Extreme Home Takeover

Before I went to Seminary I worked here, first as the church's "urban intern" in Chester, PA; a city whose poverty is suggested by the fact that its school system ranked dead last in the State's 501 districts. Rather than show up on the scene Kipling style, we did it right by partnering with a Chester church. The joint ministry involved purchasing abandoned homes, fixing them up with volunteer labor from both churches, and then selling the homes at a rock bottom rates to members of the Chester church. The process, which culminated in joint worship services, was so effective that at one point the city of Chester asked us to completely take over their urban renewal program.

Since then ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition has taken up a similar housing ministry of their own. Americans of my generation generally develop a deep cynicism about T.V. culture due to having watched so much of it when we were young, and it takes a lot to overcome our suspicion... But Extreme Home Makeover does a pretty good job. They tackle serious, sometimes desperate problems with an army of skilled labor and virtually unlimited resources - leaving the problems always spectacularly solved.

Contrasting these two "ministries" leads me to ask: If you were a poor family in Chester, who would you rather have come to fix up a home? The scraggly band of volunteers from two churches slowly learning how to get along - or the omni-competent ABC funded platoon with a Hollywood level dose of teary compassion and yee haw enthusiasm, not to mention the sex appeal of Ty the handy guy and self-declared tuff chix Paige Hemmis? If you're on the fence, the fact that only one "ministry" would give your family the chance to be on national TV might put you over the edge.

Granted poverty is such that any and all efforts at its alleviation are to be welcomed, but another hypothetical question: If Extreme Home Makeover continued to multiply its projects, would it have the power to put church ministries like the one I worked at out of business? The answer I think is Yes. If, that is, social ministry is all churches were interested in doing. It wouldn't however put Media Presbyterian's ministry out of business, because our pastor Bill Borror (whose sermons are well worth a listen) frequently remarked that the one thing we can do that just any home building service can't do is preach the Gospel. And important as home-building is, the Gospel, which is the reason we do it, takes priority.

In contrast, if all a church is interested in is social ministry, then Extreme Home Makeover can and should takeover. I admire the moral fiber of the church that only cares about building low income housing - but given the choice I'd rather volunteer for and write a check to ABC. To put it an admittedly playful and un-nuanced way, Walter Rauschenbusch is Ty Pennington.

Should the Lord tarry, the Church will be around long after ABC has been replaced by whatever communications media render it irrelevant. The church will so endure not because of her humanitarian labors, but because of the life-giving message that has and will continue to inspire them. Meanwhile the parts of the church that have forgotten the Gospel (or are unsuccessfully attempting its reinvention) enjoy ABC's future irrelevance today!

Islam's Greatest Enemy?

The Samarra aftermath? Not so good. Though we await the outcome of the investigation as to who was behind the attack, most likely the bomb was set off by Muslim extremists, intending (let's hope not successfully) to spark civil war.

Meanwhile in Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock is quite deliberately patterned to rival the earlier dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which marks (we are told) both the place of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. The middle picture above (the Sepulchre dome is gray) makes this visual polemic unmistakable.

In a wake up call to progressive Christians who think one can "reconsider" the Trinity without consequence, a major inscription in the Dome of the Rock pleads:

"Stop talking about a Trinity. Cease in your own best interests! Verily God is the God of unity. Lord Almighty! That God would beget a child?"

Christians in contrast joyfully insist on the dynamic fecundity of the triune God who is love, and because love is necessarily directed to another - talk about an eternal Trinity we must. This certainly doesn't mean there isn't room for Muslim/Christian agreement. A real Christian and a real Muslim can sign on (at the very least) to...

1. A God who exists independent of human perception.
2. The greatness, mercy and glory of God which surpasses human perception.
3. The fact that God has nevertheless been revealed so as to be grapsed (albeit not completely) by human perception.
4. The fact that naughty Enlightenment no-no's like miracles and angels might just be admissible to a reasonable mind after all.
5. The fact that that God makes moral demands of humans that are not to be lightly dismissed.
6. The fact that humans will be held accountable to such demands on a future day of judgment.
7. The fact that faith, prayer, fasting, giving alms and even going on pilgrimage are all very good ideas.

It would be a banner day in inter-Christian dialogue if Christians could find common consent on all such points. I have even gotten to where procuring point #1 alone from my Princeton co-religionists makes me feel like I've hit the ecumenical jackpot - whereas with a Muslim, all seven (I assume) enjoy normative consent.

However when it comes to exactly how this God has been revealed (no small matter), I cannot deny the supra-prophetic divinity of Jesus Christ - not to mention the Sprit - which firmly plants me on Trinitarian turf. Real Christians and real Muslims will always be at (not necessarily violent) odds about this. But that being said, perhaps yesterday's events illustrate that the greatest threat to Islam might not be from those "talking about a Trinity."

