Last fall I taught a class at my church entitled Monsters: The Theology of Frankenstein, Werewolves, Vampires, and Zombies. It was great fun and very successful. Mainly because I had some help from three colleagues from the Art/Design and English Departments at the university who were gracious to do some guest presentations for us. After the series was over I also found out that a friend teaching in the Music Department has taught a class on monster-theme music from TV and film. Apparently, my school is flush with monster scholars.

Now you might be wondering, did you really do a class on Monsters at church? Yes we did. And it went really well. It went well because monsters are a wonderfully fun and intellectually surprising location for theological reflection. This series will introduce you to my personal discoveries in thinking theologically about monsters.

To start, let's use this post to introduce the category of "monster" and hint at the theological fruits tucked away in the world of Frankenstein, werewolves, vampires, and zombies.

The word "monster" has its origins in the Latin monstrum, meaning "omen" or "warning." The question is, as a sign and omen, what are monsters warning us about?

A start of an answer might begin by considering the anthropological literature concerning monsters. David Gilmore in his book Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and All Manner of Imaginary Terrors notes that monsters are cultural universals. All peoples have their monsters. This seems to imply that, whatever the omen/warning monsters provide for us, the threat is common to us all, shared across time, place, culture, and creed.

This observation about monsters already reveals the richness of the construct. Monsters appear to reveal something about the universal human experience or predicament. If so, can we figure out what monsters are trying to tell us?

Gilmore's analysis of monsters worldwide, across time and cultures, reveals that monsters appear to share some common characteristics. Gilmore's list of common monster characteristics includes:

Aggressive
Gigantic
Man-eating
Malevolent
Hybrids
Gruesome
Atavistic
Powerful
Violent

The list is rich. Some of these characteristics seem obvious. Fear dominates. Fears of predation. Fears of evil. Fears of impotence. But there are some odd things in the list as well. Take hybridization. Why, exactly, do monsters tend to be hybrids, ontological mixtures? What is the nature of that omen/warning?

My hope, in this first post, is simply to peak your curiosity about monsters as locations for theological reflection. And to further peak your curiosity here is a sketch of some of the coming posts:

Frankenstein:
Monsters are often a odd mixture of being both victim and victimizer. That is, monsters enter our world and inflict harm. This justifies the crowd in taking up torches and heading out after the monster for some mob violence and vigilante justice. Thus, monsters are ways of hiding the scapegoating functions of social and religious violence. Monsters are interesting locations for reflection upon the work of Rene Girard.

Werewolves:
We are fearful of becoming monsters. We fear the "monster within" that we are barely able to hold in check. I am the monster. Or, at the very least, I fear that the line between me and the monster is very, very thin and fragile.

Vampires:
We are both repulsed by and attracted to monsters. And sometimes the attraction has an erotic twist. Think of Anne Rice's books or the Twilight series. Monsters can be cool. We can desire to be monsters. How are we to make sense of this? Mixture of horror and desire?

Zombies:
The monsters of the undead embody our fears of death. In agrarian eras we confronted death more directly. Nowadays we have to wait for the dead to come to our door once a year at Halloween. Or we can go to zombie movies. Either way, we feel a need to use monsters to confront our bodies, their gooshy vulnerabilities, and their ultimate demise. Monsters are existential.

So, welcome to the world of monsters!

Next Post: Jekyll & Hyde

Having finished my thoughts about the theology of the bourgeoisie I wanted to find out what a typical bourgeoisie day looked like. I wanted to know, outside of sleeping, eating, and working, what the bourgeoisie had left over for spiritual formation or ecclesial pursuits.

After some search I hit the jackpot. Apparently, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics annually tracks how Americans spend their time. Just go to the Bureau's annual American Time Use Survey report. There you will find tons of data on how Americans spend their time.

At the Time Use Survey website I found the chart I was looking for: How do we spend our time each day?



Summarizing the chart, the Time Use Survey states:

[T]he chart above shows how employed persons ages 25 to 54, who live in households with children under 18, spent their time on an average workday. These individuals spent an average of 8.7 hours working or in work-related activities, 7.6 hours sleeping, 2.6 hours doing leisure and sports activities, and 1.2 hours caring for others, including children.

In many ways, the point of my last series is to get us to face up to the realities and challenges posed by the chart above. Work, family, sleeping, eating, and household chores/duties account for 19.4 hours of a 24 hour day. That doesn't leave a lot of leftover time for spiritual formation activities. A little church attendance, some prayer time, a bit of volunteerism. That's about it.

Gregory Clark in his book A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World states that if you want to tell the history of the world one graph would tell most of the story. It is a plot of average personal income across history (p. 2):



As discussed in the last post, economies before 1800 (from Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to stable agrarian city-states) were remarkably stable, dancing around the subsistence income. Kingdoms may have have come and gone and great persons may have lived and died, but the lives of 99.9% of all people were remarkably similar from generation to generation and from culture to culture.

Then, in 1800, something remarkable happened. Average personal income began to rise and it has yet to stop rising. Our world looks nothing like world of the late 1700s. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence by candlelight. I now type on a Mac and you read this over the Internet. What happened between 1776 and 2009?

One of the things that has happened is a profound shift in the modern Western identity. Charles Taylor has called this modern identity the punctual self (in his book Sources of the Self) or the buffered self (in his book The Secular Age). Labels aside, we know the modern self to be individualistic, independent, and interior.

Along with this punctual/buffered self was a new emphasis upon the "ordinary life" of work and family. Further, ordinary life was governed by self-discipline. As Taylor writes in Sources of the Self the ethic of the ordinary life displayed a "horror at disorder: at a social disorder, in which undisciplined gentry and the unemployed and rootless poor, the underclass of rogues, beggars, and vagabonds, pose a constant threat to social peace; at personal disorder, in which licentious desires and the hold of intemperate practices make impossible all discipline and steadiness of life; and the connection between the two disorders and the way they feed on each other. What was needed was personal discipline first, individuals capable of controlling themselves and taking responsibility for their lives; and then a social order based on such people."

According to Taylor, the rise of this "disciplined society" was the result of changes brought about by the Protestant Reformation. During the Reformation the division between the clergy and the laity was dissolved. The clergy/laity fusion had the effect of increasing the moral burden upon the laity. In Medieval Christianity holiness was an occupation carried out by church professionals: The clergy, the monastic orders, and the saints. The "holiness professionals" built up reserves of merit that could be appealed to, purchased, and relied on. These "merit reserves" carried the laity, spiritually speaking. But with reform holiness specialists were dissolved. Everyone was now a saint and was expected to behave like one. This moral pressure upon the common person was unprecedented. As Taylor writes in The Secular Age with the rise of reform there was "an attempt to make the mass of the laity...shape up more fully as Christians." This led to a breakdown of the spiritual/monastary versus world/town distinction:

"[Now] all valid Christian vocations are those of ordinary life, or production and reproduction in the world. The crucial issue is how you live these vocations. The two spheres are collapsed into each other. Monastic rules disappear, but ordinary lay life is now under more stringent demands. Some of the ascetic norms of monastic life are now transferred to the secular."

