The following is something I wrote in response to a class discussion question on contradictions in scripture. The question was what we can do with such contradictions. I wasn't expecting to write anything useable for this blog, but it just sort of happened, and I feel comfortable sharing. I hope it helps you in some way.

-James

"As someone who is re-experiencing biblical material from a philosophical background, I appreciate things like clearly defined terms and mutually affirming accounts of things. Contradictions, I've learned, are to be avoided or rooted out. But this is not possible in the case of scripture, or even of ancient literature. The method of editing is drastically different from the one we've adopted today. Rather than edit the text to coalesce as a whole in order to make a single point, ancient editors compile different views and thoughts in order to present the subject in as nuanced a light as possible. While maddening in its own way, I think these inevitable contradictions give us the opportunity, as readers open to experiencing the Divine, to examine faith in very important ways (of which I mean to present two).

First, the contradictions provide us a window into the mindset of the author(s) and editor(s). As has often been noted in class, an interpretation of a thing will always reveal more about the interpreter than the thing being interpreted. We can learn from the contradictions by encountering them not as objective, literal accounts, but as viewpoints that color the text. Biology teaches us that diversity is a sign of health in any given system; I'd argue that this holds true even in matters of scripture. It is well that I have multiple accounts of the creation myth or of David's introduction to Saul. This means that I am presented with not just one viewpoint to consider, but two. If I were only interested in scripture for its prescriptive value to tell me what to believe, multiple accounts of a single event might be distressing. But if the study of human nature has taught me anything, it's that no two people ever encounter the same phenomenon in quite the same way. If I approach scripture from the viewpoint of a learner, I have more material to work with if I have multiple accounts. The unravelling of a mystery is always richer and more satisfying when there are many layers to consider. In this way, contradiction in scripture can be edifying in a scholarly way. I can learn to read the text as the author(s) intended it to be read.

The second opportunity provided by contradictions in scripture is a result of the first; it is the mystical encounter with the God who is infinitely larger than the scriptural context that presumes to encapsulate him. When I am presented with two different accounts, I am not passively spoon fed the Word of God; I am forced into picking up the spoon and feeding myself. The contradiction of opposing accounts of creation may initially be distressing, but when I meditate on them and listen to which of the two is meant for me, suddenly I have found something far more valuable than a scholarly "guesstimation" of the truth of the matter. Suddenly, I have found a truth that achieves reality in me. Kierkegaard called this a process of subjective appropriation, wherein truth is not only encountered by the individual, but also absorbed into the individual. When I am forced into grappling with the different accounts of the Christian Gospels, I am pulled into a deeper examination of what significance Christ's words hold. The result of my grappling is a mystical experience with truth, with God, which goes beyond mere intellectual assent; the truth achieves reality within me. This is merely my personal way of thinking on the subject. Suffice it to say that contradictions in scripture can be the catalyst for a mystical experience of the Divine, one that is not bogged down by doctrine or dogma. I can learn to read the text as God, not just the author, intended me to read it.


All this has been a rather longwinded way of saying that I think the key to dealing with any given discrepancy in a scriptural text is first to discover what the author meant and how they encountered the Divine. Second, to discover what the Divine means to you. We can't just jump back in time and witness the past for ourselves, that is, an objective view of scripture is denied us. But a subjective view, whether through the our own eyes or the eyes of the author(s), is always accessible."

This is the Idiot, signing out.

How Sakura Con is more of a church than some churches

After a long absence of many years, I had the privilege of attending Sakura Con 2015. Sakura Con is an anime/manga convention I was exposed to in high school during my now embarrassing infatuation with Hellsing (which, in my defense, has fantastical art). Though Sakura Con has been and always will be primarily a celebration of Japanese culture, the primary appeal for me is cosplay, the practice of creating costumes designed to make you look like a fictional character of your choice. It need not be anime or manga based, it could be anything. This year, I was the tragic Booker Dewitt of Bioshock Infinite (a game with such depth that I would love to devote an entire blog entry to it), as well as Oswald of Carim of Dark Souls. I even threw together a Vincent Law of Ergo Proxy for the masquerade ball.

But while the cosplay was excellent this year (it's always such a delight to see what people come up with), other aspects of con were emphasized to me. One of the most magical things about con is that everyone becomes approachable. You can hold an amiable conversation with anyone, as if you were friends, no matter who or what you are outside of con. I chatted with strangers for hours, and I enjoyed it. Even though I am an introvert typically drained by prolonged exposure to people, I was charged by the atmosphere. The sense of brotherhood was tangible, and while there were those who preferred to remain quiet and reserved, everyone was friendly with one another. The details of our lives were unimportant, except that we were all of us nerds who delighted in nerdy things. Sakura Con is one of the largest conventions on the west coast, and it draws thousands upon thousands of people from all over the world; inevitably, you run across someone with a unique shared interest. "You like this too? I thought I was the only one!" For the most part, it's a time of tearing down the walls we erect to prevent unwanted social contact and enjoying one another's company. It's about sharing in nerdiness.

This being said, Sakura Con (I can only speak for this con, having attended few others) has spawned cultural practices that are observed each year. This was my first con since going to college, and I found that my insight into things had drastically changed since my first con experiences, and I began to notice and appreciate different things that were always there.

Chief among my examples is the practice of the hugging circle. Every year in the courtyard, a large crowd gathers, usually at least 60 people. Some of the people form a circle around the others, and empty cans and bottles are placed in the center. A person inside the circle kicks a can, and whomever the bottle points to on the outside of the circle is then approached and hugged by the kicker. After the hug, the two exchange places. The person then stands on the edge of the circle until a new kicker's bottle points to the them. They then hug and the first kicker returns to the merry frenzy of the center, looking for a bottle to kick. It's a very simple dance of exitus and redditus that perpetuates itself endlessly.

This might not sound like much of a game, but I spent hours playing it. Along with a new friend who had become dear to me in a short amount of time, I hugged what must have been hundreds of people, and it was a far more delightful experience than I expected. Everyone was enthusiastic in their determination to make everyone feel welcome. All types were present. Those in cosplay and those in street clothes, those in brightly colored costumes and those in dark ones, those were were dressed morbidly and those were dressed pleasantly, those who spoke english and those who did not, those were loud and those were quiet, white, black, asian, straight, gay, male, female, transexual. All were accepted into the circle as participants of the ritual. I gave some damn fine hugs that day, and received my fair share too, and I couldn't keep from smiling. Though the dance was quick in its pace and you could go out and in and back outside the circle within a minute, everyone moved at an amiable pace and got to know one another through a word spoken here and there. The air was charged with a determination to love and celebrate one another.

Through it all, I couldn't help but think. And being me, my thoughts eventually took a theological turn. Again and again, I could feel myself nodding in approval as I thought to myself "there is a goodness at work here. Surely God is in it." And I progressively came to realize that the hug circle was more like a church than some churches. As a community, it perfectly represented the peace that is meant to be present in church when the Lord's peace is shared among the congregation. There was an incredible amount of diversity as well, and it did not matter in the least who you were; the only things of importance was that you brought no evil with you, that you were welcome, and that you could expect a warm hug from anyone at any moment. It amazed me that such a diverse crowd of people could exist in a small space so happily, and I realized that this is what church is meant to be. All children of God should feel welcome as members of the body of his son, no matter who they are. All types were present, including a silent and intimidating assassin who would politely bow before offering a quick but courteous embrace. There was also a child led by his father's hand. The circle drew all kinds, just as God draws all kinds.