As was probably the case in Samarra, the most pernicious threat to Islam is (I would not be the first to suggest) from pseudo-Muslims; just as the most pernicious threat to Christianity is from pseudo-Christians. And not having been yet canonized, this of course includes myself.

Farewell Samarra?

Here at millinerd I don't make it a point to comment on every current event (my apologies to anyone for whom this is their primary news source). But today, because of an uncanny coincidence, I couldn't resist.

This semester I am auditing a course on the Arts of the Islamic World. Today we were, strangely, scheduled to discuss the archaeology of Samarra. A brief history lesson: The first Islamic caliphate was the Umayyad one, whose capital was Damascus. They were denounced as irreligious and were overcome in a bloody rebelllion by the Abbasids who placed their capital near the once famed Babylon in Baghdad (726). Soon however an intellectual party developed in Baghdad who suggested that the Koran may have been written and redacted by people, and that it might even be profitably interpreted allegorically. These more (for lack of a better term) Hellenized Muslims moved the capital from Baghdad to Samarra. Samarra, one might then argue, was one of the first sites of "progressive" Islam. The professor then showed us Samarra's Al Askari Mosque pictured above, and then showed it to us blown up. The attack, most likely committed by Muslims, happened a few hours before the lecture.

Now granted the Al Askari Mosque was built much later (10th century) and completed only in the 20th, admittedly a good while after the intellectual heydey of Samarra that I have described. Nevertheless, the fact that our professor had just described Samarra as a center of progressive Islam and then showed the rubble of its central mosque is an image that will stick with me for a very long time.

More on this to come.

word cloud

It's kind of like looking in the mirror. I particularly liked how they, as if I paid them, put millinerd next to orthodoxy.

Hat tip to verbumipsum.

Wanted: Mature and Saintly Disputants

Alan Jacobs was tearing it up on CSPAN Book TV today regarding The Narnian. My favorite part was Jacobs' exegesis of a great Lewis quote on the Reformation, and its relevance to religious disputation today. Said Lewis,

"The process whereby 'faith and works' become a stock gag in the commercial theatre is characteristic of that whole tragic farce which we call the history of the Reformation. The theological questions really at issue have no significance except on a certain level, a high level, of the spiritual life; they could have been fruitfully debated only between mature and saintly disputants in close privacy and at boundless leisure. Under those conditions formulae might possibly have been found which did justice to the Protestant - I had almost said the Pauline - assertions without compromising other elements of the Christian faith. In fact, however, these questions were raised at a moment when they immediately became embittered and entangled with a whole complex of matters theologically irrelevant, and therefore attracted the fatal attention both of government and the mob. When once this had happened, Europe's chance to come through unscathed was lost. It was as if men were set to conduct a metaphysical argument at a fair, in competition or (worse still) forced collaboration with the cheapjacks and the round-abouts, under the eyes of an armed and vigilant police force who frequently changed sides. Each party increasingly misunderstood the other and triumphed in refuting positions which their opponents did not hold: Protestants misrepresenting Romans as Pelagians or Romans misrepresenting Protestants as Antinomians."

Kind of makes me think of CNN's take on religious dialogue.

UPDATE: Thanks to a reader email I have been moved to discover that the quote is from Lewis' English Literature in the Sixteenth Century (p. 37).

Feminism Re-Revisited

In the comments below, my wife suggested in response to tomtastic (who, to those who don't know him, was joking in that last bit) I write a new post. What better way to model a non-patriarchal household of complementarian harmony than to heed her suggestion?

Well tomtastic, in the Ephesians passage you only quoted the three verses of instructions to the wives. The next eight verses cover instructions to husbands, which are so extraordinarily demanding that the passage, read in context, stands sharply opposed to the classic patriarchal milieu in which it was written.

25 "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her..."

No such demand is made of the wives. Only one sex in this passage gets told to be willing to be tortured and killed for the other one, and it's not the females. The point is even restated in 5:33, where men again are told to love, and women only to respect. The feminist retorts, "Ahh, see, women aren't even deemed capable of love in the Bible!" This feminist playfully responds, "Perhaps Paul assumed their ability, but knew the men needed the extra instruction."

It is helpful in these cases I think to remember that the expression "take offense" requires a deliberate action on behalf of the offended party, an action which is not required. When not seeking to be offended by Ephesians 5, there is room to let the dominant verse hit you right between the eyes, which I think is

21 "Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ."

