Archive for the 'Othering' Category
Alvin Plantinga and the Definition of Fundamentalist
Travis Gilmore February 6th, 2008
So I found this quote by Alvin Plantinga taken from his magnum opus “Warranted Christian Belief.” To give a little context to the quote, Plantinga had been talking about his Calvin/Aquinas model for the necessity of the “internal instigation of the Holy Spirit” due to the noetic effects of sins. For fundamentalists like Plantinga (and myself) it offers some humor and insight.
“But isn’t this just endorsing a wholly outmoded and discredited fundamentalism, that condition than which, according to many academics, none lesser can be conceived? I fully realize that the dreaded f-word will be trotted out to stigmatize any model of this kind. Before responding, however, we must first look into the use of this term ‘fundamentalist’. On the most common contemporary academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like ’son of a bitch’, more exactly ’sonovabitch’, or perhaps still more exactly (at least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on matters of pronunciation) ’sumbitch.’ When the term is used in this way, no definition, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a sumbitch, would you fell obligated first to define the term?) Still, there is a bit more to the meaning of ‘fundamentalist’ (in this widely current use); it isn’t simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views. That makes it more like ’stupid sumbitch’ (or maybe ‘fascist sumbitch’?) than ’sumbitch’ simpliciter. It isn’t exactly like that term either, however, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its content seems to depend on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal theologians, for example, it tends to denote any who accept traditional Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation that the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the phrase ‘considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.’ The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can be given by something like ’stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of mine’” (Warranted Christian Belief, pp. 244-245).
- Church Fathers , Creeds , Ethics , Love , Othering , Unity
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Dreaming of a Brave New World
jr. January 21st, 2008
from the hands and heart of a white, anglo-saxon protestant male:
Today is the day many in our nation have set aside to remember and honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream of racial equality. I often wonder how seriously we take this any more. After all, I’ve heard over the past several years countless Americans of European descent choose to speak of “reverse-racism”, bemoan Affirmative Action as outdated and unfair and of course rage against the swelling tide of illegal immigrants. This is nothing new in our country. In the immigration swells of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, “white people” were just as racist. The difference was that ‘we’ were discriminating against Italian and Irish immigrants. In fact, the rhetoric used to describe those immigrants was strikingly similar to that used of blacks and now of the current tide of immigrants. Now, however, most every American considers Irish and Italian peoples to be nothing more than another flavor of ‘white’, and even black persons are welcomed by the white majority so long as they conform to white culture.1
No, America’s racism grows out of the same old problem - we are afraid of that which is unlike us. We have not become less racist; rather, we’ve managed to incorporate more of those formerly Other races into ourselves. We demand that you look like us (as much as possible), speak like us (English only, please), believe like us (liberal, Judeo-Christian)2 and act like us (2.5 kids, nuclear family, share our values, etc.). So long as you conform to We, you may stay here, and you may thrive here. But if you do not, if you choose not to conform and instead to celebrate your distinctiveness, then you are a threat to We. You take Our jobs and You threaten to undermine Our values and Our way of life. So long as You demand that you be allowed to remain You, You will have no place among We. We will drive you out, and We will build walls to keep You out, where You belong.
And this is why Dr. King’s dream is still so far from reality. We are not yet a country where a person is judged by “the quality of his character”. We are still judged by the color of our skin, by the type of clothing we wear, by the words we speak (and the accent with which we speak them), by the god we worship (and the theologies to which we hold), and by the nation to which we pledge allegiance.
Of course most of you know that I hold no special love in my heart for America. What breaks my heart about our continuing racism this is that the Church is one of the biggest advocates of continuing racism in this country. Sunday morning continues to be ‘the most segregated hour of the week’. Many do not even see this as a problem; a leader at my church has said repeatedly when I bring up the idea of working for a more integrated congregation, “They’re more comfortable in their own churches.” Nearly every Evangelical with whom I speak about immigration thinks that a person should be required to learn English to even cross the border. And at the Crystal Cathedral’s ReThink conference this weekend, prominent Evangelical leader Chuck Colson made this statement: “Islam is a tragically regressive religion, because it has proven itself incapable of producing a great civilization.” Now, I’m going to blog about this more extensively later, but these attitudes pervade God’s Church. And we are not meant to be so.