There was an additional liturgy often invoked in the circle. Occasionally, one of the members in the center would shout "Hey, guess what," to which the rest would respond "What," followed by an additional "Hey guess what" from the crier, who would then make a statement or claim. Sometimes a person would declare "I need a hug," at which point the entire center of the circle would swarm them in a group hug. One of two chants would then begin: either "No way out" or "One of us." Occasionally a member would announce that they needed to leave, at which point the "No way out" chant would begin. The person was free to leave at any time, and people did come and go, but it was vigorously emphasized by the collective circle that it desired to keep the company of the person leaving.

The significance of this for me was that in the body of Christ, there is no power that can separate you from God's love. There is "no way out." At the same time, you are, and always will be "one of us." Taken alone, one of the chants might come across as either foreboding (no way out, we won't let you leave, you're trapped!) or in danger of sounding insipid (one of us, man, totally far out, man). But taken holistically, the chants communicated a powerful message to me, saying that the experience of having participated in the circle this year would be with me forever, that there was no way out of the experiences that made up my person. At the same time, I would always have the experience of being one of the group, of being included, of actively participating, of being welcome without any qualifiers at all.

It is entirely possible that some of my readers are reading into my analogy of the hug circle as church with a sense of abject horror. "Welcome without any qualifiers at all? What madness! Are we to let just anyone into our church? The foreigner, the atheist and the sexually ambiguous? Those who do not take the liturgy seriously? Those whose sin clings to them? Are we to let them in without any qualifiers at all?" To which I would respond, no, you would not let them in without any qualifiers at all, because admittance into the body of Christ has only one condition: that you willingly share in God's love through his son and give it freely to others. I find this condition an excellent one because by the word love, much is communicated. Love is grand in scope but uncomplicated. It desires and hopes all things that God wills, and God's will is peace and harmony, meaning that to share and give of God's love is to be an agent of renewal, that is, an agent of shalom. When the heart is fixed on God's love, it desires what God desires, and wills what he wills. And the more one takes love into account in every action, no matter how small, the more one realizes that God wills that love should flow into everything. Everyone in the world ought to be welcomed into church, so that they may learn of God's love in real and life changing ways. Christianity is not a set of abstractions, policies and dogmas; it is a living, breathing community charged with a sense of belonging together in a context of celebration, unity, and delight. That is the church, and that is also the hug circle.

"But what about rules? Rules need to be in place!" Indeed, the church is held together by rules. The hug circle would fall apart if everyone decided to abandon the rules and do as they each individually willed. The church has a code of conduct that is beyond contestation, not for the sake of rewarding some and excluding others, but for the sake of holding the community of believers together in real and tangible ways. God's word is law and sin is to be removed, but this happens through the economy of God's love as it descends on the congregation and continually winds its way through them. In other words, the hug circle represents a kind of perichoresis that is uniquely human. It is a dancing about where a hug is received, given, and then received again. It is self-sustaining, animated by the economy of hugging. It's like a heart beating blood into every vein, again and again. Life spreads like a wave, quiets for a moment, and then explodes into action again. God's love comes into the congregation, beginning a cycle of sharing that can go on a long time before dissipating. The rules of perichoresis are clear, and they must be willingly abided by for the economy of love to flow ceaselessly. Everyone is welcome in the church/welcome to play the game, but the there are rules and they must be observed. And within the context of these rules, what could there be to complain about when God's love is moving among his people? Why worry about how the rules of hug circle are constricting you when you are caught in a maelstrom of affection and warmth? No, the rules are not constricting. They are there not to dictate who may or may not participate in the economy of love, but rather to keep that economy flowing ceaselessly as it ought to.

Perhaps this all sounds too idyllic. I understand. In the case of the hug circle, all of the members were predisposed towards a functioning economy of love because of their shared nerdiness by being members at con. It is entirely possible that not everyone in Seattle would have been comfortable participating in the circle. Perhaps the circle is not meant for everyone. Perhaps everyone must seek out their own version of the economy of love, just as each Christian must seek the denomination and congregation that brings them closest to that sense of divine perichoresis with fellow humans. Perhaps this is more representative of what I ought to expect from the time following the resurrection, when all will be given new life and a new chance to know God's love. Indeed, it seems appropriate, now that I think about it, that Sakura Con is always held on Easter weekend. And though I regret not being able to attend a church service on Sunday, I still believe that I witnessed a hint of what can be expected on the day of resurrection. For while Easter is a day to celebrate and be in awe of Christ's death and resurrection, the hug circle was (for me) a celebration in awe of each person's own death and resurrection, and what that shared experience of resurrection will mean. There is a sense in which churches have lost, and need to regain, the hug circle's sense of vibrant joy and celebration. Churches could learn more than a few things from con culture, because con is all about drawing together disparate people through shared passion and love. And that's what church should be.

The dear friend I mentioned earlier had to leave Sunday to go back to Montana, far away from here. But we spoke about hope and memory; we had formed these memories, and there was no way out. They would always be part of us. Memory alone is not enough to live on, so we could keep those memories with the hope of one day making new ones. Hope and memory, I sometimes catch myself murmuring now. One of us, no way out. One day, the memories I formed in the hug circle, which hope for perfect realization in the healed earth God promised us, will be made new. Hope and memory. I keep the memory in hope. One of us, no way out.

And I will never forget how present God felt in that circle, because I am one of us, and there is no way out of that. I am eternally a member of the hug circle at Sakura Con 2015, just as I am eternally a member of God's family.

This is the Idiot, signing out.

Science in the face of the smallness of humanity

To be read with ambient cosmic horror music playing in the background. I recommend this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlDivIaiuMU

"I think, in the grand scale of things, humanity thinks too much of its own understanding. It only takes a little honesty and humility to admit that we are nothing in the face of the cosmos, which indefinitely stretches out into a strange nothingness. The more difficult admission is that there is no salvation in attempting to expand our knowledge of the universe, because dust mites, however clever, are nothing when faced with the alien corpse of a sperm whale in the darkness of the ocean depths. The vastness of existence is beyond our ability to comprehend. That having been said, science ought not to proceed with the assumption that everything can be known, because there will always be an unknown horizon for us to explore. Just when science thinks it has adequately described the universe, new phenomenon will throw our certainty into panicked disarray.

It's worth noting that science has a place in human life and a perfectly legitimate employment. People like the great Carl Sagan, who are humble in their exploration of the wondrous universe, are a credit to their disciplines. The benefits of science are obvious, and there is no reason to avoid learning more about the amazing world we occupy, though complete mastery may elude us.

But science is not infallible. A common mistake, I have experienced, is to place faith in the ability of science to make all matters clear. The mistake lies in the fact that science is equipped to be descriptive of the world, but not prescriptive. It has power to tell unravel the intimate workings of the natural world, but it has no power to make value judgements or inform one how one's life ought to be lived. Science is often misappropriated as a basis for philosophies or world views, many of which history looks back on with disgust. For example, it was once declared in the name of science that the white man was superior to all humanity, and that the sterilization of society's "undesirables" might benefit humanity's general situation. These prescriptive misappropriations of science contributed, as many know, to the evils of the Holocaust, which the Nazis considered the fulfillment of everything American scientists had described in their detailed writings on eugenics.

Additionally, science has a tendency to change. What is fact one year is made obsolete the next. Today's fact is yesterday's disproved theory. The most that science can consistently afford us is knowledge of what can be safely predicted in the occurrences of the natural world. But even then, it is mere prediction, not certainty. Nothing is set in stone. The very earth beneath our feet, and how we permit ourselves to think of it, is under constant revision. There is no solid footing left, no still moments, no rest. Humanity becomes tossed about on a sea of change. But despite the uncertainty of its position, humanity becomes somehow determined to think of its rocky boat as a firm foundation, as a describer of the world and as a prescriber of values.