These trends were a part of what Taylor calls the modern "affirmation of the ordinary life" and the rise of discipline in Western consciousness:

"In a sense, one might argue that reform, re-awakening, re-organization, re-newed dedication and discipline has become a part of the standing culture of all the churches which have issued out of Western Christendom...Around 1500, this drive begins to take a slightly different direction. It begins to take up a more ambitious goal, to change the habits and life-practices, not only religious but civil, of whole populations; to instill orderly, sober, disciplined, productive ways of living in everyone. This is the point where the religious drive to reform begins to become interwoven into the attempts to introduce civility, thus to 'civilize', as the key term came to be. This was not a simple take-over, a deviation imposed on the drive to religious reform; because religious reformers themselves concurred that the undeniable fruit of Godliness would be ordered, disciplined lives. They also sought to civilize, for good theological reasons." (The Secular Age)

Obviously, the rise of the disciplined "ordinary life" helped to fuel the rise of market economies:

"Weber thought that the Puritan notion of the calling helped to foster a way of life focused on disciplined and rationalized and regular work, coupled with frugal habits of consumption, and that this form of life greatly facilitated the implantation of industrial capitalism...A spiritual outlook which stressed the necessity of continuous disciplined work, work which should be of benefit to people and hence ought to be efficacious, and which encouraged sobriety and restraint in the enjoyment of its fruits surely must be recognized as one of the formative influences of the work ethic of modern capitalistic culture..." (Sources of the Self)

Taylor's sociological analysis converges on Clark's economic analysis. Specifically, Clark writes that:

There were “…profound changes in basic features of the economy within the Malthusian era. Four in particular stand out. Interest rates fell from astonishingly high rates in the earliest societies to close to low modern levels by 1800. Literacy and numeracy went from a rarity to the norm. Work hours rose from the hunter-gatherer era to modern levels by 1800. Finally there was a decline in interpersonal violence. As a whole these changes show societies becoming increasingly middle class in their orientation. Thrift, prudence, negotiation, and hard work were becoming values for communities that previously had been spendthrift, impulsive, violent, and leisure loving.” (Farewell to Alms)

Clark differs from Taylor in that Clark believes that the rise of the middle class--as a psychological type--was due to natural selection pressures operative during the Malthusian Era. Clark writes:

“Why was Malthusian society, at least in Europe, changing in this way as we approached the Industrial Revolution? Social historians may invoke the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, intellectual historians the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century or the Enlightenment of the eighteenth...There is, however, no need to invoke such a dues ex machina in the Malthusian era, given the strong selection processes [selecting for] a more patient, less violent, harder-working, more literate, and more thoughtful society…”

For our purposes it doesn't matter if the rise of the bourgeoisie was sociological or biological in origin. What matters is that there is broad agreement that the rise of the bourgeoisie identity and ethic profoundly changed the world.

Why should this make any difference to us, theologically speaking?

As I have noted, the bourgeoisie tend to get a bum rap from a lot of contemporary religious thinkers. To be bourgeoisie is to be a kind of spiritual sell-out. The bourgeoisie are the engine of commerce and capitalism. This stains them. Plus, morally speaking, the bourgeoisie tend to focus on personal self-discipline and family stability. That seems narrow when we look at calls for social justice. Plus, the bourgeoisie identity is autonomous and individualistic when we want Kingdom living to be communal, relational, and Trinitarian.

So many people struggle with the bourgeoisie, trying to squeeze more out of them. The trouble is, being bourgeoisie, they don't have a lot more to give. They work too much. Spend too much time with family. Water the lawn. Stuff like that.

But I'd like to argue, at least for this post, that the bourgeoisie changed the world and we should pause in every theological conversation and give them credit for that. More, theological conversation should be a bit awed by the bourgeoisie. What the church had struggled with for 1800 years the bourgeoisie remade in 200. So when we criticize the bourgeoisie we have to keep in mind that their revolution, as nerdy as it was, because that guy watering his lawn in black knee-high socks doesn't look like Stanley Hauerwas or Che Guevara to me, has been remarkably successful in reducing poverty and violence. More so than any other class or Christian motivated revolution. Might the bourgeoisie, as the Protestant Reformers hinted, be closer to the Kingdom of God than their Christian critics?

We should be more thoughtful and more respectful before we criticize the bourgeoisie. Because where some people see a sell-out to the Powers of Empire and capitalism I see the mighty revolutionaries, the Saints of Ordinary Life, who changed the world the way the church never could.

Experimental Theology won recognition this year from the Millennia Foundation. The award recognizes innovation in Participatory Media (e.g., blogs, Twitter, Facebook, podcasting and YouTube). From the Millennia Foundation website:

The Millennia Foundation views Participatory Media as the "new printing press" - an emerging global venue in which ideas and imagination, not structural or positional power, moderate cultural dialogue. PPM encourages an emancipation of knowledge and personal responsibility, reawakening dreams buried in the slumber of institutional hierarchy and control. Wisdom (see Proverbs) is the new gatekeeper and community is reborn as a network of conversations. Excellence in PPM invites passionate dialogue while remaining hospitable, charitable, and beneficial to all participants. Millennia Awards are given to PPM communities which bridge superficial cultural and religious divides - exploring commonality as much as difference; maintaining fresh, creative, missional formats accessible and relevant to a diverse audience; remaining sensitive to our shared humanity and common need for grace as we learn and grow together.

Past and current Millennia Award winners can be found at the Millennia Media Group website.

In my last post I made two claims:

1.) The rise of the bourgeoisie is giving theologians fits.

2.) The bourgeois identity and ethic is very resistant to change.

Let me unpack #1. Many theologians consider bourgeoisie existence to be a kind of spiritual failure. Its focus on personal discipline (e.g., piety, prudence, thrift, sobriety) and its role as the engine of market economies makes bourgeoisie existence a pale vision of what Christianity should be or aspire to. Thus, there are frequent theological calls to reclaim or rediscover an identity, ethic, or mode of living that pulls us out of bourgeoisie existence. Christian living is to be more than personal piety and self-control. The Kingdom of God should not be squeezed into the bourgeoisie work week. A Higher Time, a Liturgical Time, should rule our lives rather than punching the bourgeoisie timeclock.

But for over 200 years, from the dawn of the Industrial Revolution to this very day, these theological appeals ("Bourgeois existence is killing us!") have had little effect. Just why these appeals have had such little effect is the subject of this series.

And that brings me to #2 above. Why is bourgeoisie existence so resistant to change?

The answer to this question, to be argued across this post and the next, is this: The bourgeoisie have been then most effective psychological and sociological innovation the world has ever seen in creating both social peace and freedom from debilitating poverty. Consequently, any alternative mode of existence or identity will have to be equally if not more effective in creating peace and prosperity. For example, I have no doubt that many theological recommendations create, in local pockets, a greater sense of community and relationality. But it remains to be seen if those formulations are engines of social transformation, creating society-wide peace and prosperity for people both inside and outside the faith community.

But is it true that the bourgeoisie changed the world for the better? To make that argument let's start, in this post, by looking at life before the dawn of the bourgeoisie.

To make my argument I'd like to use the analysis of Gregory Clark in his book A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World. Clark, a historical economist, makes the following argument: Life before 1800, in all cultures, was governed by what Clark calls the Malthusian Economy.

The central dynamic of a Malthusian Economy is that population growth and material living standards are negatively correlated. Specifically, with finite goods to go around living standards drop when the population grows. Conversely, when the population declines material living standards improve. There is more land, resources, and work to go around.

The trouble is as material living standards improve birth rates go up and death rates go down. Which means the population starts growing again. This pushes down material living conditions (poverty is created). As material living conditions get more pinched death rates start to exceed birth rates. The population declines. Once the population thins, material living conditions go back up. And the dynamic repeats. In short, the Malthusian Economy is governed by an equilibrium that keeps the population centered on what is known as the subsistence income. Clark shows that the subsistence income from ancient Babylon to England in 1800 has been remarkable stable.

Now here is the important point for our purposes. If population and material living standards are negatively correlated any force that increases the population (e.g., reduces death rates) is, in the long run, bad for the people. Population increases in the pre-1800 world drove standards of living down (i.e., created poverty) and created a Malthusian pinch. In short, anything ostensibly good (grew the population) was, in actuality, a long term bad thing. Conversely, anything that thinned or reduced a population (e.g, increased death rates) while seemingly a bad thing was, when viewed globally and across the long term, actually a good thing.