Structure is not evil - abuse of structure is. Christianity, in my view, seeks to redeem structures but not to destroy them. The point made below about the cross deconstructing all "archy" means (if it's correct) that in light of the Master of the Universe (not that one) becoming a foot-washer, "position" should, at least for a Christian, no longer be in such unquestionable demand. If anything, position means more responsibility and stricter judgment, and so why would someone seek it out for its own sake? For example, most great leaders of the early church actively sought to flee public positions of leadership. Which is why I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Mainline Protestant bureaucrats today campaign Washington-style to become captains of their sinking ships. (No, I'm not dismissing all leadership attained in this fashion, just making a Socratic point which can I'm sure be given adequate response... or not.)

The whole "I want power too" perspective on these matters, according to which the controversial passages under discussion are usually attacked, and according to which the ordination-wars are usually carried out, therefore seems to me deeply un-Christian.

Unless of course Jesus was wrong, in which case I retract my point entirely.

Feminism Revisited

As you may have gathered from the millinarcissism sidebar, I consider myself a feminist. I think my conversion came when I saw that bumpersticker that said "Feminism is the radical notion that women are people." I thought, "Guess I'm a feminist."

However, I've grown rather shy in my convictions of late. Perhaps it was the incident in a Seminary class last year. In a discussion about feminism, I made the point that when some women dismiss all western philosophy as patriarchal, the actually concede a lot more to Aristotle et. al. than they in fact should. Great ideas are not the property of men, and a woman should feel completely free to use them (or not) because they could have as easily been thought of, or thought better, by a woman. Western philosophy is not all tainted anymore than it is all true. Truth, I remarked, is independent of the sex that proclaims it. If someone shouts "Look out, Bus!" it really doens't matter to me what their gender is. The point is heed the remark and not get run over by the bus.

I thought it was the beginning of a good conversation, but it was cut short by a woman who announced to the class, "I'd just like everyone to keep in mind that the person who just made that argument is male." I think there's a word for dismissing people not on the merit of what they say but merely because of their sex, but surely she wasn't being sexist. Only men can do that. So I just stopped talking about feminism. After all, how could I trust myself? I am man. Hear me whimper.

But recently I've been inspired, and now, forgetful of my sex (mind the obscure book reference), I dare address the topic again.

Continue...

Of course there are many feminisms. Often most vocal is the feminism that dismisses all human history as a patriarchal mess until N.O.W. was founded in 1966. It is reminiscent of the Marxist whom I spoke with in London who, in response to my question whether all history was a black hole until Karl Marx's birthday, answered unhesitatingly "YES."

Much more interesting however is the feminism that suggests the problem may not be as much patriarchal history (although it is often undeniable and always regrettable), as with patriarchal historians who have overlooked the historical role of women. This kind of feminism does not need to make up data, but only uncover it - for it most definitely is there. It is a worthwhile endeavor, and I've tried to give a few examples of it with Radegund, Christiana, Macrina, and The Republic.

Here are two more:

Rigoletto
At the risk of severing our populist roots, Denise and I went to see Verdi's Rigoletto at the Met this week (with a nicely subsidized student rate). You've heard the main theme before (click the sound icon here) at least in Spaghetti commercials. The lyrics strike one immediately as shockingly sexist. The womanizing Duke of Mantua sings:

La donna e mobile, qual piuma al vento,
Woman is unpredictable, like a feather in the wind,
muta d'accento, e di pensiero.
she changes her voice, and her thoughts
Sempre un amabile, leggiadro viso,
Always a sweet, pretty face,
in pianto o in riso, e menzognero.
in tears or in laughter, always lying
La donna e mobile, qual piuma al vento...
Woman is unpredictable, like a feather in the wind...

But context is everything. When seeing the actual Opera, the lyrics take on the reverse meaning. For the womanizing Duke of Mantua is in fact all the things he sings about without exception, whereas (SPOILER ALERT) in contrast to him stands Gilda: A faithful, unfickle, rock solid, heroic woman who loves that faithless man even to the end.

Now certainly a feminist might retort by saying that Rigoletto actually supports the mistreatment of women by showing that women should stay with scumbags. But although the Opera could certainly be viewed that way, I think it a forced reading considering that almost every scene is devoted to contrasting the real love of Gilda to the false "loves," either possessive or faithless, of various men. If anything, there might even be a case for calling the Opera matriarchical, but go there I shall not.

I Timothy 2
Considering the hard partricarchal milieu in which it was written, the Bible is of course at many points unusually "feminist" in its approach. For example, although the Gospels do portray Christ with twelve male disciples, they all prove faithless. It is the women who stay with Christ to the end, and it is the women to whom Christ first reveals his resurrected glory. However there are of course those infamous texts that seem on first read a flat endorsement of male chauvinism, one of the worst cases being this passage from 1 Timothy 2. New Testament scholar N.T. Wright's take on the matter however is particularly insightful. When considering this passage, the key

"is to recognise that it is commanding that women, too, should be allowed to study and learn, and should not be restrained from doing so (verse 11). They are to be 'in full submission'; this is often taken to mean 'to the men', or 'to their husbands', but it is equally likely that it refers to their attitude, as learners, of submission to God or to the gospel - which of course would be true for men as well. Then the crucial verse 12 need not be read as 'I do not allow a woman to teach or hold authority over a man' - the translation which has caused so much difficulty in recent years. It can equally mean (and in context this makes much more sense): 'I don't mean to imply that I'm now setting up women as the new authority over men in the same way that previously men held authority over women.' Why might Paul need to say this?