I think it worth noting that the prerogative to make prescriptive claims on human life has more firmly rested with religion and faith. Theology and spirituality, while not exempt from the chaotic change of the other sciences, profess as their foundations a more or less stable axiom, that there is more to life than can be empirically shown. These disciplines, more preoccupied with the truths of poetry and literature, are no less valuable than the natural sciences. They may not have the descriptive power of science, but they engender in us the honesty and humility to know that human beings are finite and in desperate need of something more. In a sense, theology and spirituality are open to the strangeness of the world, its infinite incomprehensibility and impossible strangeness.

Of course, these traditionally religious areas of human life are, like science, not without grievous faults. All too often, scripture is shown to have petty human interests at heart. Wars convenient to those who stand to benefit are often started in the name of religion. Spiritual awareness can lead to zealotry and evil in the name of good. Wrongly construed, the "word of God" can be taken to be an endorsement of ethically reprehensible practices. Faith, while a reaction to something more than human, is all too often warped into something small, petty and human.
Ultimately, it isn't what humans do or write that is interesting to me. The failures of humanity, whether in matters of faith or science, are not difficult to affirm. I witness them every day, both in my actions and in the actions of others. No, whatever human beings derive on the basis of their own inspiration and capabilities, it does not matter; it holds no interest for me. What does hold interest for me is the intrusion of the alien and divine into human life, and the human reaction to that intrusion. Such a dynamic defies all the rules of our little existence. Could such a thing could ever happen? The sheer size of the world and what lies beyond it is so immense that the human mind simply cannot take it all in. The world is completely beyond us.

And for that reason, I call scientism an overrated fad. Faith in human epistemic and rational capabilities is far less compelling to me than faith in what is transcendent of those same human capabilities. That alien and unknowable otherness, which has made itself known in whispers and brutal death, intangibly calls every human mind to contemplation. It implants symbols into the mind. The cross is both a taunt and acknowledgement of death, a call to the madness of an eternal existence. I use the word "madness" quite deliberately, for love is mad, and God is love. And by the narrow definition of rationality and reason that we insignificant specs put forth as incontestable, God is utterly insane, for his love knows no rational limit, and he will love in ways that confound our tiny sense of ethicality or logic. What he sees and does goes utterly beyond what we can see and do, and so he appears from the human perspective as irredeemably insane. There is no single logos tying his behaviors down in ways that we humans can grasp. He is wholly other. We think ourselves sane, and he mad. But perhaps it is he who is sane and we who are mad. And who is to say what constitutes saneness or madness in an objective sense? Surely not we humans, whose eyes are so imperfectly dim. And yet God has shown himself willing to stretch out his hands and reveal the eldritch truth to those open to seeing.

Logic (and any paradigm of science that glorifies logic) is ultimately a tiny god to worship; I will never understand the people who appeal to it over the  overwhelming insanity and otherness of God.

Maybe Lovecraft had more insight into faith than he could have ever guessed."

This is the Idiot, signing out.

An Anti-Commercialist/Anti-Capitalist/Dostoyevskian/Schleiermachian Sermon

Dostoyevsky once wrote in Brothers Karamazov about people subjecting themselves to powers, saying "We know nothing of guilt or sin, only hunger. Make us your slaves, only feed us." I thought to myself how that sort of picture lends itself to an understanding of the book of Revelation and the last days, when Satan as antichrist will supposedly be given free reign to set himself up as an idol to which people will subject themselves. I thought that you don't really need Satan roaming free in the last days for this kind of subjection to happen. Allow me to explain.

If Satan were to appear and proclaim (in whatever flowery, deceptive language he wishes) "I am your Lord now. Worship me, and I will sate your hunger," that would be superfluous. We already have idols today for that very purpose. I thought to myself, that's what capitalism in a pluralist society already is. It's a society without guilt but with an emphasized sense of hunger. I thought to myself that in the last days, if they are to come, we won't be subjected to Satan as some foreign power coming into the world, enslaving us through our dominant sense of hunger. That can't be the case, because that very thing has already happened. We are already enslaved by powers through our dominant sense of hunger. In the last days, we will be subjected to sinful systems that we ourselves founded, progressed and allowed to mature. Schleiermacher would no doubt agree. After all, he wrote (contra to Augustine) that sin is not some disease passed down in some meta-biological form, but a power that propagates itself through sinful social structures. That's how sin is passed down, in social/cultural structures that are themselves sinful.

It should be noted at this point that in certain conditions (like capitalism, for example) where hunger is the sole driving motivation for living, sin flourishes. The downward spiral of all societies motivated by hunger features degradation of the worst sort. The Capital in the Hunger Games closely resembles the disgusting affluence of late Rome, and to a slightly lesser degree, the disgusting affluence of today in the capitalist West. In both cases, hunger is the power at work. Doesn't it seem familiar? "Make us your slaves, only feed us." Isn't it interesting that the affluent Capital citizens are never without something to eat, and yet they live in daily craving for novelty, new trends to follow, new Tributes to cheer for in the Games? Isn't it interesting that the modern West knows nothing of real physical hunger, and yet it lives in an environment where hunger is constantly emphasized? Further, isn't it interesting that the trend of the century thus far is the trading of freedom for security and convenience? Dostoyevsky anticipated this as well. We hunger for product and convenience in equal measure, and our idols, embedded in the social and cultural order that we daily affirm, bend over backwards to make us promises of sating our hunger. "Make us your slaves, only feed us."

This is not to say that hunger is in any sense wrong. My body needs sustenance, so I feed it, and that is good. I hunger for non-physical things like justice and peace, and that is good. I personally hunger for the world God has promised, where justice and peace are perfect, and all needs are met. This is ultimately no different from the kind of hunger we experience in our culture. The only difference is that where I look to God as a perfect authority to sate my hunger, commercialist culture looks to manmade products and systems to sate hunger. "Buy this product and you will be happy." That's the condensed message of all commercialism. Strange that even though we are constantly promised that our hunger can end, our hunger persists, year after year. We are ignorant of our own all-pervading hunger. We think ourselves well fed, and yet our daily lives depend on sating a never ending hunger.

That is what we will bow to in the last days. Not to Satan establishing his power, but to the sinful powers we have already subjected ourselves to. The end will find humanity looking to itself for salvation, like an emaciated creature begging its own reflection to feed it.

Huh. Might need work. Interesting, though.

This is the Idiot, signing out.

Old Notes from Continental Philosophy class

I was going through some old notes from my Continental Philosophy class (which was almost exclusively Heidegger studies). Found this towards the end, in the retrospective section. Some of it was edited to make a concise point, some of it was my own addition. But I think I am being true to what my professor intended me to understand.

"What does a Christian metaphysical ontic look like? Well, the following is just one version, one positive possibility on the horizon of the Continental tradition, one which is a radical picture of Christian facticity. It asks, what is at the root of the Christian faith? The answer is the Gospel, good news, hope. It's about unconditional love, which is treating a person as the person that you cannot yet see: this requires believing in what you cannot yet see, which is difficult because we cannot see finished products as finite beings. It all comes out of the future toward the past, and it requires that we believe, to some extent, in what is yet invisible to us, so that we can be better stewards of the visible. In short, a Christian metaphysical ontic is a call to vigilantly conform to the life of Christ, despite our finitude and inability to see beyond what is given to us in being.

Why is this call to conform "Good News?" Because it is intentional authenticity. Jesus is a dismantler of unjust systems. His life shows that deconstruction is a positive movement, one that works toward transformation. The Great Commission is about showing others how to live, and it requires intimacy (washing of feet, the shared purse, etc).

