July 29, 2010 3

“Humankind Cannot Bear Very Much Reality.”

By Matthew Lee Anderson in Outside Articles of Interest

“HUMANKIND CANNOT BEAR VERY MUCH REALITY”

That from T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets, his “answer” to the problems he raised in The Wasteland. Or at least I think it is.  I didn’t understand The Wasteland the first time I read it, and my comprehension hasn’t improved much since.

That’s the opening to a short essay I wrote for my new friend Steve Wood, who is the rector of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.

Of course, the whole theme needs expanding to account for the two biggest movies in the last twelve months–Inception and Avatar–but it’s a start.  Feel free to let me know in the comments what you think.

July 27, 2010 4

Hunter on the Power of Politics

By Matthew Lee Anderson in Theology (Political)

While rereading To Change the World, I came across this passage, where Hunter almost anticipates my remarks:

Some argue that what we need is a redefinition of politics, one that is more capacious and capable of absorbing actions, ideas, and initiatives that are independent of the State.  The idea here is to reclaim or restore a “proper” understanding of the political.  Such efforts would, in principle, accomplish the same end I am describing here.  This position is certainly worthy of serious debate but as a sociologist who is attentive to the power of institutions, I am inclined to think that all such efforts will be swallowed up by the current ways in which politics is thought of and used. It is why I continue to think that it is important to separate the public from the political and to think of new ways of thinking and speaking and acting in public that are not merely political.” (emphasis mine)

Yes, there is a danger that attempts at reform might lead to the perpetuation of the standard way of doing things.

But then, there’s a danger that any presence might cease to be faithful and be co-opted by the power structures of the institutions in which it exists.

If anything, Hunter’s reply seems to unfairly single out politics as particularly resistant to reform.  What if the institution in question were, say, the academy with its (ostensibly) liberal bias?  We might want to rethink the academy, but any attempts to institutionalize those reforms from within the system would be just as susceptible to co-option by “current ways in which [academia] is thought of and used.”  Yet is not doing so simply one way of being “faithfully present” as an academic administrator?  Why, then, can’t politicians play as well?

Which is to say, bad ideas and ways of doing thing have a way of wanting to stick around, regardless of which institution they exist in.

July 26, 2010 5

Metaphysics and Meaning of James Davison Hunter

By Matthew Lee Anderson in Metaphysics (Ontology)

Milliner’s characteristically incisive remarks today include this graph from James Matthew Wilson:

The meaning of the world that we usually describe as constituting culture, or a culture… does not depend primarily upon our social conventions. Rather, the signs of a culture are founded on natural signs, and, indeed, are themselves natural signs in whose fashioning our intellects cooperate, and for whose knowledge and joy they exist. Given how destructive the wars and social changes of the last century have been—above all the change in thought that has tried to reduce even the human person to a fungible fact for exploitation—we should take great comfort in that fact.

Though Milliner’s dealing with the question in an artistic context, metaphysics comes in different forms.  I’m not in the same league as the fellow he mentions, but I’m trying.  The refrain–which was O’Donovan’s before it was mine– “there is an objective order of goods in creation” is simply Milliner’s point in different clothing.

Either a natural order exists, or we impose it.  Either the meaning is tied to the structure of things, or we make it up.

And if the order exists, our options are conformity or rebellion.  There is no middle ground here, despite the ambiguities and uncertainties that we experience in our confrontation with it.  But if we reject metaphysics, our only resource for ethics is our will, and God’s.

And we only need to read James Davison Hunter to see how that turned out.

(Apologies for simply repeating a point I’ve made before, and Milliner’s point.  However, I’m increasingly convinced that this is the notion on which Christianity in the modern world stands or falls.  Which means if I wear myself out trying to make it in different ways and places, well, count it as my attempt at establishing a faithful presence.)

July 26, 2010 23

Evangelical “Tina Fey” Academics

By Matthew Lee Anderson in Christianity and Culture

“Are you going to be the Tina Fey of your field?”

That’s the question that was put to some of evangelicalism’s best and brightest, who gathered at Veritas Riff, the new program from the estimable Veritas Forum, to learn the weighty art of…improv theater.

You won’t hear me belittling the good that can come from learning improv.  I think it’s a fantastic training ground for all sorts of skills, not least of which is the ability to conduct meaningful conversations and discussions.