There are some signs in the letter that it was originally sent to Timothy while he was in Ephesus. And one of the main things we know about religion in Ephesus is that the main religion - the biggest Temple, the most famous shrine - was a female-only cult. The Temple of Artemis (that's her Greek name; the Romans called her Diana) was a massive structure which dominated the area; and, as befitted worshippers of a female deity, the priests were all women. They ruled the show and kept the men in their place."

The details, including his translation of the passage can be found in the article. But if Wright is right, then as with Rigoletto, context properly understood leads to a much different meaning than first impression may convey. I am quite confident that many feminists would here object, and not only because N.T. Wright is a male but because they think he is glossing a serious difficulty. But then again, he's not a marginal scholar, and he just might be correct.

The point of course is not to dismiss that patriarchy happened. It certainly did. But as a good friend once remarked to me, the problem is not patriarchy as much as it is archy - that is power. And power was dealt with decisively when omnipotence divested itself on the cross so long ago. Christianity: Bringing you radical deconstruction since the third decade of the 1st century.

But keep in mind this is a man telling you all this. I can't be trusted.

I heard a rooster crowing...

PBS and Irony

Let me get this straight. I'm watching a PBS special, and they pan to a soundbite from scholar Miranda Aldhouse Green, author of such spiritual classics as The World of the Druids and The Gods of the Celts, who seems rather angry. Specifically she is angry at the Christians who defamed her subject of study, trying as the Christians apparently did to make the Druids, Celts and other Barbarians sound, well, "barbarous." (Here's one example.)

I realize my tale to be thus far an unremarkable one for PBS, but context is everything. The program was called The Perfect Corpse which examines some of the remarkably preserved victims of what were probably human sacrifice in the pre-Christian era discovered in bogs. I had seen one such corpse before at the British Museum, not realizing however that they were legion. Most of them, keep in mind, sport exotic ritual torture wounds. The map above shows you where some of the victims were found, and it doesn't take a Ph.D. in archaeology to deduce that those that are found (over one thousand) probably indicate many more than were not. (Unless of course every bog in northwestern Europe happens to have been thoroughly inspected by archaeologists, in which case I retract my point.)

Do you see why it took me a while to get Dr. Aldhouse Green's contextually puzzling remark straight? It brings up that ever pressing question of the limits of cultural tolerance. Mark Steyn has his ideas about that in regard to the cartoon crisis. All I'm looking for is an admission, that at least in the case of ritual human sacrifice, Christianization wasn't always a bad idea.

Why Are They Glowing?

Because they just finished their Princeton University Chapel tour, that's why! Jealous? Then swing by the chapel this Saturday Feb 4th at 10am. The now completed stain glass window restoration cost 10 million dollars, but the tour is free. It's offered in conjuction with the P.U. Office of Religious Life, and led by your scribe, millinerd. Of course, all are welcome.

These will probably be happening again, so fret not should you already be otherwise engaged.

With Sam Alito confirmed and all controversy behind us, I thought I'd call the tours C.A.P., That is, Chapel Admirers of Princeton. But seeing that I'd like people to actually show up, perhaps not.

Mystic Buzzkill?

First Flew, then Korn, then Rice, and now Wolf?

"It's very embarrassing," she explains. "We're intellectuals, we're on the left, we're not supposed to talk like that." And by "that", she means

"I was completely dumbfounded but I actually had this vision of... of Jesus, and I'm sure it was Jesus... But it wasn't this crazy theological thing; it was just this figure who was the most perfected human being - full of light and full of love. And completely accessible. Any of us could be like that. There was light coming out of him holographically, simply because he was unclouded. But any of us could become that as human beings."

Well, call it a crazy theological thing, but any of us could not be like that as mere human beings.

Quelle buzzkill, millinerd. Isn't it out of line to critique someone else's private mystical encounter with some wet blanket theology? No more than it would be out of line for someone familiar with basic astronomy to gently correct a newcomer to the field who looked at the stars and in genuine wonder remarked "Wow, there must be thousands of them." A misintereptation of a mystical encounter in no way nullifies the encounter, and good theology can only serve to enhance it.

That being said, pardon me while I get over my Acts Niner.