Furthermore, his life shows that nothing in your present can outstrip who you are becoming. For when you are full, there is the illusion that you are complete, but you need to be empty to see what truly fulfills you. Could it be that you must lose your life in order to gain it, just as he said? The wealthy and the Pharisees were not hated by Christ: his rejection of their "fullness" was a gift, an opportunity to see what truly fulfills them as finite beings. It's hard to see transcendence when you are full, when you believe that you have walked the road to completion. Christ's life isn't about the position of being full, of thinking that you have reached the end of a journey; it is about the path of always living towards what has been promised but cannot yet be grasped. It's a path to be eternally walked. And the best part is that God himself has joined us on this path, an eternal companion on an eternal road of being."

Kierkegaard vs Hegel - Objectivity, Subjectivity, and Faith

The following is a paper I submitted during my undergrad studies at Calvin College. I hope you find it beneficial and that it clarifies some of the nuances existing between thinkers like Kierkegaard and Hegel.

I'd like to note, however, that if you wish to make use of my work, remember to cite your sources, including this webpage. The general rule of thumb is this: whenever you use anything, even an idea or concept, that you did not come up with yourself, use proper citation. The integrity of your project is too important to risk through acts of plagiarism.

So cite any and all sources you end up using. Yes, even if it's a paper posted by some schmuck on an online blog somewhere.

Cheers.

Philosophy 333

James Sellers

10/11/13

Writing Assignment #02

Kierkegaard often disagrees with Hegelian ideas. In this case, he disagrees with Hegel's definition of what constitutes truth with regard to the question of Christianity as truth. Hegel would say that truth is an absolute and objective certainty; this certainty is possible through having complete knowledge in its final form. Kierkegaard pseudonymously disputes this idea through Climacus when he asserts that truth as objective certainty has no power to transform the subject as an individual, and neither is it conducive to the passion and inwardness that are important conditions for truth relevant to the subject as an existing individual. For these reasons, Climacus states that truth is subjective and that how the subject relates herself to truth has greater significance than what she relates herself to. This comes to expression in the passage in Concluding Unscientific Postscript that compares the virtuous pagan praying to an idol and the nominal Christian who prays to the true God. In this paper, I will explore what truth means both objectively and subjectively and what these different interpretations mean for the definition and location of truth that Climacus wishes to espouse.

Climacus understands objective truth as a mutual agreement between thinking and being (189). Essentially, one's thinking must correspond with reality, or what is, and vice-versa; the subject must approach truth without biases of any kind, and the subject's beliefs must correspond to what factually is the case. For Climacus, however, this two-way agreement falls short. It turns Christian truth into mere approximation, whereby Christianity, were it to ever be proven as objective truth, would become a mere obligation instead of the object of passion, an abstraction instead of a personal reality. Additionally, this agreement between thinking and being does not take into account the problem of flux that is inherent to human existence:

“If, in the two definitions given, being is understood as empirical being, then truth itself is transformed into a desideratum [something wanted] and everything is placed in the process of becoming, because the empirical object is not finished, and the existing knowing spirit is itself in the process of becoming. Thus truth is an approximating whose beginning cannot be established absolutely, because there is no conclusion that has retroactive power” (189).

By this account, truth has only partial reality as approximating abstraction and not as a timeless reality. If truth as a two-way correspondence between thinking and being is the ideal, then it will always be in a process of approximation.

These problems with the objective account lead Climacus to reject it in favor of a subjective account. Climacus suggest that people think of truth not as an abstract approximation external to the subject to which she must comport herself dispassionately, but rather something that the subject reflects upon inwardly in order to exist in subjectivity. In other words, the question is not necessarily what human beings believe, but rather how they relate themselves to what they believe; the issue is how human beings can live in truth in a subjectively authentic manner. The divergence of the objective and the subjective comes to a head when Climacus writes:

“When the question about truth is asked objectively, truth is reflected upon objectively as an object to which the knower relates himself. What is reflected upon is not the relation but that what he relates himself to is the truth, the true. If only that to which he relates himself is the truth, the true, then the subject is in the truth. When the question about truth is asked subjectively, the individual's relation is reflected upon subjectively. If only the how of this relation is in truth, the individual is in truth, even if he in this way were to relate himself to untruth” (199).

Climacus does not necessarily deny the existence of objective truth as something to which the subject must relate herself. However, he goes one step beyond this, stating that the manner of subjective relation to objective truth is more important than the content of the subject's beliefs. If the question is whether or not one can have knowledge of God, the objective relation to truth encounters the problem of approximation, whereby objective knowledge of God deliberates dispassionately in the hopes of somehow proving God objectively. This is problematic, however, because “God is a subject and hence only for subjectivity in inwardness” (200).

The subjective relation, on the other hand, has personal and urgent reality for the subject. Climacus endorses this mode of relation. An objective seeker of God can only approximate the truth of God as an idea, but a subjective seeker of God is infinitely concerned with how she relates to truth. The person who knows the truth objectively but relates to the truth impersonally prohibits truth's genuine, transformative effect in her life. But the person who, while objectively in untruth, relates to it in truth allows herself to experience truth nevertheless on account of her intensely personal and authentic passion and need. If the question is where more truth can be found, in the objective relation or in the subjective relation, Climacus feels that the answer reveals itself in the comparison of the nominal Christian with the virtuous pagan:

“If someone who lives in the midst of Christianity enters, with knowledge of the true idea of God, the house of the true God, and prays, but prays in untruth, and if someone lives in an idolatrous land but prays with all the passion of infinity, although his eyes are resting upon the image of an idol—where, then, is there more truth? The one prays in truth to God although he is worshipping an idol; the other prays in untruth to the true God and is therefore in truth worshipping an idol” (201).

Put simply, actions speak louder than words. The pagan who prays with life-transforming intensity feels the effects of genuine faith, which inwardly spurs him to action, whereas the Christian who goes to church out of a sense of obligation and prays dispassionately feels no such effects of genuine faith and is not inwardly prompted to action. The pagan likewise struggles with uncertainty and takes hold of faith, while the Christian settles for a mere approximation of God. Acknowledging the truth intellectually is by itself an insufficient belief, because belief must be practiced to have effectual value. What one believes must be reflected in one's actions. As an example, Climacus considers the figure of Socrates, who was willing to die for belief in immortality. “He stakes his whole life on this “if”; he dares to die, and with the passion of the infinite he has so ordered his life that it might be acceptable—if there is an immortality” (201). So with regard to the prayers of the virtuous pagan and the nominal Christian, the transforming power of their beliefs decides whether a subject is in truth or not. As such, the truth ultimately lies in the subjective. Climacus supports this conclusion further when he states that the objective emphasis is on what is said and the subjective with how it is said (202). “At its maximum,” he writes. “this 'how' is the passion of the infinite, and the passion of the infinite is the very truth. But the passion of the infinite is precisely subjectivity, and thus subjectivity is truth” (203). In this way, it is preferable (according to Climacus) to pray to a false god in truth rather than praying to the true God in untruth.

With truth being located in subjectivity, Climacus provides a definition of this truth: “An objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness, is the truth, the highest truth there is for an existing person” (203). This means that past a certain point, objective knowledge becomes suspended for the subject, and the infinite passion of inwardness grows stronger in this objective uncertainty. The subject thus chooses objective uncertainty, fueled by infinite passion. Climacus observes that this definition also expresses what it means to have faith. Without a sense of objective uncertainty and risk, one does not need something like faith. “If I am able to apprehend God subjectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I must have faith” (204). Only in the absence of objective certainty can something as hopeful as faith occur. Praying in truth thus means to let faith guide one through inward passion in how one relates to one's beliefs.

In short, Climacus concerns himself primarily with the authenticity of the subject's relation to objective truth. The orientation of the subject and the power of a belief to transform the subject in a real and life changing way ultimately makes the most important difference. Truth is thus found in subjectivity, in the heart of the believer as her beliefs drive her to action. The Hegelian idea of absolute knowledge becomes unattainable to the subject, but this very suspension of objectivity brings faith's value to light. In this sense, Climacus implies that Christianity as truth does not lend itself easily to the modern understanding, but is rather something best understood through the genuine and earnest practice of faith.

