The New Victims

Tonight concluded PBS's airing of the BBC's atheism documentary. I think I was supposed to be frightened by the spooky man in the dark who, by the glow of a flashlight, quoted Thomas Paine, Shelley, Darwin or Freud; but it was hard not to laugh.

Then they searched a hospice to find a dying atheist, making for perhaps the first televised "deathbed non-conversion." The host Jonathan Miller held her hand, as if conferring some kind of anti-sacrament, then laughed to make light of the occasion; but this was actually the scary part.

To be fair, there were a few concessions such as the admission that some of the best minds in science are believers, and that atheism has been "indelibly stained" by its 20th century totalitarian excesses. Still, the show seemed to ride, like most anything does nowadays, on a sense of victimology. Atheistic arguments almost played second fiddle to the idea that we should feel bad for atheists because they're not listened to enough. If they had better arguments, perhaps they would be.

There was such a personal appeal at the end that I felt I should have called the host myself in sympathy to apologize for not having lost my faith.

On the positive side, the show did give me a chance to tally some previous millinerd material on atheism. I heard Paul Vitz in person this summer, and must admit his depiction of Nietzsche's übermensch as the unpopular kid's comic book fantasy was rather humorous. The Dawkins reviews need to be supplemented by the latecomer Marilynne Robinson, and Hart's dismantling of Dennett is still worth a read. More recently, here's Ross Douthat on Christopher Hitchens.

But why bother? The documentary concluded with a puppy-dog-eyed Jonathan Miller admitting that the efforts of the new atheists would be "in all probability a completely ineffectual resistance."

My heartstrings were plucked, but I agreed.

Fiscal Vegetarianism

Grill meat good. It's not in the charter, but it does, reluctantly, show up in chapter nine. A concession to be sure, but a legitimate one. Still, being the sometime fiscal vegetarian, I can only say, oh what a cookbook. Recommended almost as highly as G.K. Chesterton's The Everlasting Man. Goes best with a CSA farm.

Athens

Athens is like a massive cereal bowl with a tea-candle in it. The surrounding mountains comprise the rim, and the candle is the Acropolis. Fortunately I got there a day before the archaeological service went on the standard procedure of strike, allowing me to climb the candle just before it went out.

Carl Jung refused to go to Rome for his entire life claiming that the impact of the collective unconscious there would be too much for him. A bit less dramatically, his predecessor Freud is reported to have said when he finally visited the Acropolis, "So all this really does exist, just as we learnt at school!" I've never been to Rome (too much for me), but can testify that Athens did have such an impressive impact; for me it was the sheer size. The questions of paganism were so plainly big. The answer, given on Mars Hill (now a make-out spot), was comparatively humble, yet it caught on. The Parthenon that overshadowed Paul's preaching, withing a few hundred years, had become a church. Likewise today, the Catholics, Anglicans and Evangelicals all, against my expectations, displayed an astonishing vitality in Athens. So much for my stereotype of merely Orthodox Greece. It's good that the entire Body of Christ is represented, warts and all, for our mutual inadequacies tend to draw us together.

As anyone who has dutifully inspected my shelfari shelf and read Shiner's The Invention of Art will understand, the person seeking to find something akin to contemporary "drama" or "art" in Athens will be disappointed. As I've discussed before, the theater of Dionysius is not the town entertainment venue, but a religious platform, as revealed by the prominent seats for Dionysian priests. Likewise, as any good classicist would explain, the sculptures aren't mere sculptures, but incarnate gods. Perhaps the reason why the "drama" and "art" of this period remains so compelling is because they were so much more than mere drama or art.

After the compulsory museum visits (Benaki, Benaki Islamic, Byzantine, National Archaeological), I had a chance for a day trip, and the traveler without a car, which is not recommended, must choose between Delphi and Hosios Loukas. The oracle will have to wait, but the latter did not disappoint. On the extensive bus-ride I had a chance to read Chesterton's reflections on paganism, which certainly trumps anything I've said, and were a fitting end to a trip. Chesterton understands paganism enough to condemn its Carthaginian darkness but affirm its Athenian wonder. He admits the sense he relates "is very subtle and almost indescribable," but it's worth an attempt to follow along.

"He who has most sympathy with myths will most fully realise that they are not and never were a religion, in the sense that Christianity or even Islam is a religion. They satisfy some of the needs satisfied by a religion; notably the need for doing certain things at certain dates; the need of the twin ideas of festivity and formality. But though they provide a man with a calendar they do not provide him with a creed.

[The] deep truth of the danger of insolence, or being too big for our boots, runs through all the great Greek tragedies and makes them great. But it runs side by side with an almost cryptic agnosticism about the real nature of the gods to be propitiated.... Certainly the pagan does not disbelieve like an atheist, any more than he believes like a Christian. He feels the presence of powers about which he guesses and invents. St. Paul said that the Greeks had one altar to an unknown god. But in truth all their gods were unknown gods. And the real break in history did come when St. Paul declared to them whom they had ignorantly worshiped.