Think that through. Pre-1800 anything that drove death rates up created long term benefits for the people. Clark lists some of these Malthusian virtues (p. 37):

Bad sanitation
Violence
Harvest failures
Infanticide
Selfishness
Indolence
Income inequality

Conversely, anything that decreased death rates was a Malthusian vice. Clark's list includes:

Cleanliness
Peace
Parental solicitude
Income equality
Charity
Hard work

The logic here is hard to escape. If there are limited resources (only so much farm land or work to go around) then during a time of peace and hard work death rates drop, birth rates go up, and the population grows and grows and grows. The finite supply of work and food gets spread thinner and thinner. Poverty, disease, and class violence increase. Soon the population boom is lost to the bust created by plague, war, or chronic poverty.

I'd like for you to meditate upon this analysis and its implication for theology. In the Malthusian era a Christian "peaceable kingdom" ends up creating poverty and war. And this isn't the result of intrinsic human sinfulness. It's a birth rate issue. Peaceable kingdoms grow populations. And it doesn't matter how much you share in your church and have "all things in common." If the population keeps growing eventually you have nothing to share with.

In short, prior to the 1800s any attempt at Christian community is going to get snuffed out by Malthusian pressures. Love, pacifism, charity. They call create war and poverty.

Clark calls the Malthusian Economy the Malthusian Trap. And we can see why. Unless wealth is created we remain stuck in the Malthusian situation where good is bad and bad is good. The only way to get out of the Trap is to create wealth commensurate with population growth. If that can happen, if wealth can be created, then we can escape the Trap. Once out of the Trap the world looks more sane. Peace and charity come into their own as the virtues we know them to be: Good things for us and the world, short-term and long-term. But we have to get out of the Trap before that can happen. And guess who got us out of the Trap?

The bourgeoisie.

What is the most vexing problem in theology?

In the next few posts I'm going to argue that the rise of the bourgeoisie is the most problematic development in modern theology. Behind just about every theological call for community or missionality or Trinity or anti-Empire ethics sits the problem of the bourgeoisie. In these posts I'd like to explain how the bourgeoisie are the rock theology is banging its head against.

In this post I want to talk about identity, specifically the rise of the Western bourgeois identity.

Behind every call for church to be "community" or a reclaiming of the "Trinity" or for an ontology of "being as communion" sits a background assumption. Community, Trinity, and "being as communion" are preached over against a prevaling norm. And that norm is the Western notion of identity and personhood.

As most are aware, the Western notion of personhood stresses autonomy, individualism, and interiority. This view of the self is relatively new and many theologians have noted its pernicious impact upon both theology and the life of the church. The recommendation is to reclaim a more ancient and more healthy notion of self, where people are not isolated individuals but persons who gain identity through communion with others. For example, God's very being is defined communally. Thus, the Western notion of selfhood flies in the face of the very fabric of existence.

The point is, almost every pernicious spiritual practice we see today has its root in a notion of selfhood that prioritizes individualism over relationality, autonomy over interdependence, and interiority over community. So the question is: If this Western notion of identity is so bad where did it come from? And why is the Western identity so hard to exchange if such better options are available?

Think about it. How often have we heard sermons or read theology blog posts extolling a more communal and relational existence? How often have we heard sermons or read theology blog posts calling for a church life defined by communal participation in the life of the Triune God? A lot. We've heard all this a lot. Well, let's pause to ask a simple question: If these calls are such great options why are they not more effective? What has the Western notion of identity got going for it that makes it feel like the better option, despite theological claims to the contrary?

To answer these questions we'll need to back up and trace the rise of the Western identity and how it is intimately tied up with the rise of the bourgeoisie.

To trace this history I'm going to borrow from Charles Taylor's analysis in Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity.

In Sources, Taylor argues that modern identity began to take a turn inward starting with Plato and Augustine. Eventually, this turn inward was furthered through the work of Descartes and Locke. As Taylor summarizes:

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that it was Augustine who introduced the inwardness of radical reflexivity [Taylor's term of art for a strong first-person stance] and bequeathed it to the Western tradition of thought. The step was a fateful one, because we have certianly made a big thing of the first-person standpoint. The modern epistemological tradition from Descartes, and all that has followed from it in modern culture, has made this standpoint fundamental--to the point of aberration, one might think.

Taylor goes on to discuss how this turn toward individuality was linked to another development of Western identity, what Taylor calls the "affirmation of the ordinary life":

'Ordinary life' is a term of art...to designate those aspects of human life concerned with production and reproduction, that is, labour, the making of things needed for life, and our life as sexual beings, including marriage and the family.

This focus upon the "ordinary life"--the life of work and family--created a new ethic, a bourgeois ethic that claimed that civic order and peace is built upon decent, disciplined folk:

The ethic of the bourgeois ordinary life displayed a "horror at disorder: at a social disorder, in which undisciplined gentry and the unemployed and rootless poor, the underclass of rogues, beggars, and vagabonds, pose a constant threat to social peace; at personal disorder, in which licentious desires and the hold of intemperate practices make impossible all discipline and steadiness of life; and the connection between the two disorders and the way they feed on each other.

What was needed was personal discipline first, individuals capable of controlling themselves and taking responsibility for their lives; and then a social order based on such people.

This bourgeois ethic was one of the engines of capitalism and the technological revolution:

Weber thought that the Puritan notion of the calling helped to foster a way of life focused on disciplined and rationalized and regular work, coupled with frugal habits of consumption, and that this form of life greatly facilitated the implantation of industrial capitalism...A spiritual outlook which stressed the necessity of continuous disciplined work, work which should be of benefit to people and hence ought to be efficacious, and which encouraged sobriety and restraint in the enjoyment of its fruits surely must be recognized as one of the formative influences of the work ethic of modern capitalistic culture...

Importantly, the bourgeois ethic states that work and family life are worship, the vocation one is called to in service of the Lord. What one owes both God and Society is an orderly and disciplined life at work and at home.

This, the modern bourgeois identity, is the big theological boogieman. It's a boogieman because the bourgeois identity has been so productive, sociologically speaking. As Taylor notes in his book The Secular Age the rise of the bourgeois "disciplinary society" created massive changes across the whole of Latin Christendom. The bourgeois identity and ethic brought both social stability and prosperity.

The question theology must ask is: Can the bourgeois ethic be replaced with anything of comparable effectiveness?

Let me be concrete. Christian and Marxist revolutions are often being preached at the bourgeoisie. But it is very unclear what the bourgeoisie are to do on Monday morning if they are to pay the rent. So they get up and go back to work. And that is the root dilemma of modern theology. People go back to work. If you want to change this, to offer a true alternative, you need to carve out a new mode of living, one not contingent upon participating in a bourgeois career. Few people lambasting the bourgeois identity actually make an offer of this kind. A few cults do.

So in the vacuum of this offer people head to work on Monday morning. And if they go back to work, church life is going to have to fit in around the edges of bourgeoisie existence. Church life or missional living is always going to be fighting over the scraps of what is left over from the bourgeois work week.

And, as I'll argue, that might not be such a bad thing.

As many of you know, Mark Driscoll, pastor of the Mars Hill Church in Seattle, has been causing quite a stir among Christian writers, thinkers, bloggers, and church leaders. I thought I'd wade into these waters as a Christian research psychologist and offer up some thoughts on Mark Driscoll.

The aspect of Driscoll's ministry that I'd like to focus on is Driscoll's thesis regarding the place of masculinity within Christianity. This "Macho Man" emphasis is the most provocative and controversial aspect of Driscoll's ministry. An interview with Driscoll on these matters was recently remixed as a spoof in a widely viewed/circulated YouTube clip:



(For more detail on Driscoll, journalistic accounts about Driscoll's ministry can be found in two widely read pieces by Janet Tu and Molly Worthen.)

Thought #1: On Ultimate Fighting and Drinking Beer
I'd like to begin in perhaps a surprising way, defending some of what Driscoll is saying about gender psychology. I'd like to start by suggesting that many of Driscoll's observations, rather than being dismissed as testosterone-confused Neanderthalism, are important locations for serious theological reflection. By too quickly dismissing Driscoll as the "Macho Man," theology bloggers have, I think, missed an opportunity to dispassionately reflect on gender psychology within the church.