Works Cited:

Kierkegaard, Søren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Hong ed. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1846. 189-204. Print.

Simone de Beauvoir, God, and the Blank Canvas of Values

Being an existentialist, Simone de Beauvoir once said that values exist in the world only because we attribute value to them. The world and everything in it, the trees, the creatures, are a blank canvas upon which we paint.

I thought about this as I took time out of my busy day to sit outside and smoke my pipe. It was warm and balmy today. Even though I personally dislike warm weather, nature loves it. People were out and about, playing and talking. The ants were working and exploring, and the trees were basking in the sunlight as they blossomed after a prolonged winter. The stones beneath me were warmed by the sun.

I sat and thought about these ants and these trees, about the wooden bench I sat on and the stone beneath it. In themselves, these things have no value. They are just inert matter waiting to be cognized and given importance. People often step on ants and think nothing of it, or they cut up stone and wood into shapes meaningful for them. The ants and the wood and stone themselves mean nothing and have no value except in what potential value they present us with in the act of cognizing them.

Then I thought about a lack of cognizance. I thought about no humans being around to attribute value to these things. It was a world like that blank canvas, still, unrealized, dead. It was a cold and dark world.

Then I thought about God, and I realized that even if the canvas was blank, it had a craftsman who imagined a wealth of possibilities for it. In themselves, the ants and the wood and the stone mean nothing, but they are loved by God. He attributes the quality of being beloved to them, and this makes them cognizable to us as having values beyond their functional use. But more than this, it opens up the possibility that we might see the world as its craftsman sees it, as something beloved. Even in a world without cognizance, value exists, the value of love and preciousness.

As a rational being, I may paint upon this canvas either great or terrible things. But nothing that is not contrary to love is without value, nothing is nothing in itself, because everything is loved. And because of this, I wish to love everything, even though my capacity for this kind of universal love is imperfect. I love the ants as they crawl on me; they are my sisters in the order of creation. I love the wood of the bench and the trees as they afford me comfort and beauty. I love the stone beneath me as it holds me steadily.

But even as I attempted to love the world around me as God loves it, I realized that I felt intruded upon by the person sitting across from me. I should love that person just as I love the ants and the wood and the stone, but it is more difficult for me, being someone who finds comfort in solitude. The imperfection of my love is laid before me; is it a challenge to overcome? A lesson to be learned? Or is it enough to attempt to love the world as God loves it?

Until next time, this is the Idiot, signing out.
-The Idiot

Random Thoughts about Memories and Facticity

Every once in a while, you experience a moment that is worthy of preservation, a moment that you can't help but recognize as having genuinely authentic content. You take it all in, you take pictures with your mind's eye, you smell the roses, and then the moment is gone. It can be depressing to say goodbye to that moment, to see it as just another lifeless representation of a meaningful event, which you place on the shelf of your memory, next to all the others as they collect dust. It can be saddening to consign that memory to the role of acquaintance rather than friend.

But those memories are never lifeless, not for an instant. They're never absent. Far from being dusty photographs in the museum of your life, they are like new colors that you experience, that become permanent fixtures of how you see the world. That genuinely authentic moment is with you always, because you absorbed it into your whole outlook. That memory is part of who you are now, part of what makes up your facticity and its vibrancy will forevermore color what new experiences become apparent to you.

The memories you accumulate are not there now as a solid, tangible thing you can experience, but they are no less real. And if you can have faith that they are there, defining every subsequent moment of your existence, these memories have all their fondly remembered potency, only now they are drawn infinitely closer to your heart.

This is the Idiot, signing out.

Human Belief in Knowledge, Certainty, and Assassin's Creed

Foreword: The following is not exactly polished. As far as philosophy goes, it's pretty basic stuff. It's a discussion about Cartesian scientific certainty, which is all the rage these days. It's also about the role that faith (or belief, if you like) plays in human experience. All of this was inspired by a particular scene in Assassin's Creed 1 (minor spoilers). I wrote it without a whole lot of editing, but regardless, my convictions as to the importance of faith in human experience are firm. I hope you will see why upon reading this.

"People today tend to talk in terms of knowledge and ignorance. In true Socratic fashion, human existence has largely become a dichotomy where knowledge and ignorance represent bookends for an all-applicable standard. Certainty and grounded-ness are perceived as the ultimate goals. The highest good of discussion and discourse is to stick closely to the facts and adhere to a decidedly scientific rigor. But personally, I think it's more complicated (and yet also much simpler) than that. More than facts and certainty, I believe that the dichotomy which applies more deeply, more authentically to the breadth of human existence, is faith and doubt.

I played Assassin's Creed yesterday. It's a fun little game to play, set in the under-explored historical setting of the Third Crusade. I liked it quite a bit when I was younger, partly because it was one of the few games willing to touch on things like philosophy and religion. But things are never quite as good as you remember, and this game is not as ideologically grand as I remember it being. Essentially, it's science fiction set in the middle ages, with the player attempting to wrest control of advanced alien technology from the evil Templar Order. There is a part of the game later on in which you have to assassinate a Teutonic crusader named Sibrand, who has terrorized the people of the city of Acre with his paranoid fear that assassin's are out to get him (which is actually true, in his case). To make the player feel justified in killing Sibrand, there is a scene in which he accuses an innocent and defenseless priest of being an assassin, and then kills him. The player naturally feels enraged (and maybe a little guilty) over this.

The player makes the successful stab while Sibrand is alone, and lays the dying crusader down. "Rest now, and go to the arms of your God," says the assassin. "Have you learned nothing?" rasps Sibrand. "I know what awaits for me, for all of us." "If not your God, then what?" "Nothing," utters Sibrand, his voice hushed in fear. "Nothing awaits. And that is what I fear." "You don't believe?" the assassin asks incredulously. "How could I? Given what I know, what I have seen? This life is all we have." The talk lingers a little while, with Sibrand explaining that armed with his scientific knowledge (gleaned from the alien tech we mentioned above), he intended to free the holy land by dispelling the illusion of religion. "I followed my orders, believing in my cause," he says, whispering his final words. "Same as you."

The irony of this, to me, was that Sibrand talks about the dialectic between knowledge and ignorance as a criterion while speaking about belief in the same breath. He, a middle ages crusader, saw scientific wonders that made religion look like ignorance by comparison. In this light, holding knowledge over belief became a moral obligation; to be true to himself, he felt he needed to dismiss all belief as ignorance in favor of the standard of knowledge. But upon his death, he confesses that he acted from the standpoint of belief.

When knowledge is reduced down to its most basic axioms, when we arrive at the deepest foundations of what we think is certain, we have nothing but belief. Short of studying EVERYTHING that there is to know about ANYTHING, to the extreme point of achieving certainty in all aspects of your knowledge, there is no way to know for certain that what you know is actually the case. You have to take it on faith that your eyes are not deceiving you. How do you know the traffic light is green? How are you absolutely, beyond all doubt, objectively certain that it is green? Might it be red? You don't know; all you can do is trust your senses and take it on faith that what they are telling you corresponds to reality. Descartes, for all his faults, shines here; there is no way for you to be certain that everything you learned in school is objectively true. And even if they were true facts when you learned them, the nature of science is that it is in a state of near constant self-contradiction. What is true today in science may not be true tomorrow. The implication of this model of knowledge is that absolute certainty is a pipe dream. Nothing can be known for certain. If you are honest with yourself, I think you will find that this is true of everything you think you have ever known. Faith or doubt, not certainty, is at the base of human understanding. Everything we think we know is an assumption without ultimate proof, a leap of faith. There is no primordially verifiable evidence for human experience.