The substance of all such paganism may be summarised thus. It is an attempt to reach the divine reality through the imagination alone;... in reality the rivers of mythology and philosophy run parallel and do not mingle till they meet in the sea of Christendom. Simple secularists still talk as if the church had introduced a sort of schism between reason and religion. The truth is that the Church is actually the first thing that ever tried to combine reason and religion.

In a word, mythology is a search; it is something that combines a recurrent desire with a recurrent doubt.... We may truly call these foreshadowings; so long as we remember that foreshadowings are shadows.

We [Christians] know the meaning of all the myths. We know the last secret revealed to the perfect initiate. And it is not the voice of a priest or a prophet saying 'These things are.' It is the voice of a dreamer and an idealist crying, 'Why cannot these things be?'"

My doubt will have a difficult time recovering from my having read this chapter while in the pagan heartland. Perhaps it may never fully recover. Whatever book you may be in the process of reading right now, it would probably be worth it to read The Everlasting Man instead.

Serbia

The communist graffiti is barely visible in the receeding darkness, while the early Christian motif is publically displayed, to the interest of younger Serbs like my friend Nebojsa. This picture, though took on a crappy disposable, seemed to sum up my week in Serbia. I put a little more effort into this.

Upon arrival we met up with a visiting scholar who took us to a "liturgical music group" at the Belgrade Academy. Not sure what to expect, we entered a beautiful Beaux Arts style building and found ourselves in an office crowded with families and lined with antique books. At the center was a joyful man at a piano, glad for more visitors. The group sang piece after piece of liturgical hymns from eastern and western Christianity. I'm not sure why, but all of a sudden one man recited a significant portion of Matthew 16, from memory, in Latin. If this is what the Belgrade intelligentsia are up to, then one more farewell to Yugoslavia. We left as more people joined in, and had dinner in a neighborhood which resembled Montmartre in Paris, only cheaper.

Communism and Clinton have done a number on Belgrade, and Serbia in general. Bombed out buildings and war memorials to civilians killed by the NATO campaign are common, civilians who hated Milosevic as much as the rest of the world did, probably more. The economy is struggling, but seems however to have made a positive turn. The people are friendly, the food was phenomenal. My Serbian friends who study Byzantine art and architecture aren't doing so because they had it drilled it into them when they were young, but for the opposite reason. Communist education left the subject completely neglected and now they're fascinated by a heritage long ignored. Conversely, at the monastery of Zica , we witnessed an orthodox priest struggling to convey his liturgical lesson to about fifty unruly schoolchildren. Things have changed. Medieval Serbia is a beautifully puzzling blend of East and West. One could spent a month there and still not visit all the countryside monasteries. The hospitality of monks and nuns follows what I've come to accept as the rule - you're either ignored, or treated with an almost absurd hospitality.

Nis, my host Nebojsa's (and the Emperor Constantine I's) hometown, has been through a lot. There one finds a testimony to Ottoman oppression (the skull tower), its own concentration camp from the Nazi days, and a massive Communist resistance memorial which seemed to suggest to Serbians that the only reason there aren't concentration camps anymore is thanks to Tito. Somehow the churches made it through all this (not without their own share of resistance), and in Belgrade they were even showing off a bit. The massive church of St. Sava is even bigger than Hagia Sophia.

The inside of St. Sava's is still being built. Cement grinders and cranes, workers and construction noises abound. But the people can't seem to wait, which made for a perfect parable of the Kingdom of God. A few well-placed icons and candles amidst the chaos suggested a future completion. Worshipers adored Christ despite the distractions, in anticipation of the day when their worship will be complete. I hope I'm not being too cryptic, but has it ever been otherwise?

Ocean's 13

It is interesting that all of these movies end in a monetized version of the beatific vision, specifically the scenes where the group stares blissfully at fountains or fireworks. I shall commence my practice of the one Bible verse film review (patent-pending), and the first one's easy: "...for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light" (Luke 16:8). Actually, that one verse covers all three Oceans.

Back from Athens and Kansas, a strange combination.

My brain is in blog gridlock. Too much to relate. In the meantime, pictures.

The Turkish Tree

I need to get out of Turkey. The warning sign: I'm beginning to enjoy Nescafe. Nevertheless, I'm slowly warming up to the place even after getting flim-flammed. The mosaics of Chora were the equivalent to a month worth of beautiful sermons. I had some time with the relics of Gregory and Chrysostom at the Patriarchate (stolen in 1204 and recently returned) all to myself. For every Muslim who got mad at me for not taking my shoes off in the proper way or charged me to enter a free mosque, I seemed to meet a God-fearing person who is welcoming and genuinely kind. One carpet salesman I spoke to today, who looked liked he stepped straight out of the Sabado Gigante set, was slick, pushy and clearly only after cash (surprise). Another was deeply informed, kind, and spoke of the reckoning he expects on Judgment Day for the prices he charges. And I don't think that was just carpet talk.