To start, we all know that in the metaphorical landscape of the Bible God is cast as the Male and believers (the church) are cast as the Female. The church is "the bride of Christ." Israel, in Hosea, is an unfaithful wife. In a similar way, God is always cast as Parent and the believer as Child. In short, the language of faith generally casts Christians as females or children.

Following Driscoll, I think it is obvious that if these metaphors are unreflectively overused in a church problems for certain males can be created. Given a certain kind of gender self-image, some males struggle with worship or images that consistently cast them as "female." Now we can object to this reaction, pointing out it's problems, but if we are talking about new male believers or visitors to church this metaphorical switcheroo can be startling, off-putting, and disconcerting. On this score I think Driscoll has a point.

To remedy this situation we see attempts in the Christian world where a kind of "metaphor therapy" is being attempted, trying to reclaim masculine images and metaphors for Christian men. Examples include the book Wild at Heart, Promise Keepers, and, well, Mark Driscoll.

The theological issue is, are these attempts theologically legitimate? That is, does a "masculine Christianity" have a different texture than a "feminine Christianity", experientially speaking? Or should Christianity be post-gender? Should we, as we mature in Jesus, drop the "masculine" and "feminine" aspects of our personality? Is Christianity aiming to be androgynous?

It's rare to get consistent answers about any of this. I think this is because there is a great deal of confusion about what we mean by "masculine." In psychology, the word "masculinity", due to its gender overtones, has been largely replaced by the term "agency." Agency/masculinity is associated with motives for control, power, independence, and dominance. These are, stereotypically, "masculine" traits, but women can be highly agentic as well. If agency means power, control, and dominance then it seems clear that "masculine" traits will struggle to find a place in the Christian ethic. This was precisely Nietzsche's concern about Christianity: Christianity preaches a passive "slave ethic."

But does being a "real guy" categorically imply strong agentic motives? When you listen to Driscoll much of what he is talking about has more to do with traditional gender role interests than agentic personality. Changing the oil in my car, shooting guns, and loving NASCAR are, stereotypically, male gender role interests. And Driscoll has a point that none of this is intrinsically unChristian. The trouble comes when issues of gender role interest get confused with issues of agentic psychology. Loving Monster Truck rallies is a separate issue from psychological needs for power, control, and dominance.

Here's my point. People tend to confuse gender role interest and agentic personality motives. If "Joe Six Pack" shows up at church and gets the vibe that he "can't be a man" what, exactly, does this mean? That to be a Christian you can't drink beer or go to Ultimate Fighter matches? It seems to me that the feminine/child metaphors of Christianity are pushing back against agentic strivings rather then stereotypical gender interests. But this is not at all clear to many male believers. The two issues--gender role interests and agentic motives--are often conflated. This leads to a great deal of confusion about if "real guys" have a place at church.

Thought #2: Chickified Church Leaders
This leads me to my second point, Driscoll's claim that most church leaders are "chickified."

You might be shocked to know that Driscoll is exactly right about this. It is a well known psychological fact that as educational attainment increases the genders look, psychologically speaking, more and more similar (note for aficionados: the M/F scale of the MMPI is positively correlated with education). For example, males who get more educated tend to display greater interest in stereotypical female activities (e.g., cooking, home design, the theater).

I speak from what I know. One year I took up knitting to see what all the fuss was about among my female students (knitting is all the rage now). That semester I freaked out quite a few of my male students as I knitted while proctoring exams. I doubt I could knit through a Mars Hill church service. So count me as Grade A Chickified.

I illustrate the gender psychology/education association to my students by asking them the following question: "How many of your male, PhD college professors do you think are hardcore NASCAR fans?" Answer: Very, very few. Personally, I've never seen a NASCAR hat on the head of any male university colleague. I then ask a follow-up question: "How many blue-collar males working in the city are hardcore NASCAR fans?" Answer (note that we are in small town West Texas): A lot.

See the difference?

So Driscoll has a point. Most church leaders are highly educated. This means that most church leaders are culturally divorced from the average NASCAR fan. The very group Driscoll is targeting.

But here is the very important point about all this. A lot of the reaction to Driscoll isn't even about gender. We are actually talking about the little discussed fissure running through many churches: Education.

I see this everyday in my own church. The educated teach, preach, and have the public leadership roles. The uneducated are marginalized. Worse, if you are an uneducated male, you are force-fed those feminine metaphors. Educated males, being chickified, don't mind or even notice the feminine metaphors. But Joe Six Pack notices the metaphors. All this creates a disjoint in the church. Two groups of males who find each other alien and weird. So when Joe Six Pack wants to start a Wild at Heart study the chickified church leader just blinks uncomprehendingly. Or, if you are me, turns back to his knitting...

Let me offer up this little test for your reflection and experimentation:

If you hear a man trash Wild at Heart or Promise Keepers that person very often has a graduate degree.

In my life and church this test is about 80%-90% accurate. In short, a great deal of the conversation about Driscoll is really about the educational fissures running through the church which tend to manifest in high culture (going to the theater) versus low culture (going to Monster Truck rallies) clashes.

Thought #3: Masculinity as Misogyny?
I've argued in Thought #1 and #2 that Driscoll should not be so easily dismissed. The question he's raising--Why are males not more attracted to church?--is worth asking. And one of his diagnoses on this issue--Church leaders are chickified--has some merit to it.

But the dark side of Driscoll's ministry is its chauvinism and misogyny. And this criticism is also valid for certain impulses one finds in the Christian men's movements. Specifically, the assertion of masculinity implies a suppression of women and a restoration of male power over women. To be a "Christian man" means "reclaiming" and "taking back" leadership roles in both the family and the church. Men use spiritual warrant to assert power over women.

So the issue we need to raise is this: Does the assertion of masculinity in the church necessarily involve an assertion over against women? Can masculinity be asserted in an egalitarian manner?

I think it is possible to recognize gender distinctives without getting into power plays. But I'll admit that this is rare and hard to do. Too often in the church to be male means to assert power over women. And I think Driscoll is guilty on this score.

The point is, I don't mind Driscoll's focus on trying to reach "real guys." I think he's right about this being a demographic that is being lost to most churches. Also, I'm largely in agreement with the diagnosis that chickified church leaders struggle to reach the "real guy" demographic. I say this proudly as a chickified guy who enjoys knitting and writing poetry. So I'm not offended. I see what he's talking about.

But when "real guy" creeps into misogyny, with men asserting power over women through the euphemism of "leadership", I'm in strong moral disagreement.

Final Thought
The point of this post is that when Driscoll starts talking about gender and people start pushing back there is a lot of stuff that starts flying around: Agentic motives, gender role interests, educational fissures, power and misogyny. It all blends together in a conversational stew ostensibly about "real guys." And if we are not clear about what we are talking about we talk past each other. In favor of Driscoll, our lack of clarity means we miss the important and legitimate points he is making. On the side of Driscoll's critics, a lack of clarity means we get distracted by trivial issues (e.g., chickified church leaders) and fail to corner the critical issues of male chauvinism and misogyny.

This essay is about keeping things clear so that when the subject of Mark Driscoll comes up we can start getting a little less heat and a little more light.


And now, back to that scarf I was working on...

Here in my final post about a Malthusian vision of Original Sin I want to conclude with some thoughts about salvation that fit well with the ideas we've been tossing around.

What I want to walk through is William Stringfellow's unique vision of sin and salvation. As I review Stringfellow's ideas, quoting from him extensively, I think you'll find that his view of salvation is remarkably complementary to the Malthusian view of sin I've been working with.

To start, let's review where we are. My argument has been that the human predicament is essentially being trapped in a Malthusian situation. Framed another way, we feel biologically vulnerable in a world governed by death. This vulnerability prompts a variety of "sinful" responses: Acquisitiveness, rivalry, and war, to name a few of the things we've talked about.