We are to welcome the alien, the stranger among us, because we were once aliens in Egypt. We are to welcome the Other into ourselves just as they are, for so has God opened Godself to us even while we were yet sinners. We are to offer love because we first were loved. I have a dream that one day God will teach God’s people what it means to be God’s children. Or maybe I should dream instead that one day we will have eyes to see the object lessons God’s placed all around us, and ears to hear the cries of the stranger in our lands, ears that will remember our own cries, and note how similar They are to We. Not because we speak the same language or worship the same way or look the same or believe the same. But because we are all children of the same God, and we all have equal need of the same redemption.
May God give us eyes of faith to see the reality of what it means to be human today. And may God give us ears to hear the cries of God’s children who are still in bondage. And may God teach us how to love the Other as perfectly and redemptively as God has.
“It’s a long way from the shadows in my cave up to Your reality, to watch the sunlight taking over. Take me over.”
– Switchfoot, “Home”
- Consider sitcoms such as the Cosbys, Family Matters and Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, in which the family structure, economic status and weekly problems mirrored that of white suburban America much moreso than they reflected (primarily urban) black culture] [↩]
- Not, of course, political liberalism, but true philosophic liberalism, which sees religion primarily as a private, individual concern rather than as a corporate reality/worldview. [↩]
- Culture , Love , Othering , Race
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Christians and the Other
Honzo December 16th, 2007
Question of the day (this time with an answer):
How do we, as Christians, conceptualize the Other?
How should we treat these people, both to their face and within our communities while they are not present? They think that they know how to best relate to that which is “wholly Other” - whether it be God, gods, the numinous, whatever you want to call it(s). We think we know how to as well. What do we do with such an impasse? Shall we let loose upon them the canon and be done with it? Do we assume all roads generate the same journey?
A good friend of mine and fellow author here at Theology for the Masses, JR Madill, navigated these very issues a few weeks ago in a talk on Christianity and Pluralism. Now, I don’t want to give away what he had to say, but I do want to say that I found his reply to be quite good and worthy of your consideration.
An Installment on the Interaction of Intercourse and Economics
tom December 13th, 2007
One of the more disconcerting passages in all the Bible is the rape of Tamar, David’s daughter, by her half-brother Amnon (2 Samuel 13). As the narrative goes, Tamar is “loved” by her brother because he was tormented by her beauty. He feigns an illness to be alone with Tamar. When she brings him food to eat, he seizes her and rapes her despite her fervent resistance. After the rape, Amnon loathes his sister more than he ever “loved” her. He thrusts her away as a slave, a piece of property which was expended and now retains no value. To Amnon, she is no longer “Tamar,” she is now “this woman.” She is no longer a person who is “loved,” she is chattel to be discharged.1
Amnon learned this behavior from his father – that is, he learned to treat people, especially women, as property instead of humans created in God’s image. Just in the previous chapter David is finally confronted about his rape of Bathsheba and his clandestine execution of Uriah. People and their lives were mere objects to be consumed to David. He cared little for love, for family, for holiness. He cared only for consumption, and people are just another thing to be procured, retain, owned, and conquered.
What I find interesting in this whole matter is how intercourse and economics relate. As the narrative advances, we find Solomon, in the climax of his rule, with infinite wealth and thousands of sex-slaves. Women are objects to be owned – he too learned this from his father. Relationships, love, or devotion have no place in his world. Only objects exist, objects which are bought and sold, owned and operated, controlled and dominated.2
When economics and power become the chief agenda of a people, the objectification of others comes to dictate the landscape. This is particularly the case with sex. Sex becomes nothing more than, in our world, two consumers devouring one another, envision the other as an item whose individual purpose is to satisfy my desires without regards to the consequences of this behavior. That’s what consumerism is at its nastiest – a inexhaustible sport of stockpiling objects for one’s own agenda without considering the consequences of that consumption either for the earth, the other person, the community, or the world. It’s all about the ego.
Intercourse and economics – isn’t staggering how a person’s view on one stimulates certain assumptions about the other? When one views economics as merely a means of consumption and gaining wealth, power, and property, one will perceive sex the same way. But if economics is principally about honoring God through the giving away of one’s possessions, one will see sex differently as well. It is not about my desires, it is not about my consumption; it is about the other person, their will, their enjoyment, their desire. People are no longer objects to be owned and dominated (such as in pornography), they are people made in the Image of God! The denial of the ego in economic areas translates into the denial of the ego in the bedroom. This is why Paul lists greed right along side a bunch of sexual sins in Colossians 3. He realized the connection!
Its seems, then, that if we yearn for holiness, maybe our deity of covetousness and wealth ought to go first. If economics is linked to intercourse, imagine what else it is relates to – violence, anger, division, quarreling, pride! Maybe dispossession isn’t only about abnegation,3 but about sanctification in all areas of life.