It all gives one reason to consider Muslim-Christian relations again, but this time with the sound of the evening's call to prayer in the background. Today at the tomb of Sultan Mehmet II (who conquered Constantinople), I was given an Engish tract by an earnest young Muslim who chanted while I was in the tomb. After most significant victories in the Ottoman empire soldiers would visit this tomb, and I wonder if he was praying for a similar global turn of events. I read the tract, but haven't yet converted. It said Allah is merciful. Follow that river to it's source and you'll find just how merciful - to the tune of his having become a crucified God.

I've heard Christians refer to Allah as, and I quote, "an idol at best and a demon at worst." I can't say I agree. As I hear the calls to prayer in this city, I wouldn't exactly prefer raw secularization. I would however, prefer more Christianity. It is sad to see how many churches I couldn't get into and how many Byzantine monuments are utterly neglected (or have disappeared!) in comparison to a place like Thessaloniki. Yet in the meantime, I'll take the God-fearing Muslim to the people who scammed me anyday.

A good verse for Muslim-Christian relations is the this one. Muslims certainly do see, but not as clearly as those who know Christ. They would say, and do say the same of me (but I happen to be right). I realize that saying that in the wrong circles here could get me martyred. Good thing my Turkish is limited to "Tea, Sugar and Dream" (the way to prounce "thank you"). Still, can a Muslim be more faithful with their limited revelation than a Christian can be with a fuller revelation? Of course. Remember the Last Battle (see the second #5)?

Christ is God. My Muslim friends (yes, I do have some) are wrong about this. They say I'm wrong about this. Across that fault line genuine love and friendship is perfectly possible, perhaps moreso than across a secular gulf. The real insult is to pretend no fault line exists. So yes, I love the people of the tree - enough to show them the man they're misperceiving.

A delightful Princeton professor gave a lecture on Johannine material at our seminar in Greece last week in which he suggested that the development of Christ as God took place nearly one hundred years after Christ died. Now, even if this were true, it doesn't mean that Christ's divinity would be automatically suspect. But the thing is, it's not true. When I reminded the professor privately that some of the earliest fragments of the New Testament we have, the hymns in Phillipians and Colossians, both contain some of the hightest Christology in the New Testament - what was his reaction? Refusal to admit the evidence? No, polite and civil concession, because a calm consideration of such evidence shows it's not imaginary. John developed something that was long already there. The Jesus movement may have been wrong, but there is no disputing that it proclaimed Jesus God from a very early time - certainly well before the written evidence. "Who can forgive sins but God alone?" they once asked (in our earliest Gospel no less). What might Mark have been getting at by putting the words, "My son, your sins are forgiven" into the mouth of Christ?

Eternal salvation of humanity at large is an impenetrable matter, the shoals of shipwreck for many a young vessel of faith. But has the straw man of certainty really been granted? Best focus on one's own salvation, while still (a very important "still") spreading the message around. As Augustine said, there are many wolves within and many sheep without. But whatever concessions and surprises occur on Judgement Day, the God who makes such concessions (of which we have no guarantee), will be none other than the one who became one particular first century Palestinian Jew, full of grace and truth.

Constantinople

The last days with the nuns were revelatory, and a simple lesson emerged. Monasticism is a higher form of life. If you don't believe me, visit Prodoromos monastery. To paraphrase Thomas Merton (I think he said it in Seeds of Contemplation), monastic life is easier than lay life to lead poorly, much harder than lay life to lead well... and the nuns of Prodromos lead it well. These are extremely able women, some with advanced degrees, some who left fortunes. In obedience to the abbess they are able together to run a full time farm, constant liturgy, produce food that would impress a Manhattan restaurant critic, and consistently reach out to both their city and pilgrims from around the world, not to mention us.

The sermon in the last liturgy was as vivid as the previous one I described, but was the first one I understood in its entirety. This was because it was 1 Corinthians 13 recited in Biblical Greek from memory with passion and conviction as a charge to the nuns and all present. The nuns may be able to do a lot, but they know without agape it's worthless.

After a sad good bye I took an overnight train to Istanbul, or as the nuns insist on referring to it (which I don't quite mind), Constantinople. I proceeded then to lose my Byzantine virginity, and see Hagia Sophia. Since I've been blazing through the classic guidebook which is exhaustingly thorough, but rewarding.

Like Athos, Istanbul has already offered the extremes of rudeness and kindness. Unfortunately, on my first day I ran into some calculated unpleasantries. I can't imagine how (I blend so seamlessly), but a skilled scammer picked me out as a tourist and, with some help from other skilled scammers, scammed me quite well. I'll spare you the details, but I've since read up on Istanbul scamming and realize it could have been much worse, and have kept to myself.

However, the next day as I went to visit the Kalenderhane Mosque, I was invited for Coke and conversation upstairs by the Imam. I figured no one would be so dedicated to scamming to have rented out a mosque and large accompanying family, so I went up. I received a full tour in broken English, was declared a kardesh (brother) even though I am Christian, and was strangely given several bear hugs that lifted me clear off the ground. Theological differences matter deeply, but this is still a strategy I recommend for all future Muslim-Christian relations.

More to come.