In this view, Original Sin is less about human depravity, pride and selfishness than it is about being trapped and pushed around by Malthusian forces: Death shoves around our survival instinct, causing us, in a Malthusian pinch, to put self above others. If this "trap" is the source of sin then what does salvation look like? It's not going to take the form of penal substitutionary atonement, where some human guilt or stain is managed or eliminated. Rather, salvation has to free us, spiritually and psychologically, from the forces of death in this world that tilt our biological natures toward self-interest and self-preservation.

With this review in hand let's turn to the ideas of Stringfellow.

Similar to the view articulated in this series, Stringfellow focuses his attention upon death, and not human depravity, as the major "moral power" to be reckoned with:

Death, after all, is no abstract idea, nor merely a destination in time, nor just an occasional happening, nor only a reality for human beings, but, both biblically and empirically, death names a moral power claiming sovereignty over all people and all things in history. Apart from God, death is a living power greater--because death survives them all--than any other moral power in this world of whatever sort: human beings, nations, corporations, cultures, wealth, knowledge, fame or memory, language, the arts, race, religion. (p. 66)

This emphasis fits my Malthusian model: Death (via Malthusian threats) morally dominates us. We become enslaved to death. We serve death in a foolish attempt to outlast it.

How do we become enslaved to death? To understand this one has to come to grips with Stringfellow's view of the Powers and Principalities. For Stringfellow, a demonic power is any created thing, idea, or image that captivates us and commands serivce and sacrifice from us:

According to the Bible, the principalities are legion in species, number, variety and name. They are designated by such multifarious titles as powers, virtues, thrones, authorities, dominions, demons, princes, strongholds, lords, angels, gods, elements, spirits…

Terms that characterize are frequently used biblically in naming the principalities: “tempter,” “mocker,” “foul spirit,” “destroyer,” “adversary,” “the enemy.” And the privity of the principalities to the power of death incarnate is shown in mention of their agency to Beelzebub or Satan or the Devil or the Antichrist…

And if some of these seem quaint, transposed into contemporary language they lose quaintness and the principalities become recognizable and all too familiar: they include all institutions, all ideologies, all images, all movements, all causes, all corporations, all bureaucracies, all traditions, all methods and routines, all conglomerates, all races, all nations, all idols. Thus, the Pentagon or the Ford Motor Company or Harvard University or the Hudson Institute or Consolidated Edison or the Diners Club or the Olympics or the Methodist Church or the Teamsters Union are principalities. So are capitalism, Maoism, humanism, Mormonism, astrology, the Puritan work ethic, science and scientism, white supremacy, patriotism, plus many, many more—sports, sex, any profession or discipline, technology, money, the family—beyond any prospect of full enumeration. The principalities and powers are legion. (pp. 204-205)

Using the language of the Old and New Testaments, Stringfellow calls the Powers (see his list) "false gods," "demons" and "idols." That is, the Powers demand "sacrifice" from us, leading to a kind of "demonic possession":

People are veritably besieged, on all sides, at every moment simultaneously by these claims and strivings of the various powers each seeking to dominate, usurp, or take a person’s time, attention, abilities, effort; each grasping at life itself; each demanding idolatrous service and loyalty. In such a tumult it becomes very difficult for a human being even to identify the idols that would possess him or her… (p. 211)

But it is important to remember in Stringfellow that sitting behind the Demonic and the Powers is Death. Death is always the the real moral force:

…history discloses that the actual meaning of such human idolatry of nations, institutions, or other principalities is death. Death is the only moral significance that a principality proffers human beings. That is to say, whatever intrinsic moral power is embodied in a principality—for a great corporation, profit, for example; or for a nation, hegemony; or for an ideology, conformity—that is sooner or later suspended by the greater moral power of death. Corporations die. Nations die. Ideologies die. Death survives them all. Death is—apart from God—the greatest moral power in this world, outlasting and subduing all other powers no matter how marvelous they may seem for the time being. This means, theologically speaking, that the object of allegiance and servitude, the real idol secreted within all idolatries, the power above all principalities and powers—the idol of all idols—is death. (pp. 207-208)

So when we serve a Power we participate in death:

[The Power] is in conflict with the person until the person surrenders life in one fashion or another to the principality. The principality requires not only recognition and adulation as an idol from movie fans or voters or the public, but also demands that the person of the same name give up his or her life as a persons to the service and homage of the image. And when that surrender is made, the person in fact dies, though not yet physically. For at that point one is literally possessed by one's own image. (p. 196)

To summarize, the demonic evil of life is the power of death sitting behind all those things that capture our attention, efforts, and allegiances. Death is the prime moral power.

Given this view, for Stringfellow salvation and resurrection means being set free from the power of death in this life:

Resurrection, however, refers to the transcendence of the power of death and the fear or thrall of the power of death, here and now, in this life, in this world. Resurrection, thus, has to do with life and, indeed, the fulfillment of life before death. (p. 112)

As I mentioned above, Malthusian pressures shove around our survival instincts, causing us to behave immorally. In Stringfellow's view that amounts to demonic possession. Consequently, resurrection implies, as Stringfellow notes, being set free from the fear of death in this life, in this Malthusian world:

[Christ's] power over death is effective not just at the terminal point of a person's life but throughout one's life, during this life in this world, right now. This power is effective in the times and places in the daily lives of human beings when they are so gravely and relentlessly assailed by the claims of principalities for an idolatry that, in spite of all disguises, really surrenders to death as the reigning presence in the life of the world. His resurrection means the possibility of living in this life, in the very midst of death's works, safe and free from death. (p. 202)

How, you might be asking, is this possible? How are we set free from the thrall of death while we move in the midst of death's works? I'll give two examples of an answer from Stringfellow. Both examples illustrate what we've been talking about in this series. That is, our tether to death is our survival instinct. That is death's moral power over us. But the Christian and the church have, and here is the paradoxical part, died to the idea of their own death. Christians are dead to the survival instinct. Christians are to be, to use the death row phrase, "dead men walking." In the words of Jesus, Christians pick up a cross, the symbol of death, to find a new life, a resurrection life. In the words of the Apostle Paul:

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

Here is Stringfellow on how this "death to the survival instinct" shapes the church:

Now that mark that verifies the integrity of the church as institution and sets the church apart from other institutions--the state, the university, the Pentagon, General Electric, et al.--as the exemplary or pioneer or holy institution is the freedom of the church from primary and controlling concern about her own survival. Survival of the institution is the operative ethic of all institutions, in their fallenness. The church is called into being in freedom from that ethic of survival and where renewal or reformation in the church happens for real, that very freedom is being exercised and the church is viable and faithful. (p. 147)

This might still seem abstract, being free from death in the midst of death, but Stringfellow gives a wonderful biographical example of how he died to the Power of Career in his early years of education:

I had elected then to pursue no career. To put it theologically, I died to the idea of career and to the whole typical array of mundane calculations, grandiose goals and appropriate schemes to reach them. I renounced, simultaneously, the embellishments--like money, power, success--associated with careers in American culture, along with the ethics requisite to obtaining such condiments. I do not say this haughtily; this was an aspect of my conversion to the gospel… (p. 30)

And this brings me to the conclusion, to Stringfellow's ultimate vision of salvation and resurrection. By being freed from the Malthusian forces, by dying to the Powers of Death, we become free to be truly human. I am no longer a Malthusian animal, a survival machine. I am human:

I believed then, as I do now, that I am called in the Word of God--as is everyone else--to the vocation of being human, nothing more and nothing less. I confessed then, as I do now, that to be a Christian means to be called to be an exemplary human being. And to be a Christian categorically does not mean being religious. Indeed, all religious versions of the gospel are profanities. Within the scope of the calling to be merely, but truly, human, any work, including that of any profession, can be rendered a sacrament of that vocation. (p. 31)



Note: All page numbers refer to:
A Keeper of the Word: Selected Writings of William Stringfellow

Associated with the Fall and Original Sin was the onset of guilt and shame in the human condition:

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

Generally, particularly in Protestantism, the guilt of sin is neurotic and internal, a hand-wringing about our total depravity. This emphasis has been called Worm Theology. When I was growing up my first exposure to worm theology was in the old hymn Alas! and did my Savior bleed:

Alas! and did my Savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?