This is one reason why I am skeptical when people tell me that the dialectic between knowledge and ignorance is the only way to understand the world. I find that it is never that simple. The best that science can do is explore the world and present us with more knowledge, which then serves to update/negate what we thought was absolutely true. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, as knowledge is valuable, and without it, we would arguably remain incomplete and unfulfilled. Learning is a natural and fundamental part of what it means to be human. But the end point is that the more knowledge you have, the more things you have to be uncertain about and the more things you must take on faith.

Sibrand automatically assumed that because he had obtained knowledge, everything beyond the scope of tangible knowledge and certainty had to be discounted. He assumed scientific, factual ignorance was the great evil to avoid, but this very assumption was an act of faith. There was no hard evidence to ground his assumption that knowledge was the highest criterion; he chose where he would place value, where to put his belief. Ironically, his unbelief was wholly constituted by belief, by faith, a faith tainted with despair, a faith determined to sink deeper into doubt.

All this sermonizing is just to say this: you have far more faith and doubt than you do knowledge or certainty, and this tension between faith and doubt is at work in every moment of your life. Do with that what you will.

I only know that I want to believe in something more than knowledge, which is contingent on the ever changing interpretations of what constitutes ignorance. I want to believe in something more than Sibrand's despair. I have to believe in something, by virtue of human finitude, and I cannot do otherwise. So I will choose to believe in something good, something noble, something higher than myself, something constant and absolute. And when I look out into the world of possible beliefs that I could work toward realizing, Christianity and the hope of new life stand out to me in a profound way that I cannot, for all my powers of reason, adequately justify. I am compelled by my very existence to believe, so I will believe in hope. And in that hope, may my ordinary faith be lifted up to new heights, there to find new life."

Until next time, this is the Idiot, signing out.

Unconscious Pagans: A Response to "Christianity Rediscovered"

Hello, all. I wrote a paper just recently for a class at college. It might actually be one of the most concise papers I've ever written, and I am quite pleased with it. Looking back at my old posts, I can see that I have come a long way, but I still have a long way to go.

The paper is a response to a book I read called "Christianity Rediscovered." It was about a Catholic missionary named Donovan who traveled to Africa in the 1960's. He was deeply disturbed by the way that the once good name of Christianity had been dragged through the mud of racial hatred and institutionalism, both of which are NOT central to the Christian message. He also worried that Christianity had become too Western, too estranged from the third world to be able to make any difference in the life of a nomadic tribe, of which there are many in Africa. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to see the culturally sensitive side of Christianity or wants to be given a reason why Christianity is NOT conformist or culturally single minded, and is in fact freely accessible to everyone.

That being said, here's my customary disclaimer: The paper is not meant to offend, just to build on top of what I see as solid work from Donovan and to make it more relevant to a contemporary Western audience.

"Most Christians today agree that the teachings of Christ are wholly distinct from worldly beliefs. The Christian Gospel is allegedly transcendent, above any worldly influence that could dilute the significance of its message. And yet, none can deny that throughout its long historical existence, Christianity as a whole has progressively assumed a decidedly Western tone. During the time of Vincent J. Donovan, missionary and author of Christianity Rediscovered, this Westernized Christianity began to show its age and limitations in how it went about its mission to spread the Gospel. In its emphasis on the education of and financial assistance for the African people, the Church essentially became another world charity organization, a mere institution, no better qualified to share the Gospel than the United Nations. After one hundred years of such administration, the only victory achieved was a hollow one, with liturgy being neglected and religion becoming just another subject taught in the schools (7).

Donovan protests this cultural bias, and rightly so. Throughout his book, he argues that the radical individualism and institutionalism of Western society needs careful examination (and when necessary, restriction) before preaching the Gospel, and throughout this brief exposition, I will argue that, at all times, Christians should carefully emphasize the Gospel's transcendence over all earthly systems and its need to be shared within a culturally subjective context. Every tribe and people, whether pagan or Western, is perfectly capable of listening to and receiving the good news. The challenge lies in translating it in such a way that they can understand it within their own cultural context. Only then can they begin to decide their collective response. The relationship between Christian theology (or belief in the divine message that it is meant to clarify) and human culture becomes clear in this light. Theology is meant to meet humanity where it stands.

Frustrated by the inefficiency of the Church's institutional work in Africa, Donovan took an alternative, direct approach. In a letter to an unnamed bishop, he expressed a desire to dispense with the failing, traditional strategy of not preaching the Gospel directly to the pagans:

“I suddenly feel the urgent need to cast aside all theories and discussions, all efforts at strategy – and simply go to these people and do the work among them for which I came to Africa. . . .I know this is a radical departure from traditional procedure, but the very fact that it is to be considered shows the state we are in” (13).

Traditional procedure dictated that one could not preach the Gospel to pagans directly, but that they needed time and incentive to warm up to Christian ideology (42). This might be a concern for a number of reasons, whether political, economical or historical, etc. But when Donovan defied the norm by asking a Masai elder named Ndangoya to speak with him about God (as opposed to medical or financial aid), it quickly became clear that the pagan Masai were already culturally prepared for the Gospel; they needed no warming up or incentive to listen to it when it was spoken. “Who can refuse to talk about God?” answered Ndangoya (18).

Donovan soon learned that the Masai, indeed, all pagans, are beautiful people. They have beautiful customs, habits and expressions. They are human without being Western. But more importantly, they possess their own liturgies and a religious mindset that is potentially receptive to the Christian Gospel. The true story of the virtuous Ole Sikii, the Masai who earnestly sought Engai (his god) even to the edges of a volcano, but for all his effort could not find him, stands as a testament to the honesty and purity of pagan belief (83-90). Though the way they think about God and theological concepts might initially sound too different from the orthodoxy that Westerners have accepted, they are every bit as capable of comprehending the significance of the Christian Gospel and the fulfillment that it entails.

Indeed, fulfillment is the single most important word that could be used to describe the Gospel to pagan ears. The Gospel does not demand a conforming to Western thought. It has no cultural strings attached. Being a Christian does not strictly mean abandoning tribal culture and embracing the theological culture of the Western Church. But what the Gospel does entail is the fulfillment of the beliefs and customs already in pagan possession, meaning that Christ and all subsequent theology is meant to meet humanity where it stands. In other words, pagan culture and liturgy is entirely compatible with Christian doctrine, just as the language of the Hellenistic people encountered by Paul proved entirely compatible. While the Greeks sought God, God sought the Greeks, and he spoke to them through missionaries like Paul. The Gospel presented itself as an answer to the great questions that had plagued Greek thought for years; the Gospel was the fulfillment of their culture. In just the same way, the messages of forgiveness and community preached by Christ addressed the age old concerns and fears of the Masai people. Though their creation myth was not that of Eden, it shared the most fundamental themes of Creation and Fall, albeit with different cultural biases (43).

In multiple cases, Donovan learned to dismiss the culturally blind assumption that pagans have no sense of piety, or that grace and holiness were gifts that he needed to bring with him to the dark corners of the world. His encounters with the various Masai tribes made it progressively clearer to him that grace and holiness already abounded there, regardless of his missionary presence. In fact, when his own faith failed him, he found among the Masai culture a new insight to faith that helped inspire him to complete his task. To the Masai, true belief is like a lion on the hunt, who leaps for his prey, wraps his arms around it, and takes it into himself. Merely agreeing to something is like the hunter who shoots his prey from a distance and uses only a portion of his body, but real faith requires the use of the lion's entire being in its pursuit. Moreover, the analogy provides an excellent picture of how God seeks out his people. “We have not searched for him,” said the Masai elder. “He has searched for us. He has searched for us and found us. All the time we think we are the lion. In the end, the lion is God” (48). In a way, this is the heart of the Christian faith; while humanity seeks the divine, the divine seeks humanity. The light of the Gospel was always God's to give, and he gives it indiscriminately of culture.

