of course, he isn’t.  Plenty of people in the pews have their own doubts and questions.  They cross their fingers at the appropriate time of the Nicene creed; some sing because they can’t bear to say it.  We compartmentalize, dividing our heads from our hearts.   An Episcopalian who hasn’t questioned the church, God and organized religion wasn’t raised in the tradition very well.

The parishioner had good reasons to be skeptical. He’d had a hard life and, like lots of faithful people, struggled with the basic question of suffering and God’s goodness.

The apostle Thomas had doubts.  He hadn’t been there the day before when he’d seen what the others had seen. He may have thought most of his friends were a bit dim and too credulous.  Why should he take them at their word? They’ve said they’ve seen a body!  That’s ridiculous.

I imagine that Thomas as a due diligence officer, a regulator, or an auditor. He knew that there are people who take short cuts, eager to make a quick buck, the swindlers who take advantage of our gullibility and propensity to see what we want. He’s the guy who wants to know how a magician did the trick, and demands that it be done twice so he can figure it out.

So then Jesus reappears to the disciples.  He breaks bread and offers peace.  He shows the wounds.  But Thomas still isn’t operating on faith at this time:  no – the body was right there.   Asking for faith is easy when you’ve got evidence.

But perhaps, seeing the body was the secondary part of the faith.  The real leap of faith was to accept the offer of forgiveness.  Forgiveness for betraying Christ; forgiveness to the persecutors for their persecution; the forgiveness that breaks a cycle of  violence.   The momentary reconciliation that offers the possibility of more life.

This forgiveness means we assume the best in others; we offer them breathings space, charity and discretion; breathing space offers freedom; and freedom unlocks our own potential.   It may be a mistaken, foolish, and risky act, to have faith in another person.
Of course, we need not ask this of our political leaders, of our inspectors, of those who have to make snap judgments in a broken world.  They need to be right more than wrong.  They can’t afford these moments of grace.  They have to calculate the costs.

But perhaps faith is another way of saying, we’re allowed to be wrong in who and what we trust.  Though we may be battered, bruised and hurt by the vicissitudes of chance, the power says that with this faith we still stand up again, although that same love may put our familiar lives at risk.

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