Does the extrinsic, situational, contextual and Malthusian view of Original Sin we have been working on in this series in any way reconfigure the experience of guilt and shame?

I think so. I think a Malthusian guilt shifts away from worm theology--a rumination upon our depravity--toward a guilt associated with our consumptive existence. That is, our guilt is less associated with our inherent sinfulness than with the fact that we have to consume resources to exist as biological creatures.

This idea might be hard to grasp, but I think William Stringfellow describes it well:

To affirm that we live in this world at each other's expense is a confession of the truth of the Fall rather than an assertion of economic doctrine or a precise empirical statement. It is not that there is in every transaction a direct one-for-one cause and effect relationship, either individually or institutionally, between the lot of the poor and the circumstances of those who are not poor. It is not that the wealthy are wicked or that the fact of malice is implicit in affluence. It is, rather, theologically speaking, that all human and institutional relationships are profoundly distorted and so entangled that no person or principality in this world is innocent of involvement in the existence of all other persons and all institutions.

Marilyn McCord Adams frames the issue like this (emphasis her own):

Virtually every human being is complicit in actual horrors merely by living in his/her nation or society. Few individuals would deliberately starve a child into mental retardation. But this happens even in the United States, because of the economic and social systems we collectively allow to persist and from which most of us profit. Likewise complicit in actual horrors are all those who live in societies that defend the interests of warfare and so accept horror-perpetration as a chosen means to or a side effect of its military aims. Human being in this world is thus radically vulnerable to, or at least collectively an inevitable participant in, horrors.

I think Stringfellow's phrase "we live in this world at each other's expense" is the simplest way of expressing Malthusian guilt. That is, as a consuming biological creature embedded in social structures my existence creates poverty, scarcity, injustice, and, yes, even death and starvation. As both Stringfellow and McCord Adams point out, we don't do this harm directly. But self-reflective people are aware of the long causal chains that are implicated in poverty. They live with the guilt that we live in this world at each other's expense.

There are a wide variety of responses to Malthusian guilt. One response you see a lot on theology blogs or in theology conversation is to inveigh about capitalism and Empire, sprinkling in a lot of references to Yoder, Hauerwas, and Žižek. The irony of this is that to blog about Yoder, Hauerwas, and Žižek one has already been deeply tainted by the evils one is writing about. You are sitting at a computer and have a theological library at your disposal. You also have the leisure time to write about capitalism. And then there is the price tag attached to those college degrees.

This is not to say that attacking capitalism, Empire, or Constantinian Christianity in America is inherently wrong. It's just that we engage in those attacks from a compromised position. We live in this world at each other's expense. This reality doesn't nullify the ethical critiques but it means that those critiques must consistently circle back to revisit and acknowledge their own complicity and hypocrisy. As Alan Jacobs has written, the doctrine of Original Sin recognizes a "democracy of sinners." There are planks in our own eye obscuring our vision.

Another common way of dealing with Malthusian guilt is by becoming a Bobo. Bobo is short for Bourgeois Bohemian, a term coined by David Brooks in his book Bobos in Paradise. The bobo is someone fully enjoying consumerism (bourgeois), still defining themselves by what they buy. But the bobo gives a moral or aesthetic spin to their consumerism (bohemian). It is a higher more elevated more moral consumerism. In my world, the bobos are Mac users who drink a lot of Fair Trade coffee.

Now there is nothing wrong with Macs or Fair Trade coffee or showing me your red iPod. I'm writing on a Mac right now and drinking coffee. It's just that I think a lot of the bobo dynamic is about dealing with Malthusian guilt. That is, we try to deal with the guilt associated with our prosperity by giving our purchases an ethical spin. Rather than feeling guilty when spending so much money on coffee I can buy Fair Trade and feel moral and ethical. I can even get self-rightously smug about it.

Past anti-Empire blogging and the bobos I think the most morally consistent response to our Malthusian world is a Christian version of freeganism. But this seems to be a lifestyle for young people. I doubt many would opt for it. I, for one, don't think I'd force my family, because of my moral convictions, into freeganism. Regardless, even the freegans can't get wholly clean. They come about as close as you can get, but even that lifestyle will have its inconsistencies and hypocrasies. Further, it's parasitic, requiring a background of consumption to work. And finally, from a theological stance, Christian freeganism strikes me as a kind of works-based righteousness, an attempt to save oneself from the sin of complicity through a Herculean act of will and effort.

To clarify once more, my aim here isn't to attack critiques of capitalism, Fair Trade activism, or movements toward simplicity. It is, rather, to think about how a Malthusian guilt might be implicated in (partly) motivating some of these activities.

In summary, I think we see Malthusian guilt at work in the world in a variety of different ways. And it's very different compared to classical Original-Sin-worm-theology guilt. It is, rather, a vague sense of guilt that my mere participation in a consumptive existence contaminates me and implicates me in the Fall. And like traditional notions of Original Sin I can't work myself out of the hole.

Next Post: Part 9 (Conclusion)

Thomas Hobbes has come up a few times the comments to these posts. As well he should as Hobbes' analysis as to why humans exist in a perpetual state of war fits well with the fundamental thesis of these posts.

Why is there so much war?

One could posit, following Original Sin logic, that humans are intrinsically violent. However, one could posit, as Thomas Hobbes did in Leviathan, that humans grow protective and wary in a Malthusian world. This wariness infects interpersonal relationships and scales up to the level of nation states. This international wariness, combined with a desire to protect one's current situation, is the fuel behind war.

To summarize Hobbes' ideas, I'm going to quote from Mark Lilla's review of Hobbes in Lilla's book The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (p. 81):

Natural man, according to Hobbes, is desiring man--which also mean he is fearful man. If he finds himself alone in nature we will try to satisfy his desires, will only partially succeed, and will fear losing what he has. But if other human beings are present that fear will be heightened to an almost unbearable degree. Given his awareness of himself as a creature beset by desire--a stream of desire that ends, says Hobbes, only in death--he assumes others are similarly driven. "Whosoever looketh into himself and considereth what he doth," Hobbes writes, "he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts and passions of all other men." That means he can think of them only as potential competitors, trying to satisfy desires that may come into conflict with his own.

We can pause here to note that this analysis converges upon Girard's theory of mimetic rivalry discussed in our last post. Hobbes inserts into this milieu of rivalry a fundamental ignorance of other men's motives. That is, we begin by seeing each other as potential competitors. If so, how should I respond? Not knowing your mind or motives (Hobbesian ignorance) I, naturally, assume the worst. I assume that you might steal from me or, worst case, kill me to get what I have. So I begin to arm myself. I buy a gun, dig a moat, build a wall, buy some locks, and hire some spies. You, standing on your side, see all this going on. You see the gun, the wall, the surveillance. And what will be your predictable response? Naturally, you'll buy a gun, dig a moat, build a wall, buy some locks, and hire some spies. And I, on my side, look up to see you doing all this. My assessment as I look over at you? That I was right about you, that I was right to take preemptive measures. So I redouble my efforts. And you redouble your efforts. A feedback loop starts. An arms-race begins. A "cold war" is inaugurated.

This dynamic is called the Hobbesian Trap. And nations easily fall into it. Take, as a modern illustration, the current state of affairs between the United States and Iran. Both countries are locked into the Hobbesian Trap. We don't trust them and they don't trust us. So they are building a bomb. And we don't want them to. We think they are evil and they think we are evil. And God is on both sides.

Is Iran evil? I have no idea. But I do know this, their pursuit of a nuclear weapon is perfectly comprehensible to me. Inside that country a certain Hobbesian logic holds sway as it holds sway inside these American borders.

The point here isn't to get into US foreign policy. It is, rather, to point out the fully predictable and comprehensible tragedy of the situation. We see what is going on but find it very difficult to stop the Hobbesian machinery from churning away.