But the event seems to betray a populist approach to culture, as though the professor’s work won’t really be influential unless it is communicated to a popular audience.  As the article states, they want to equip “Christian thought leaders with the communication skills and peer support to become recognized and compelling cultural commentators.”

Maybe it’s my own skepticism about the good I’m doing in the world, but I tend to think that the real work isn’t being done by the nebulous “cultural commentators,” who seem to be a dime a dozen, but by real thinkers who are devoted to investing deeply in the next generation of Christian leaders and scholars.  If there’s a problem with “staid Christian scholars,” in other words, I suspect it’s less one of skill and more one of passion, drive, and connection to their student’s lives.

But then there’s Peter Marten’s take-down in the letters to the editor:

VF’s diagnosis of the problem is that the reason evangelical academics have a disproportionately small influence on their students and American society at large is that they lack media and theatrical training. I wonder if it is not more likely that the cause of low influence is that evangelicals as a group have a disproportionately low interest in pursuing academic careers…

I have a more effective proposal for the founders of VR. If you want to shape the academic world outside of the evangelical enclave, leave Ms. Fey to do her own thing (a craft which, by the way, took her more than four days of intensive training to hone). Evangelical leaders should instead heed the well-established strategies of other religious movements in this country. Establish endowed chairs for their outstanding scholars at nonevangelical institutions. This will ensure a solid sphere of influence outside of the evangelical subculture.

In wrestling, that’d be two points.

In the Q&A at the AEI event with Dr. Hunter, he casually remarked that if you really wanted to know where a culture is going, follow its academics, a principle that I have argued for in the past and wholeheartedly endorse.  Somehow, I don’t think this was precisely what he had in mind.

July 25, 2010 26

Cremation and Burial as Communal Acts

By Matthew Lee Anderson in Christianity and Culture

It’s an odd topic, but one that I find fascinating.  Like all matters of practical wisdom, the question of cremation highlights the presuppositions we have and how those shape our intuitions.

The latest Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society has a piece on the topic by David Jones, which JT calls “a model of careful Christian ethical analysis and application.”  That praise is a bit too strong for my blood.  Jones’ piece is good, but weak at crucial points.

I mention two such points here.

First, when turning to the theological implications of the Resurrection, Jones writes:

“After reviewing some of the key historical, biblical, and theological considerations that have been a part of the moral discussion of cremation within the Judeo-Christian tradition, ultimately the practice must be viewed as an adiaphora [i.e. Scripture is indifferent] issue.”

Here Jones is a little too careful.  Immediately after he says that Scripture’s indifferent on the matter, he suggests the trajectory is “pro-burial” and that we ought to way the “act and imagery” of burial practices carefully because of Scripture’s high view of the body.

But how is it that the anthropology of Scripture can work to undercut a particular practice, while simultaneously being indifferent toward it?  In this case, it seems like a great example of an overreliance on a clear command in Scripture in order to make normative claims.

But my real worry is the second:

“Certainly not all deaths will afford loved ones an opportunity to choose the method of interment. Indeed, factors such as the location and manner of death, nation-specific legal parameters, as well as the resources of the surviving family will bear upon funerary practices and decisions.Yet, if given a choice, those left behind ought to consider carefully what is being communicated in their handling of the body of a decedent.”

Again, true enough.  But notice where responsibility for the dead lies?  On the family, not upon the church.  The church lives together, but apparently leaves its dead alone.  I get financial hardship.  But I don’t understand families having to take sole responsibility for the care of those members of the church who die.

Additionally, there’s a presumption here that because Scripture doesn’t offer a definitive word on the morality of burial practices that they are, in fact, indifferent.  Hence, we have the responsibility to think about burial only if we have the funds for it.  The notion, though, that burial is a witness only for those who are financially able to pursue it undercuts any notion that it is a witness to the Christian gospel. Leaving individuals out to bear witness to the Christian gospel if they can afford it undercuts the whole premise that we live, die, and bear witness within the community of the church.

There may be some reason to cremate folks that is consistent with the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and that takes into account the role of the community, but I can’t for the life of me think what it is.

July 24, 2010 2

One Year Later, a Few People to Thank

By Matthew Lee Anderson in All Things Lovely

There is an enormous amount that I have to be grateful for.  One year ago, I left my employment as a financial planner in order to pursue a crazy dream of becoming a writer.  It just sounds so pretentious when I say it, I can barely stand myself.

