And the Word is . . . Love? Destroy? Both?

"Have you heard -- the word is Love."
The Beatles

"You are the Word -- the Word is Destroy."
Franz Ferdinand

"Зла, добра ли? -- Ты вся -- Не отсюда."
Александр Блок
("Are you good or evil? You are both entirely. Entirely not from here."
Aleksandr Blok, "To the Muse")

So, in the midst of my mistaken foray into Church of Christ discussion boards, I began to meditate on the theological implications of the belief that the Bible is the full, complete, inerrant, and infalliable Word of God.

I'm of the opinion that the Divine, the Eternal, the True, the Good, the Just (pick your personal favorite) is transcendent of the world. Actually transcendent isn't quite the right word here. Its not that the Divine is throughly separate from the world, but more along the lines of the Divine is partially knowable, but beyond full knowledge. The fullness of the Divine is beyond human comprehension. It's whay paradox is important in certain branches of theology. Our logic, our rules, are mocked if you will.

It's a concept I think is best expressed in the Hindu images of Shiva Nataraja, or Lord Shiva dancing through creation and destruction over the demon of ignorance. Triumph over ignorance is found in paradox.

It's hardly a concept that foriegn to Christian theology, but it does seem to a concept that is foreign to evangelical Christian theology. The paradox of Divinity that reminds of that the Divine is beyond our full comprehension, that for any statement we make about the Divine the reverse may also be true, has been reduced to a dry Biblical literalism. Instead of the paradoxes of the Bible, the contradictions (which there are) being embraced as signals pointing us to look beyond human logic and recognize the limits of our own perceptions, any contradiction must be harmonized either through a canon with in a canon reading that prioritizes one view of the Divine, or Divine will, over another, or through clever wordplay that prioritizes human cleverness over a infinitely complex Divine.

And that is why I feel it is so necessary to look for paradox and alternate visions of the Divine. To me it is the most important feature of iconography -- that a religion possesses visual reminders that the Divine has no one single face, but is best represented through many faces.

Like carnivores to carnal pleasures...

(just ripped off Harvey Danger)

I went to Central BBQ for and returned with a pork sandwich, mild sauce, and slaw. I bit into it. I chewed. I swallowed. I gulped coke to kill the burning in my mouth. I gasped something along the lines of: Oh, God, yes! That's what I've been wanting all Lent!

Communism, Libertarianism, and Morality

I have to make a confession to begin this post. I'm a bit of a libertarian. Not a hard-core, jumping up and down screaming card-carrying member of the Libertarian Party. But I'm a libertarian. I want the government to be involved as little as possible in my life. I don't want them telling me who I can kiss, what I can smoke, who I can pray to, what I can drink, and that I have to wear a seat belt in my car. Nor do I want the government taking care of me. Personal responsibility -- it's the flip side of personal freedom. Mind you, I take personal responsibility a bit further than most libertarians and think that it requires attempting to think through how one's actions will affect others and acting in an ethical manner. So for me, making a ton of money by exploiting other human beings is anything but responsible behavior.

And, yes, I'm technically a capitalist. It's taken me years to convince my family of that, because I have crazy ideas for a capitalist. For instance, I think Marx was onto a lot of things and should be read more widely. And I've been known to quote Eugene V. Debs. And I think anti-communist propanganda is ridiculous in every way.

I've been reminded of the ridiculousness of at least twice a week for the past couple of months. I'm taking a class on world politics since World War II, and we've just wrapped up a unit on Latin America. I'm ashamed I didn't know more about Latin America before now, and I'm throughly disgusted with the series of completely morally indefensible American "interventions" in the region. Pinochet, we're responsible for fucking Pinochet! (Can't imagine why that wasn't in my high school textbook.)

And most of this was done in the name of establishing an anti-communist government to ensure that U.S. economic interests in the area were protected-- because the United States is interested in spreading democracy through free elections if, and only if, they like the result of elections.

This is why I don't belong in politics or economics. I can't divorce myself enough from moral and ethical concerns to judge the effectiveness. I would rather have a hypothetical leftist leaning government that has some comprehension human rights than a capitalist government with no comprehension of personhood. Honestly, I would rather pay a bit more for a hamburger and know that the girl ringing it up makes enough money to live on. And I think that trying to ensure that people receive enough compensation from their work to live on is personal responsibility.

So now, there's been this lovely on and off battle between the libertarian and the progressive, both of whom are just hanging out in my skull, wondering how to live ethically. Yah!

Of course, if human nature were such that everyone acted morally and ethically, maybe we could just be happy anarchists. Stupid human nature. Always getting in the way.

Pharisees and Samaritans: An Extended Metaphor on Christian Theocracy

Today's post is a part of the Blogswarm Against Theocracy.

More information about importance of separation of church and state can also be found at firstfreedomfirst.org.