To summarize all this, we can note that the engine of the Hobbesian nightmare is simple ignorance. I don't know what your motives are. So I assume the worst and arm myself. You do this same.

But ignorance isn't sinfulness nor depravity. It is, as I've repeatedly stated in this series, the consequence of being a finite creature. As Lilla summarizes (p. 82):

That is why the natural social condition of mankind is war--if not explicit, armed hostilities, then a perpetual state of anxious readiness in preparation for conflict. Even the Bible recognizes this tendency. Hobbes asserts: Cain killed his brother not because of an explicit threat but because he feared losing what he had and was ignorant of God's reasons for favoring Abel. Fear, ignorance, and desire are the basic motivations of all human activity, political and religious. One does not have to assume man is fallen, or evil, or possessed by demons to explain why those motivations produce war. One need only understand how these basic motivations combine in the human mind, both when man is alone and when he is in society.

Next Post: Part 8

In these posts I've been speaking a great deal about human selfishness, arguing that selfishness isn't due to an intrinsic human flaw but is, rather, due to our felt biological vulnerability in a Malthusian world. As I've said repeatedly, we are finite creatures in a finite world and that is, inherently, a scary place to be.

In the next two posts I want to move away from selfishness and talk a bit about violence. In this post I'm going to talk about sources of interpersonal violence. My argument will follow the familiar arch: Violence isn't due to intrinsic human aggressiveness. It is, rather, a predictable outcome to living in a Malthusian world.

I can come at this topic any number of ways, but what I'd like to do is approach it by talking about Rene Girard's notion of mimetic rivalry and the recent discovery of mirror neurons in the brain.

I've written a great deal about Girard's scapegoat theory. This aspect of Girard's thinking has tended to get the most attention as it has important implications for how we view the death of Jesus on the cross. What often gets overlooked, from a theological standpoint, is the idea that forms the foundation of the scapegoat theory: Girard's theory of mimetic rivalry. I think mimetic rivalry has important implications for theological reflection on Original Sin.

Girard's mimetic rivalry thesis is easily described. One of our most powerful cognitive capacities as humans is our ability to imitate each other. The word mimetic comes from the Greek μίμησις ("mimesis") which means to imitate or mimic. Psychologists call this ability social or observational learning. Much of what we learn in life comes from watching others and imitating what they do. This mimetic force is what sits behind the powerful effects of group conformity. Take, for example, the famous Solomon Asch study:



Girard's claim about our mimetic abilities is that they are a blessing and a curse. As a blessing, social learning is the main engine by which we learn to be social and cultural creatures. But the dark side of mimesis is that is creates rivalry between us. How does this work?

It's a simple idea. Basically, if you want something I'll imitate you. Which means you and I will start wanting the same thing. This creates a latent rivalry between us. Further, other people begin imitating the two of us. Now many people are wanting the same thing. Soon a latent rivalry is crackling through the entire population. This is Girard's notion of mimetic rivalry.

Generally, this rivalry is kept in check. As long as there are enough goods, money, jobs, blue ribbons, wins, promotions, school admissions, memberships, opportunities, quality health care, and routes toward happiness then the rivalry says localized in small outbreaks, like two co-workers fighting for a job promotion they both want. That is, most people, most of the time, are getting some of what they want. There is enough to go around.

But in a Malthusian world there are times and places when there isn't enough to go around. When this happens the mimetic rivalry intensifies. It reaches a tipping point where the entire population begins to grow increasingly paranoid, competitive, and suspicious. At this point violence breaks out.

Girard's theory continues on from here, describing how ancient cultures solved the mimetic crisis by focusing the violence upon a scapegoat. But for this post we can stop here to reflect a bit.

I would like to note that Girard's theory concerning mimetic rivalry fits snugly with the ideas we've been talking about in this series. That is, human rivalry and violence isn't due to some innate monstrous and blood-thristy quality inside the human soul. No, rivalry and violence are caused by our mimetic abilities. But these same abilities are what make us social and cultural creatures. Our mimetic abilities are the glue of human community.

So on the whole these mimetic abilities are great and vital goods. But they do have a downside, as Girard has pointed out. Generally, we can repress the latent rivalries that simmer in human relations. But there are times when the Malthusian world pinches us. And when it does our mimetic tendencies lock in and begin to escalate in a feedback loop leading to group violence and war.

In short, the root cause of human violence isn't a depraved humanity. It's simply due to imitation, an ability that is not intrinsically broken, evil, violent or depraved. Rather, it's a vital ability that makes us social creatures. An ability that makes us human.

Interestingly, the recent discovery of mirror neurons has shown us just how deeply rooted these mimetic abilities are in the human brain. To begin to explore mirror neurons you might want to start with this New York Times article Cells that Read Minds.

Prior to the discovery of mirror neurons, scientists assumed a division of labor in the brain. There were perceptual neurons and there were motor neurons. That is, some neurons would watch and make sense of the world while other neurons, given what the perceptual neurons observed, would initiate appropriate motor actions in response to what was going on the in world.

But the discovery of mirror neurons has changed that assumption. Mirror neurons function as both perceptual and motor neurons. That is, when you watch me pick up a cup you are not simply watching me (perception). As you watch mirror neurons are simulating the motor reactions that would be involved if you were also picking up the cup. In short, as you watch me pick up the cup deep inside your brain you are picking up the cup right along with me. The very same motor neurons you would use to pick up a cup in real life are activated in simply watching me pick up the cup.

What this means is that as I observe the world I'm actually simulating it all in my mind, experiencing what my own body and mind would be doing. As I watch a tennis player serve a ball on TV the motor neurons in my brain are firing in just the same way they would fire if I was actually serving a tennis ball in real life. In short, I can feel the serve being executed as I sit there in my living room watching Wimbledon. This is why watching sporting events is so enjoyable. We aren't simply watching. We are simulating the event in our mind, creating a deep vicarious experience. We aren't simply passive observers. We are moving and feeling right along with the tennis players.

Amazingly, mirror neurons have been shown to simulate human intentions and mental states. That is, it's not just about motor movement. This means that mirror neurons are deeply implicated in our empathic abilities. We understand each other by simulating in our own minds how we would feel in each other's circumstance.

The discovery of mirror neurons provides a nice scientific foundation for Girard's theory of mimetic rivalry. That is, we are beginning to understand how mimesis works at the neurological level. And what we are discovering is that mimesis is deep, biologically speaking. It's not a conscious act that we can opt out of. It happens automatically when we see any human activity in the world. As we observe the mirror neurons fire, simulating both the actions and mental states of the people we are watching. And this ability is behind human love, compassion, empathy and sympathy. But in a Malthusian world, this very same power, when pinched, creates both rivalry and human violence.

In short, the mechanism that makes us like God is the very same mechanism that makes us like the Devil.

Next Post: Part 7

In my last post we were talking about game theory, specifically zero sum and non-zero sum games. A few days ago in my theories class I was lecturing on game theory, particularly the game called the Prisoner's Dilemma (PD). As we were discussing the PD one of the students asked if the Joker's Ferry Game, from the recent Batman movie The Dark Knight, was a PD. I said, I'd have to think about it. And as I thought about it I kept thinking about this series on Original Sin.

To understand the question about if the Joker's Ferry Game is a PD you may need a refresher on the Prisoner's Dilemma. A classic formulation of the PD is this story:

Imagine you are criminal with co-conspirator. You both are captured by the police and are being interrogated in different rooms. You cannot communicate with each other. As you are being interrogated you are asked to implicate your partner. If you cooperate with the police and rat out your partner ("It was all his idea! I had nothing to do with it!") you are told that you could go free. If you keep quiet you'll do some time in jail.

The payoffs of the game look like this:



The game is called a "dilemma" because rational play demands that you defect on your partner and rat him out. That is, no matter what "move" your partner plays you always do better if you defect. The problem comes with the symmetry of the situation. The same rational logic governs the play of your partner. Thus, rationality and logic lead you both to the mutual defection cell: You both go to jail for three years. You converge upon the lose/lose cell.