That’s actually false.  I love calling myself a writer.  It sounds infinitely better than a “blogger.”

But still, it was a crazy decision.  And I am grateful that my wife supported it. My confidence in my writing has grown exponentially in the past year, in large part due to her support. 95% of that has been she finally started reading what I had to say.

I’m also grateful for the friends I’ve made since then, like Christopher Benson and Jake Meador.  Both of them heroically picked up some of the slack around here while I was traipsing around Europe like a college kid. Keep your eye on both of those guys, as they’re going to do remarkable things.   I suspect you haven’t seen the last of them around here, either.

I am enormously grateful to my publisher and editor, Andy McGuire of Bethany House, who has believed in me, encouraged me, and supported me through this process.  Did I think I would have a book contract six months after quitting my job to pursue this as a vocation?  Not. At. All.

And how do I say this?  Our readers.  Readers. It’s a remarkable reality, a fact worth enormous rejoicing, that such a category of people exist.  And they do exist–I met one this past Monday in Washington D.C., which was without a doubt the highlight of my trip.  I am so grateful to her and to the many other folks who have emailed, questioned, and spread the word about our growing corner of the world.

As Sheldon and Davy Van Auken would say on their anniversary, “If it’s half as good as the half that’s been, here’s ‘hail!’ to the rest of the road.”

July 23, 2010 12

Discussing a Delicate Issue

By Andrew Walker in Cities, East and West, Islam, Law, Politics, Sociology, War and Peace

Of late, one of the current topics I’ve spent the most time thinking about has been the debate surrounding the plan to build a Mosque near Ground Zero. Below is a video which has garnered significant attention on YouTube. I would like you, the dazzling readers of Mere-O, to watch this video and share your thoughts about it—whether negative, positive, the outlandish, etc.. In the next day or so, I’ll plan to further this discussion on how Christians ought to navigate the desire for religious liberty while simultaneously upholding the virtues of Western Civilization.

What say you?

July 23, 2010 12

Revisiting Marriage and Capitalism

By Matthew Lee Anderson in Christianity and Culture

Should we put capitalism and traditional views of marriage back on the table?

That’s the claim that James Davison Hunter made in the question and answer period.  It was obviously a direct reply to my remarks, even though he didn’t say so.   In fact, he said it as though he expected me to disagree.

I don’t.

Of course we should question capitalism and how the structure of traditional marriage.  And while we’re at it, let’s question the reliability of Scripture, the possibility of God’s goodness existing along with horrendous evils in this world, and whether the Heat are going to win 70 games next year.

As far as I’m concerned, we oughta question it all, if only because it’s the only possible way to dignify the ideas and ourselves.  And those ideas that are the closest to the center of our understanding of the world are the ideas that demand the hardest questions.

Which is to say, we ought to think.  And to the extent that we do that, we need to be open to revising our opinions on capitalism, the family, and God in light of what we discover.

Look, social conservatives have found themselves in the difficult position have having almost all the right conclusions (I think), but without decent reasons for those conclusions.  That’s certainly true of “normal” social conservatives.  But I sometimes wonder how much the leadership even thinks about the philosophical and theological issues that undergird their political action.  It’s tempting to get caught up in strategy all the time, a temptation I’m told pro-lifers in Congress succumb tooften.  If that’s accurate–and I don’t much care either way–a dose of solid questioning would do them a world of good.

I’m no skeptic, nor do I think “question everything” is much of a slogan to live by.  But we ought to occasionally pull the assumptions of our personal and political action up from beneath the surfaces of our lives and consider whether they are true, lest we waste our time chasing leprechauns.

I think that’s what we do here at Mere-O.  That’s what we want to do.  And if we fail at that, I trust you’ll let us know.

July 22, 2010 3

The Truth in Honesty

By Andrew Walker in America, Politics

What was perpetrated this week by a particular brand of conservatism was neither conservative nor amenable to any type of Christianity seeking to align itself with the Right. I am, of course, referring to the Breitbartian tactics employed against Shirley Sherrod. As you’re all well aware of by now, a video of Sherrod was circuited by Breitbart which implicated Sherrod in a past racist action in her position as a government employee. What failed to be considered at the time the story broke was the failure of Breitbart to divulge the full content of Sherrod’s speech to the NAACP, a speech in which she lamented her own racist attitudes and overcame them through economic solidarity with the white farmer she was assigned to assist, rather than racial polarity as Andrew Breitbart would have us believe.