Not only is the Gospel intended to be given to all cultures, but it is also meant to be heard and understood by them as well. As in the case of language, we fail to understand foreign languages despite our familiarity with the common meanings behind words, as we are not always familiar with the words to which meanings correspond. Human beings do not speak a single language, nor do they have a single cultural context in which to share concepts. Instead, there are many cultures and ways of thinking. If the Gospel is truly transcendent of earthly limitations, then it cares nothing for culture. This is not to say that the Gospel dispenses with human culture as worthless, but instead that it cares for human cultural, political, or historical systems specifically as varying means by which it can express itself to the human understanding. For example, God communicated with the tribe of Israel in terms of its own culture, but this does not make ancient Hebrew culture somehow superior to contemporary ones. Human ways of thinking, living, and speaking, while valued as precious, are vehicles for the underlying message of the Gospel. They are ways of signifying something greater than themselves.

If this is true, then Western civilization has no exclusive claim to the interpretation of the Gospel. Donovan frequently criticizes the Western Church for being too individualistic and centered around organizations. He contrasts these tendencies to the communitarian outlook of Masai tribal society, and claims that, “A missionary facing an alien culture, to be an efficient instrument of the gospel, has to have the courage to cast off the idols of the tribe, of the tribe he came from” (68). In other words, a missionary like Donovan must set aside his tendencies of thinking in terms of individualism or institutionalism, both traits of Western “tribes,” and learn to take on a new meta-cultural perspective, which is entirely in keeping with the demands of missionary work.

Up to this point, Donovan has correctly assessed the relationship between the Gospel and human culture, but a problem presents itself: he has articulated well how Christianity is a fulfillment of pagan culture, but he has said nothing of fulfillment for Western culture. What about the people who do not possess the religious receptivity of the pious pagans, and whose culture has contrasting values that do not immediately lend themselves to the fulfillment that the Gospel promises?

I am a Westerner. I have never travelled to Africa or any third world countries, and as such, Western society is my native environment. The only foreign countries I have seen with my own eyes are European ones, with developed cities and no nomadic tribes to speak of. The people and customs there are as diverse and unique as anywhere, but they differ from the pagans in that they have inherited varying viewpoints with regards to religion. I have seen that large portions of Europe are without belief. Despite the towering cathedrals that still stand as reminders of their Christian heritage, many Westerners do not acknowledge any need for faith in their lives. This obstacle to missionary work is not exclusive to Europe, either. North America finds itself in a similar situation. The public eye here often confuses faith for fundamentalism or irrationality. In increasing numbers, Western people dismiss belief in God as an antiquated notion. At best, they see the Gospel as trivial or subjective.

Westerners, for all their civilization, are in desperate need. Though they may not starve or suffer under conditions of civil war, they lack the ability to see the Gospel as a fulfillment of their culture. In their comfort, they have lost the religious receptivity of the pagans, which was what once allowed Christianity to spread, and they remain unaware of their loss. They are as the rich young man who refused to follow Christ after giving away his possessions. My objection to Donovan is not his meta-cultural perspective of missionary work, but rather how limited his scope within that field of work is. He emphasizes the need to speak the pagan language to bring them the fulfillment of the Gospel, but he remains silent as to how the Gospel should translate to Western ears. Donovan is a product of his time, putting all his focus into third world missionary work because that was where the greatest need once seemed to be. Apart from an occasional anecdote about the ignorance of Western youth in the classroom, he seems blind to the spiritual poverty of Western culture, and gives no guidance or insight as to how this obstacle can be overcome.

Having never traveled to Africa, I cannot say with certainty that Donovan's emphasis was unnecessary. Extreme poverty and suffering are, beyond any reasonable doubt, real issues that Christians must take seriously. In spite of that, I am keenly aware that I do not live in the pagan society that Donovan describes. Post-modernism and the lingering spirit of the Enlightenment have hardened the heart of the West to the good news. In a way, the West has assumed the traditionally negative connotations of paganism: its superstition is science, its witchdoctors are radical secularists, and, most dangerously, it teaches an active resistance to any notion of a higher power that could threaten human sovereignty. Westerners have become the worst sort of pagans, the kind who have lost their religious receptivity, something crucial to the acknowledgement of the fulfillment promised by the Gospel. Arguably, this fulfillment is the very point of missionary work. In short, Westerners have traded the positive aspects of their paganism for all the negative ones. They remain willfully ignorant of who they really are.

Donovan's strategy of the Finishable Task assumes that pagans who will either accept or reject the Gospel constitute the world. For those who accept, they receive the Christian inheritance, and they must become missionaries unto their neighbors. For those who reject, Donovan says nothing except that he must mournfully pass them by and continue sharing with those who will listen (80-82). With this tactic, he excludes many Westerners, as a simple sharing of the Gospel will never suffice in persuading them. Moreover, his outlined plan entails approaching “the people of any culture or nation, not as individuals, but as a community” (121). This worked well in his dealings with the Masai, but for Westerners, who do not often think in terms of community, this approach fails.

Either Donovan's meta-cultural vision of the Gospel is correct, and missionaries need to approach Westerners within the context or their own culture (even if that culture is individualistic or organization centered), or they need to convince Westerners that their culture is somehow wrong and that they must embrace a communitarian outlook. The first option says that Westerners must hear the Gospel in their own terms, while the second dictates that they must forsake their culture and take on aspects of one more fitting with Donovan's model. But this second alternative is an anathema to Donovan's entire position, since he initially concerned himself with the fact that the Western Church has no right to impose Western culture on any who hear the Gospel. Consequently, pagan communitarianism has no right to impose its culture on the West, and Donovan's complaints of Western individualism are dismissible in the face of the Gospel, which is transcendent of human culture in any case.

Looking back, I can see that Donovan's approach is true to the original missionary intent and practice of the Gospel. Seen in this light, Christianity is geared for reaching out to pagans, specifically those who earnestly seek God. But at the same time, Christianity appears ill-suited for dealing with a culture of pagans who have heard the good news but rejected it. However accurate Donovan's view, it fails to consider the fulfillment of Western culture. This stands out as a clear shortcoming. While I must agree with Donovan's model, it suffices only as one half of a greater equation, a foundation upon which to build. The question becomes how missionaries can translate the Gospel into the language of Western pagans while staying true to Donovan's meta-cultural approach to missionary work.

Belief in the Gospel meets people where they are. It must meet us Westerners in terms of our own language while somehow coaxing us away from our hard-hearted Enlightenment presuppositions. It must remain consistent with our scientific and moral sensibilities while simultaneously engendering in us a heart of understanding, a willingness to listen to God's message as given through the Incarnation. It must transform us from rejecting pagans into virtuous pagans. It must convince us of the need to acknowledge our own paganism, and that the Gospel fulfills our culture every bit as much as it does that of the Masai of Africa."

Works Cited:

Donovan, Vincent J. Christianity Rediscovered. 4thth ed. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis, 2005. N. pag. Print.

Feedback/comments are welcome and appreciated. I'd love to hear what you think of all this.

This is the Idiot, signing out.

The Idiot Gets a little Preachy

I went to the grocery store today, like I do every week, and I saw something that bothered me. Actually, I see it every time I go there and every time, it bothers me a little more. Now that I am writing this, the thought occurs to me that most people probably aren't as bothered when they see it, and that is a little disturbing to me.