This is frustrating in that if the two players could cooperate and trust each other a better situation is in the offing: Mutual cooperation, where each goes to jail for only one year. It's the win/win cell.

The PD is psychologically interesting because it exposes issues of trust. To play the cooperative move you make yourself vulnerable to what is known as The Sucker's Payoff. If you cooperate you might get defected on and end up going to jail for the maximum of five years. Worse, your partner gets off scotch free for ratting you out. So cooperation is risky.

Okay, so we were talking about all this (trust and self-protection in life) when the Joker's Ferry Game came up. If you've not seen the movie here is the recap:

The Joker has rigged with explosives two ferrys filled with people. Each boat has the detonator to the other boat. That is, you can blow them up and they can blow you up. The Joker then communicates with each boat: You have a choice. You can blow up the other boat and save yourself or, if neither of you act, the Joker will blow both boats up.

So the Joker creates this wicked psychological experiment to see what people will do. He's trying to prove a point to Batman that, at the end of the day, everyone is just like the Joker: A self-interested animal.

So, the question was asked in my class: Is the Joker's Ferry Game a Prisoner's Dilemma? I didn't have an answer but eventually wrote a letter to my class. Here it is:

You'll recall from class that we were talking about the movie The Dark Knight and wondering if the Joker's Ferry Game was, indeed, a Prisoner's Dilemma (PD).

Mathematically, a PD is defined when the payoffs have the following structure:

When higher payoffs (e.g., money) are better:
T > C > D > SP

When lower payoffs (e.g., jail time) are better:
T < C < D < SP

Where T is the payoff for "Temptation to Defect", C is the payoff for "Mutual Cooperation", D is the payoff for "Mutual Defection" and SP is the "Sucker's Payoff."

In the example from class the payoffs fit the PD:

T = 0 Years in Jail
C = 1 Year in Jail
D = 3 Years in Jail
SP = 5 Years in Jail

The question now becomes: What was the payoff structure for the Joker's Ferry game?

To answer this question, we don't need to know the exact payoffs, just the ranking 1 through 4, with 1 being the best outcome and 4 being the worst outcome.

As I fiddled with the payoff matrix it became clear to me that I couldn't rank the outcomes because of this curious fact: We need to know if your prefer morality to survival. If you prefer survival over morality the Joker's game becomes a Prisoner's Dilemma and the rational move is to defect and blow the other ferry up. And the Joker knows this: Rational play means the players/ferrys will converge on mutual defection and blow each other up. The Joker wins: The People of Gotham are amoral animals, just like him.

If, however, you value morality over survival the playoff matrix no longer conforms to the PD.

Interestingly, this angle plays out in the movie. The people on the ferry appear to value their morality over their survival.

Beyond this simplistic analysis of mine you can explore further by seeing internet conversations here, here, and here.

As I thought about all this I realized that the Joker's Ferry Game has some connections with my posts on the Malthusian situation and human sinfulness. The Joker basically sets up a Malthusian choice: It's me or you. And the issue I noted in my letter to the students was that, when push comes to shove, we need to know if the Malthusian pressure for survival can be transcended by human morality.

Let me ask this: If one of those boats blew the other up, would that be evidence for Original Sin? Would the Joker have been proven right? That is, the Joker wants to show Batman that humans are, at root, just as depraved as he is. But I tend to think that if one of the boats did pull the trigger that the Joker's conclusion wouldn't follow for the reasons I've been writing about: There are strong external forces strongly implicated in how the people are behaving. These forces do not excuse the action, but they do make the action comprehensible. The words "weak" and "tragic" seem more applicable than "depraved" or "evil."

To be honest, I have no idea if the Joker's Ferry Game is a Prisoner's Dilemma. It might be more like a game of Chicken. Regardless, it was fun to think about with my students.

In this essay I want to use game theory to summarize how I see Malthusian dynamics operating in human affairs as the locus of "sin."

To do this we need to review a bit about game theory.

Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics where the idea of a "game" is used to isolate critical features of decision-making, particularly when those decisions are social. Simplifying greatly, games from poker to Monopoly to chess have a few common features:

1. Players: People making choices
2. Moves: Choices the people can make
3. Payoffs: The outcome/consequences of the choices

The interest in game theory is that, by using the idea of players making moves leading to payoffs, game theory allows us to create models of real world decision-making scenarios. If we can specify with some degree of realism the actual choices people face along with a realistic appraisal of the consequences attached to those choices then a mathematical/analytical approach to decision-making might be enjoyed.

For our purposes, game theorists speak broadly of two kinds of games. Thus, using game theory as a lens on human behavior, we might also break human interactions into one of two basic types.

The first kind of game (model of human interaction) is called a zero sum game. The name comes from the fact that there are some games where the sum of the player's payoffs at the end of the game sum to zero. Poker is a good example. Imagine you and I play head's up poker. If at the end of the night I'm up $20 then, by definition, you are down $20. Our payoffs, plus $20 and minus $20, sum to zero. The point being that in zero sum games my wins define your losses (and visa versa). Consequently, zero sum games are also called games of "war" or "total conflict." Another way of looking at zero sum games is that the player interests do not overlap. There is no middle ground where we can find a win/win. It is win or lose for either you or me. This slide represents that situation:



The second type of game (human interaction) is called a non-zero sum game. In this game the interests of the players overlap (to some extent). In the space where the interests overlap a win/win outcome is possible:



We can see why the game is called non-zero sum: If we both "win" (positive payoffs to us both) then the sum of our winnings is non-zero. (We should also note the dark side of non-zero sum games: The possibility of lose/lose.)

With these notions of game theory in hand we can now approach some biblical concepts in a novel way. For example, consider the Golden Rule. Using the language of the non-zero sum game we could argue that the Golden Rule is asking us to seek the place where I consider my interests to overlap perfectly with your own. To love you as I love myself. Our interests do not simply overlap to some degree. They form an identity:



I mention the Trinity in the slide because, if one wanted to think of the situation theologically rather than ethically, I think the Trinity--the mutual and loving indwelling of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit--is another way to consider the identity relationship inherent in love: Distinct persons with fully overlapping interests. This Trinitarian life is to be lived out in the church. Sharing and having all things in common so no one is in need. Weeping with those who weep, rejoicing with those who rejoice.

Okay, we are now ready to use game theory to summarize my notion of Malthusian sin.

Basically, we can see sin and love as forces pulling us in opposite directions. The Malthusian forces of this world are constantly forcing our interests apart. We call this divergence "selfishness." That is, I begin seeing my encounters with others as zero sum interactions. It is me against you. I must "win." I must look out for myself.

As I've argued, I don't think this intense zero sum-ness is innate. I think, as the psychological default, humans approach each other in a non-zero sum manner (to some small degree). Generally, we don't approach people in a state of total suspicion or "war." We are, as a species, open to the possibility of reciprocity, coordination, and cooperation. We know that our personal good is somewhat implicated in the good of others. The point of this observation? Simply this: From a game theoretic perspective humans are not totally depraved.

Depravity comes from the Malthusian pressures that force us away from our non-zero sum default into zero sum war. When we feel vulnerable or in want we begin to grow increasingly "selfish." We start looking at encounters as zero sum affairs. We stop looking for moments of cooperation and start looking for ways to "win."

Conversely, love/salvation/grace/Trinity/church, whatever you want to call it, is constantly trying to fuse our interests in the Golden Rule identity moment. Pushing us toward greater non-zero sum-ness. This is, admittedly, a highly unnatural thing to do, particularly when I'm being attacked or hungry. This is why a force--grace, salvation--is needed to lift us out of the Malthusian trap.

In sum, we can think of sin and salvation as two forces, each pulling us in different directions:



Sin is the product of Malthusian forces pulling us into zero sum war with each other. Conversely, grace is trying to push us into non-zero sum convergence.

Next Post: Part 6