Thankfully, respectable conservative journalists have succeeded in labeling this tactic as it truly is: a pernicious attempt to use the highly charged issue of racism in what amounts to race-baiting.

Whereas I hoped I would encounter a mainstream, populist conservatism which would have soundly condemned Breitbart’s malicious actions, there’s been silence. Hannity and Beck, rather than condemn this type of maneuvering, have no less used this situation to highlight seemingly absurd actions of the Left and NAACAP, omitting any possibility that they may have been complicit in contributing to the fallout the story precipitated.

For readers of Mere-O tempted to endorse, carte blanche, the motives and actions resonant with movements associated with Andrew Breitbart, take a step back and recognize that the Christian faith bluntly puts a halt on deceptive actions meant to inject unnecessary emotion to an already delicate and volatile situation. Let’s be able to call a lie for what it is. Let’s be able to call out, prophetically, the actions of those supposedly representing our values with humble temerity. Any attempt on the part of Christian conservatives and conservative Christians to somehow present a defense of this week’s action is not only wrong, but blithely falling prey to a political culture aimed towards the destruction of one’s opponent.

July 22, 2010 13

Expecting to Change the World: A Reply to James Davison Hunter

By Matthew Lee Anderson in Christianity and Culture

Milliner’s synopsis about my reply to James Davison Hunter is accurate, even if his praise is overstated. And make no mistake–it is.

But because a few folks have asked, I am posting my full remarks to Hunter here.  I’ll have a few more thoughts on the exchange (which you can also watch online) and on Hunter’s book later, but in the meantime, if you’ve read it or were at the event, I’d love to hear your feedback.

————–

When I mentioned to a senior member of the Christian community here in Washington D.C. that I was going to be responding to Dr. Hunter tonight, he graciously advised me that I would do well to simply agree with him and take my seat. Whether that was a comment on the accuracy of Professor Hunter’s ideas or my own intellectual acumen I leave to you to decide. But given that I am not prone to using exclamation points, much less acting as one, I will foolishly demure from my elder’s sagacious advice and blaze—as I have often attempted to do—my own way.

I am grateful for Professor Hunter’s remarks, and even more for his remarkable book. There are few works that articulate many of the core frustrations that I have felt as patiently as his did. As a son of an evangelical pastor, a student at an evangelical university, a teacher of evangelical homeschoolers, and a staff member at a young-evangelical church, I have known well the emptiness of the evangelical community and have been a participant in attempts to revive it. I speak , in other words, the language of world-changing fluently.

Read the rest of this entry »

July 22, 2010 3

Developing an Ecological Orientation Through the Narrative Imagination

By Christopher Benson in Creation and Creativity, Literature, Theology (Christian Life)

For the last several weeks I have been trying to develop an ecological orientation through the narrative imagination. By ecological orientation, I mean “a new consciousness of the country” or “a new relation to it,” as the narrator of O Pioneers! describes in the exquisite passage below, which deserves a close reading:

Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so keenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch them, and to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered march. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations of nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security. That night she had a new consciousness of the country, felt almost a new relation to it. Even her talk with the boys had not taken away the feeling that had overwhelmed her when she drove back to the Divide that afternoon. She had never known before how much the country meant to her. The chirping of the insects down in the long grass had been like the sweetest music. She had felt as if her heart were hiding down there, somewhere, with the quail and the plover and all the little wild things that crooned or buzzed in the sun. Under the long shaggy ridges, she felt the future stirring.

The word “felt” appears four times and “feeling” one time because the author emphasizes that a connection with the land must involve our emotional life. Lest we confuse this orientation with sentimentalism, the narrator links feeling with reflection, thought, and consciousness––a neo-Stoic conception of emotions as cognitive construals of the world. Alexandra interprets the prairie in such a way that her future is bound up with it, much in the way that our future, as Christians, is bound up with the groanings of creation, as the apostle Paul says:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the fruitfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience (Romans 8:18-25).