In fact, me even talking about it as if I were bothered and disturbed will make me come across as preachy. Doubtless, most people will automatically clump me in with the rising pile of ethically outraged citizens that seem to be a-dime-a-dozen nowadays. But however people might write me off and to what degree, this is something that I feel needs to be said, and it needs to be thought about more intently by everyone as we go into this still very young century.

What I saw was located a corner of the store near the produce section, which, ironically, is supposed to be one of the most ethical and organic sections of the typical grocery store. Even as I was browsing the selection of honest and healthy foods on sale, I caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye, just like I do every time I go there.

I saw something that made my heart fracture just a little more, something that made me ashamed of myself and my society more than any smug, environmentally themed movie ever could. I saw a drama unfolding that was a microcosm of the greater cruelty and evil that I know is surely everywhere.

The odds are that with all this dramatic buildup, you're likely to laugh or role your eyes when you hear what it was that affected me so, but here it is: I saw a small, grimy tank full of lobsters. They were crowded together, claustrophobically so, with little to no space between any of them. Especially to the left side of the tank, they concentrated in mountains, piled on top of each other, all remaining motionless except for the barely visible workings of their feelers. None of them moved, and even though I knew they were incapable of expressing any kind of obvious emotion, I got the sense that they were all resigned to this situation that they found themselves in.

Approaching the tank, I imagined all the incessant tapping of the dirty glass of children, gawking at what they thought to be fascinating monsters worth goading. I decided it would be better to not get right up to the glass, but I was still close enough to see many details. I noticed, for example, that there was one loner just outside the pile on the left. He (or she, I couldn't tell) was even more motionless than any of the others, because he didn't have any antennae; they had been cut off, very neatly and at even lengths, so that only stubs remained. I felt a small surge of outrage. It's probably not easy for a human to relate in any way to a crustacean, but this was the equivalent of my ears being cut off or my eyes being gouged out. This creature had been subjected to the deprivation of its own senses. Whether this was caused by one of his irritated brethren or by human hands, I couldn't be certain, but I still observed that the severed antennae were too neat and even to likely be lost by natural means.

As if this was not bad enough, every one of the lobsters had bands over their claws to prevent them from using them. Understandable, since creatures confined like this would probably become violent and harm each other, but it made me feel like I was looking at a cell full of cuffed prisoners.

While I was observing the loner, the man behind the counter was unloading even more lobsters into the already crowded tank. These fresh lobsters moved about with vigor that the others lacked. One of the newcomers marched boldly up to a lobster at the outset of a large pile. The challenger used the brunt of his bound claw to slam into the other. I assumed that this was a male sign of exerting dominance, which I know male lobsters are prone to do in the wild. But the remarkable and depressing thing was that the lobster he slammed into did nothing in response. He just let himself be knocked around, as if it didn't matter anymore. Of course, I know that lobsters aren't intelligent enough to feel resignation to fate, but it struck me as unusual that this creature would be so subdued and lethargic. The loner watched the scene unfold with disturbing stillness.

The more I thought about lobsters and their behaviors, the more I thought back to an article I once read about them. It said that lobsters have highly developed senses of smell and taste, and thanks to their central nervous systems, they can feel a lot of things. I imagined how much more trapped those in the giant piles must have felt.

It could just be that I watched District 9 recently and that I've always felt sorry for insects and smaller creatures that most people write off as pests, but it hurt me deeply to see these creatures caged and mistreated so. Later that night, I did some Googling and saw that while lots of people are uncomfortable with the way we treat these animals, even more people dismiss the entire issue as the usual animal-rights-activist rhetoric to be ignored or laughed at.

I should tell you right now that I'm not an animal rights activist. I'm not a vegetarian and I certainly don't approve of the choices PETA has made. But every time I see this tank, full of creatures who are very likely to meet their ends by being horrifically boiled alive, I start to think a little more that we, as a people, have become desensitized to the suffering of the animals we use every day.

And I'm not even talking about lobsters anymore. Dairy animals like cows, pigs and chickens suffer just as much as lobsters, if not more so. The unethical activities of the factory farming industry are numbered too many to list here. Chickens have their beaks cut off, pigs are kept in gestation cages, and cows are fattened on a diet that all but destroys their digestive systems. We, as a society, have become blind and indifferent to the suffering of living beings.

Wait, how can that be? Lots of people today are animal lovers, and many different species are kept as pets and well cared for. There are even organizations created solely for the purpose of the welfare of animals.

That's all well and good, but let's examine the popular stance towards animals. Most people would never hurt a cat or a dog. In fact, most people become morally outraged when they hear of these animals being abused in any way. These people usually do not want to understand why cockfights exist or anyone would be cruel to cats, dogs, or other various pet species.

But why aren't these people just as outraged at how young male chicks are thrown into grinders while they are still alive or stuffed in bags to be suffocated? Why aren't they as outraged by the forced mutilation that pigs endure in lightless factory floors? Why aren't they as outraged when lobsters are tossed into pots of boiling water, where they scream and flail in pain and break their own appendages against the metal sides, or when they are sliced open on plates while they are still alive? How is it that most people today, as aware and informed as they are, are so paralyzed in their indifference that they do nothing to eat more ethically or show more kindness to living things?

If I wasn't preachy before, I will be now. I should tell you that I am a Christian. As such, I believe in taking care to never harm living things when I can help it. If God loves creation like the Bible says he does, then the good Christian is one who is kind to animals and respectful of nature, even to the lowest worm and the smallest shrub.

Last year in an ethics class, the issue of cruelty to animals was raised, and I was exposed to a way of thinking that I felt was particularly poignant, and it was this: the issue is not about logically constructed arguments or about the question of whether or not animals should have rights. The issue is one of mercy. If I, as a Christian, believe in a God who wields absolute power but yet has mercy on me, am I not obligated to show that same mercy to those under my power? I could kill the small worm with the slightest pressure of my boot, but I choose to have mercy on it and I leave it alone. A tree is helpless before me when I have an axe or a torch in hand, but I show mercy to it and never chop it down unless I need to. Even a mighty bull is ultimately defenseless against me, the more intelligent and well armed creature. All of creation is completely at humanity's mercy. We have nearly unlimited power to destroy and abuse, just as God has power over us, but He chooses mercy; by His example, I am obligated to show mercy to those under my power, whether they are people or animals.

You don't have to believe what I believe to see that these aren't bad beliefs to observe. I'm sorry if I come across as too blunt and I don't mean to shame you into sharing my religion's doctrines, but Christian or not, why shouldn't we think it a good thing to show mercy to animals? Likewise, I don't mean to tell you that you can't eat meat anymore because I actually enjoy meat myself. My point is that in everything we do, we are obligated to avoid inflicting pain and to prevent the suffering of those under our care. Whether you view it as divinely ordained stewardship or just our responsibility as the most intelligent animal on the planet, I think we can agree that deliberately being cruel to animals in order to satisfy our tastes is morbidly wrong. There is a time for eating meat, but that time is not every day at every meal, especially not when it comes at the expense of millions of God's creatures living out their lives in darkness and torment. We are better than this. God's creation, Mother Nature, whatever you want to call it...it deserves better than this. If an industry profits from the pain of God's creatures, then it must go. We should not want to live in a society where this kind of thing is passively accepted or endorsed. Your money is yours to spend, but please, please think twice before you give your money to people who hurt animals instead of having mercy on them.

If there is just one thing that you take away from all this, I hope it's that you please think long and hard about mercy the next time you eat. It isn't about whether or not an animal is intelligent enough to feel pain, it isn't about being guilt-tripped into becoming some vegetarian animal-rights-activist chump; it's about showing mercy to those weaker than you.

Remember the loner in the cage. Remember mercy.

Until next time, this is the Idiot, signing off.