Sunday, April 26, 2009

Think of the children

So I was watching the culmination of the glorious awesomeness that took the form of the Cavaliers 4-0 sweep of the Pistons today when I had a realization.

A whole generation of basketball loving kids is going to grow up in Detroit hating LeBron James. (When I have really important realizations they're usually italicized, by the way.)

Think of that for a moment. These are kids that live in Detroit, so they obviously don't have a whole lot going for them. And to to top it all off they won't get to enjoy the best basketball player of their generation because of deep, churning, visceral bitterness stemming from a series of days like today.

I should know. I was obsessed with the Cavaliers as a child in the 1980s, which were really the dawn of Michael Jordan's dominance. We were able to put together some remarkably talented teams, but always managed to come up short in the playoffs. Like in 1989. "The shot." That's right. "The shot" has its own Wikipedia page. Give it a click. I'll be here when you get back. Allow me to set the scene ... May 7, 1989: Cavs are favored in the series but find themselves down 3-1 at home in the Richfield Coliseum ... You know what, I can't even describe it. Too painful. Still. 2 decades later. Just know that the scene ends with Jordan celebrating and Craig Ehlo crumpled on the floor along with a small but very important piece of my soul. And on that day I started hating Michael Jordan. With the intense, irrational, unadulterated hatred that only a seven year-old-boy with shattered dreams can muster.

And for that reason I was unable to truly enjoy most of Michael Jordan's amazing career. It's a shame this all has to happen again.


Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Torture memos and the sale of the American soul

“Have you ever heard of blowing off steam?”
-Rush Limbaugh, in reference to the photos of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib

I’ve been thinking a bit about the drive in the media to defend the practice of torture since it became public that we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in a month. Each argument to defend the practice can really be reduced to one or more of the following, each more specious than the one preceding it:

It’s not that bad. Guys in fraternities have been doing it for years; freshmen used to get hazed on football teams all the time. Let’s be honest with ourselves for once. Our government used some of the same techniques that were perfected in the Spanish Inquisition and used during the Salem Witch Trials. These are things that we put war lords and third world dictators on trial for in tribunals whenever we get the chance. It’s torture. Call it what it is.

We have to because we get so much good information from it. It’s only thing that kept us from being attacked again. I call this one the Bauer fallacy. It’s been demonstrated repeatedly that standard interrogation techniques consistently produce more reliable intelligence than torture does. And the whole “ticking bomb torture scenario” is a myth, so you can give it a rest. I’ll give that one a fair hearing after it’s been documented once in the history of the world.

Doctors and lawyers were overseeing the whole thing. That makes it all good. Yeah, doctors and lawyers never take part in unsavory things like holocausts, either.

Then there’s usually some broad claim about it being un-American to think that America should be held to the standards it set for itself. And it's all bullshit.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Thoughts on church


Here's a blog post I put together for my Theology and Culture class. I thought I'd toss it out there in case anyone might be interested.

Prompt:

How do you define "church" and what informs your perspective?

… If a theology is, in a basic form, how one talks about God (or the divine), how does your perspective on God affect your thoughts on church? Discuss how your theologies inform your interactions with "church”.
_______________________________

I suppose I should start, as suggested, with my conception of church. For me, at the most basic level, church is about relationship. To quote Kurt Vonnegut quoting his son, Mark: “We are here to help each other get though this thing, whatever it is.” In this instance “this thing” refers to a life of faith.

I grew up in a small, rather conservative (and, I think, typical) Midwestern evangelical congregation. It was the same congregation that my mother grew up in, and her father actually helped to physically construct the church building. My parents still attend the same church today. Obviously it is a community of faith where I have deep roots. For all of my criticisms of it (and I have many; so very many), I can never doubt that there are people there who know me intimately and care very deeply for my wife and me, and I am convinced that my experiences there were formative for my faith. I think that this level of grounding in a faith community is an increasingly rare experience for a 20-something Christian in America, and this is going to be to the church’s detriment in the years to come.

Several years ago I found myself fed up with evangelicalism in general for a variety of reasons and began examining alternative methods in the expression of Christianity. I found myself drawn to the Anabaptist tradition for its emphasis on social justice, celebration of togetherness in community life, and uncompromising commitment to taking seriously the ethics expressed in the life and teachings of Jesus. My wife and I found a home in a Mennonite church that felt right for us at that point in our faith journey and we became members several years ago. Being a member of this particular faith community in this particular denomination has helped my faith immensely as I struggle to determine how I can live meaningfully as a Christian in my current context.

Phyllis Tickle, in The Great Emergence, argues that the emergence will involve a “gathering center” where elements of the liturgical tradition, social justice movement, conservative Christianity, and the renewalist/charismatic movement will meet and exchange methods and ideas, with the apparent result being something of a patchwork of Christianity that will exist for the foreseeable future until a more coherent model can be found. I think that this can be seen in the trend toward non-denominationalism in which Christian tradition is treated as a buffet where one can take whatever one feels like when it comes to doctrines and practices and no real denominational commitment can be expected.

In the first chapter of A Matrix of Meanings, Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor describe contemporary culture as Post-institutional. I think this is an especially apt description. For evidence one needs only to look at the rise in popularity of television programming such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, especially among the young. These shows are predicated on exposing and ridiculing the absurdities that exist in venerated institutions; specifically our government and the journalistic arm of the media. It is true that political satire has existed in this country since colonial times, but I would estimate that more people under the age of 30 get their news from Stewart (and others like him) than from traditional sources – an unprecedented development suggesting a deep mistrust of these institutions that did not exist a generation ago. While no real correlate to The Daily Show has emerged for religion, we would be foolish to think that this is automatically indicative of a greater degree of trust for institutionalized religion.

My first reaction to these developments is to lament the decline of denominationalism since I have found a wealth of beauty in the specific Anabaptist tradition that I have chosen for myself. But when I look at the way I approach my denomination and compare it to people in my congregation who have been Mennonites for generations I see that I am not as different from the Nondenominational “Let’s dabble in Calvinism with a touch of the Wesleyan tradition, and what the hell let's dip our toe in the Catholic pool while we’re at it” types as I would like to believe. The truth is that I walked away from the Christian worldview that I grew up with as soon as it ceased to be a meaningful narrative for me. While I feel committed to my congregation and denomination at this time, if I move away from Pasadena and the local Mennonite congregation wherever I end up doesn’t have the attributes that initially drew me in, I know I won’t hesitate to change my affiliation. When I get down to it I don’t find my meaning in religious institutions, but rather in community. Relationships are key for me, and they transcend structures and institutions.