- there is some credence to the thought that this objectification of women is inherent within the Torah. After all, women are listed among the property not to be coveted in the 10 Commandments. [↩]
- Solomon’s disregard for others in favor of his own economic advancement is well documented among biblical scholars. This actually ends up splitting the kingdom after he dies, if you remember. [↩]
- Thanks Theotica! [↩]
- Economics , Ethics , Materialism , Othering , Sex
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Free Seminary Classes
Hank September 12th, 2007
I don’t know if anyone here is interested or not, since most of us are probably in school and are busy beyond belief, but Reformed Theological Seminary has put the audio of some of its courses on iTunes at iTunes U. They cover some decent topics like both OT and NT, philosophy, ethics, apologetics, systematic theology, the Puritans, church history. I’m thinking I might check it out and see if it might be worthy listening to. But as you can no doubt tell, the classes will be taught from a primarily Reformed perspective. The Puritans class is taught by J. I. Packer himself, so if you can’t stand to listen to Reformed theologians (there are some perspectives I just can’t handle listening to i.e. dispensationalists) then you might want to pass. You never know though, it just might be worth your time–if you have any.
H/T: DesiringGod Blog
The Other Brother
jr. August 24th, 2007
In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus equates hate, insult and name-calling with murder. For a long time, I just accepted the common explanation that Jesus is “reinterpreting” the Law, pushing for a “deeper” understanding of “what God really meant”. As I blogged several days ago, however, I am beginning to see that Jesus was reading the Law through the lens of love defined as self-sacrifice. Thus, all commandments must be reexamined through that lens. And so what of “Thou shalt not murder”?
What is murder, exactly? In his compelling analysis of the Cain and Able myth, Volf argues (quite persuasively) that Cain murders Abel because he refuses to redefine himself. Able is the quintessential nothing - he is the second son, he is a shepherd, even his name means something like “vapor”. Cain, on the other hand is strong. He is a farmer, the first son, strong and able (hahaha, get it?). For no good reason we can see, God chooses Abel. God. Chooses. Abel. Cain cannot accept this; the very fact of Abel’s existence now calls his own understanding of himself into question. And, rather than reevaluate himself, Cain chooses to remove that which caused him existential dissonance. He strikes down his brother, the Other, thereby allowing him to maintain his identity unchanged.
If we allow this story to be paradigmatic for understanding the process of murder (and I know it’s not going to be 100%, so let’s agree not to get caught up in the details), I think this sheds some interesting light on Jesus’ comments. Murder arises from a challenge to the integrity of our Selfs. So too I suggest do hate, insult and labeling. Rarely do we hate something that does not affect us; apathy is a much commoner response to these nonentities. Our hatred arises from that which is a challenge to our Selves. Consider, for example, racism in the States - the races that bore the brunt of race-based hatred (Irish, Italian, African, etc) were always those races whose proximity to the dominant culture forced those in power to question and to reevaluate their assumptions about what made them human. We have a tendency toward self-preservation and stability; it seems to be human nature to lash out in anger against that which threatens us. Insult and labeling are public means by which we can consign the Other to safe categories that no longer threaten us.
And so I can see why Jesus considers murder, hatred, name-calling and labeling to be related. They are really all symptoms of the same problem: our tendency to objectify and dehumanize that which threatens our Selfs, our identities. Jesus calls us to lay down our Selfs in favor of embracing the Other. If we cannot allow the Other into our Selfs, to challenge and reshape us, then we will never be able to allow God, who is entirely more Other than any human, to enter into us, to shape us and to change us. Perhaps this is what Jesus means when he teaches us a few verses later to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” and then follows that with, “If you do not forgive sin here on Earth, neither will your Father forgive your sins in heaven.” We are not in a place to accept God’s forgiveness, to repent, unless we can learn how to do the same down here. Only the peacemakers are called children of God.
And let’s not reduce this to cause-effect. We miss the point if we pull a magic formula, a one-to-one correlation between forgiveness on Earth and forgiveness in Heaven. Rather, we learn to be forgiven, to live as the forgiven, in the kingdom of Heaven that is coming to Earth, even as we learn to forgive sin here on Earth.
“Dead man, is it being high that makes you alive, that makes you leave behind three boys and a wife? …As the track marks work their way up your arm, my mother taught my brothers and I not to call you ‘Daddy’, but to call you ‘Father’. And I believe there is something here to be learned of Grace, ’cause I can’t help but love you.”
– “The Widow”, As Cities Burn