When the passage from O Pioneers! is read in concert with this passage from the Book of Romans, we discover something very important: the nexus between creation, creature, and Creator. Too often Christians focus on the nexus between creature and Creator, neglecting creation. Unpacking Paul’s logic, we can see our redemptive narrative in nature’s mirror. Just as creation was “subjected to futility,” our flesh was in bondage to the “law of sin” (7:21-25). Just as creation will be liberated, our bodies will be resurrected. At the center of this redemptive narrative is the Creator, who summons us to wait patiently for the eschatological climax, similar to the Nebraskan farmer who waits patiently for her crops to yield a harvest. The challenge, I propose, is to feel that our hearts are hiding down in creation, where the future is stirring.

How do we do experience this nexus between creation, creature, and Creator? Lisa Graham McMinn and Megan Anna Neff forthcoming book, Walking Gently on the Earth: Making Faithful Choices About Food, Energy, Shelter, and More, offers practical resources. I offer something else: the narrative imagination. This expression is borrowed from philosopher Martha Nussbaum, who defines it as “the ability to think what it might be like to be in the shoes of a person different from oneself, to be an intelligent reader of that person’s story, and to understand the emotions and wishes and desires that someone so placed might have.” Nussbaum limits the narrative imagination to persons. I will follow another philosopher, Martin Buber, who extends sympathetic identification to nature. Where Buber contrasts the “I-It” relation, which exercises a will to power, and the “I-Thou” relation, which exercises a will to love, Cather contrasts two different ecological ethics: the ethic of conquest and the ethic of care. When Alexandra, in the above passage, has “a new consciousness of the country” and feels “a new relation to it,” she no longer shares the view of her father and neighboring pioneers who only see the land as an “It” to be exploited. Instead, she views it as a “Thou” to be cultivated and cherished.

The very act of reading O Pioneers! invites me to undergo this shift. I enter the narrative where the land becomes its own character––alive, mysterious, beautiful, idiosyncratic. So, where does an ecological orientation begin? In the imagination or heart, as Willa Cather famously says in her novel: “The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”

Further reading:

July 21, 2010 7

Christian Ethics in a Technological Age

By Christopher Benson in Reviews (Books)

I recently broadcast new and upcoming titles of interest, but a clear stand-out emerges. Here’s the career of an inquiry.

First, there was Lewis Mumford’s Technics and Civilization (1934).

Then there was Martin Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology” (1953).

Then, Jacques Ellul’s Technology and Society (1954).

Next, Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964).

After that Neil Postman’s Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992).

And now, almost two decades after the last book, Brian Brock’s Christian Ethics in a Technological Age (2010) promises to change everything . . . .

Christian Smith (University of Notre Dame): Christians are often so naive about the power of technological culture in our lives. Brian Brock isn’t. With sobering realism and Trinitarian clarity of vision, Brock shuts down happy optimism and focuses hope only in cross and resurrection, as worked out in the nitty-gritty particularities of our lives. The voices of Bonhoeffer, Barth, and Augustine, which Brock here brings to bear on the overwhelming domination of technology, are a gift to any seeking an alternative vision.

Stanley Hauerwas (Duke Divinity School): This is as good a treatment of Heidegger’s account of technology as any that we have, and a more appropriate theological response. Brian Brock is going to be one of the most important theologians of the future.

Michael Banner (Trinity College, University of Cambridge): A considered and mature statement of a serious position on a highly pertinent topic . . . . An extremely valuable contribution.

Bernd Wannenwetch (University of Oxford): Remarkable . . . . It is easy to criticize the technocratic spirit, but  much harder to point out an alternative. The books does.

John Webster (University of Oxford): A fine treatment, both in its scope and its perceptive analysis. . . . Brian Brock articulates judgments with force and clarity.

Hans Ulrich (University of Erlangen): Brock’s Christian Ethics in a Technological Age is not just one more contribution to the ethical and moral discourse on technology assessment. It pushes that discussion to a whole new level by meeting the need for a fundamental reflection on the ethical challenges presented by modern technology.


July 21, 2010 3

Expecting to Change the World

By Matthew Milliner in Theology (Political)

What if political conservatism, properly understood (as it almost never is) not as the propagation of ideology, but as ideology’s negation, naturally avoids James Davison Hunter’s critique of over-politicized Christianity, and, furthermore, absorbs some of Hunter’s best insights?

This was, if I’m not mistaken, one of the percipient points that Matthew Lee Anderson made in response to Professor Hunter at a recent event, in what was – incidentally – one of the most satisfying responses to the book I’ve yet encountered.

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