"Now I'm not looking for absolution,
forgiveness for the things I do,
But before you come to any conclusions,
try walking in my shoes."
Depeche Mode

I've mentioned before that my pet peeve is Biblical literalists who don't read their Bible. Or at least, they don't read it closely. So, today, I would like to point out the absurdity of Christian Theocracy. I remember being taught the Golden Rule as a small child in Sunday class. "In everything do to others as you would have them do unto you; for this is the law and prophets." Matthew 7:12 (NRSV)

I'll begin with a brief exegesis on this simple statement of Jesus. "This is the law and prophets." I read this has meaning that the concept of treating others as you yourself would wish to be treated is muy importante. J.C. wants the disciples to know that if they get nothing else out of the law and prophets they should get this message. Now, what is this message. It's simple and phrased elsewhere in the Bible as "Love your neighbor as yourself." My reading here is three-fold. First, recognize that you are fully human, loved by God, and created in God's image. Second, recognize that your neighbor, who might be a nasty Samaritan who worships God differently, is also fully human, loved by God, and created in God's image image. Next, consider your actions toward neighbor and treat your neighbor in the same manner that you would treat yourself as a child of God. Your actions should be motivated by love and guided by respect.

Theocrats, as best I can tell given that I'm not psychic, are not motivated by love, nor are they guided by respect. They are motivated by fear. Fear that their neighbor, our metaphorical nasty Samaritan who either worships God in a different way or who doesn't believe in God, will suddenly be in a position of control over them and will force them to abandon their way of worshiping God. Their response is to attempt to gain power quickly, claim that their way of worshiping God is the only way, and then force the nasty Samaritan to worship God as they worship. The theocrats are following a rule that reads like this: In everything do to others as you fear they will do unto you.

And, if they claim that the Bible guides them to act as they do, they have quite obviously missed the point. They skimmed the sections of the New Testament where J.C. tells people to treat others as they would be treated. They missed the parable of our Samaritan neighbor wherein it only the man who worships God differently who is actually doing the will of God. (Luke 10: 29-33) They forgot that Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well there will be a time when the different ways humans have concocted to worship God will mean nothing and spirit of the worship will be the only thing that matters. Instead, they have focused on the details of the law, convinced their way is the only way, and have forgotten that the Samaritan of today -- the feminist, the gay, the atheist, etc. etc. -- is also the beloved child of God. Thus, to be a Christian Theocrat is, quite simply, nonsense.

Note: I want to add that I do not believe it is absurd for a Christian to believe that the metaphorical Samaritan is sinning according to his or her beliefs, only that is absurd for the Christian to insist that he or she has the right to impose his or her beliefs on the Samaritan when he or she would not want the Samaritans beliefs imposed on him or her.

St. Mary of Egypt

While conversing with my aunt today about college and the paper I'm writing on the deconstruction of gender in early Christianity, I stumbled over a happy recognition that a point made in class on Wednesday brings together an illustration of the subject I'm discussing in my paper and my favorite subject iconography. *does the happy dance*

I mentioned that I planned to focus on eunuchs and cross-dressing women in my paper and used St. Mary of Egypt as an example of a cross-dressing woman ascetic. I then rambled for a moment about how I thought that it was quite interesting that out of several female saints who cross-dressed that only St. Mary of Egypt's iconography has preserved that aspect of her life, and even furthers it by portraying her without breasts to indicate that she through ascetic practices had become a spiritual male. St. Thecla, St. Pelagia -- not so much, they're both in women's clothing in the icons I found on a quick Google search. So, I wonder, what factors were different in case of St. Mary's iconography?

Icon of St. Mary Egypt pulled from here. (They also have a rather lovely one of St. Mary Magdalen.)

An Open Letter of to Cathey's Creek

Dear Cathey's Creek Church of Christ,

Please construct an official website. While I'm highly amused and delighted to be getting not only hits but readers (nothing like readers to keep the rambler going!) as a result of a google search for Cathey's Creek Church of Christ pulling up this blog as the first link, I'm also a disturbed. Mostly because, simply for informational purposes, I'm not sure that people wanting to know about Cathey's Creek should be directed to my ruminations.

Sincerely yours,

WordK

P.S. Ya'll have surpassed "pet skunk stories" and "bellevue baptist troubles" as the number one search pulling up this site. Congrats!

Also, to anyone who's stumbled by looking for Cathey's Creek: Howdy!

Boredom and Facebook: What a Dangerous Combination!

Well, I gave into the creeping temptation and entered another discussion on the Church of Christ facebook group. I should probably be shot before I do something else.

In my defense, I entered on a good note. Someone started a topic on homosexuality and the correct Christian response to it. I found it a delightful surprise that the majority of response were quite nuanced. Anyway, since I had just been delighted by the interaction of Pepperdine and Soulforce I posted a link to the Soulforce blog entry and an article from Pepperdine's campus newspaper.

And then the warm, fuzzy feelings dissolved. Not in response to my original posting, which hasn't received a direct response. And then my snarkiness crawled out of the darkness. Bad Metra!

Anyhoo, its reopened my meditation on the difference between theological statements with which I disagree and flat-out bad theology, so maybe some use will emerge and I can try to further refine the difference between the two things.