A haunting, interactive map by CNN.

This week the family and I will be heading to the Christian Scholar's Conference being hosted by Lipscomb University in Nashville.

In my last post reflecting on James Davison Hunter's book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World we noted that, by and large, Christianity is a weak culture. One aspect of this weakness is that Christians produce an enormous amount of cultural product of dubious intellectual and artistic quality.

However, there are some wonderful exceptions to this general trend. Locations where theological sophistication mixes with artistic excellence. And on Friday night this week Jana, the boys and I have tickets to one of these exceptions: Tokens.

Tokens was started by Lee Camp, professor at Lipscomb and author of Mere Discipleship. A review of Tokens can be found here at Sojourners. From the review:

The theological variety show, hosted by Lipscomb professor Lee Camp, bills itself as “Too Serious for Public Radio. Too Edgy for Christian Radio. Too Much Fun to Miss.” It features a house band of A-list Nashville musicians, musical guests such as Vince Gill, and thinkers such as Brian McLaren, Barbara Brown Taylor, and Hubert Locke. There are also the Token Radio Players, whose “Dispatches from the Bible Belt” would give Dusty and Lefty a run for their money...

It’s part of the show’s sideways approach to addressing theology and social issues. If he can get people to laugh, Camp says, they are more willing to listen. “We try to use the humor and music to sneak up on people, and get them to look at substantive issues.”

The inspiration for Tokens came from a New Year’s Eve show hosted by Garrison Keillor in Nashville several years ago. Camp, who’d been a fan of A Prairie Home Companion for years, began to wonder if Keillor’s approach would work for talking about social justice and theological issues. He especially considered how a song can pierce the heart of a matter, in a way a sermon or lecture can’t.

“Songwriters can get at important theological questions much quicker than theologians,” he said. “And they do it using metaphors that aren’t God-talk. It’s a very compelling way to get at substantive questions.”

That doesn’t mean Tokens is simply a Christian imitation of Keillor’s show. While Camp and his cast deal with theology, they are after something bigger—glimpses of God’s action in the world, or tokens of grace.

In light of the recent floods in Nashville, the Tokens show this Friday is titled "Deluge, Hope, and Patience" and is billed as "an evening of reflection, lament, and hope in the wake of Nashville’s floods." Featured performers will be Over the Rhine, Jill Phillips, Andy Gullahorn, and Buddy Greene. In another wonderful move, Tokens is formally inviting—completely free of charge—anyone made victim by the Nashville flood, as well as anyone who worked to bring relief to those affected (for more information you can call the Lipscomb University Box Office at 615.966.7075).

Can't wait to experience Tokens on Friday, this rare and wonderful mix of social consciousness, theological sophistication, and artistic excellence. May their tribe increase.

In Part 1 of discussing James Davison Hunter's book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World we noted that one of the reasons Hunter feels that Christians are ineffective in influencing American culture is that Christians are working with poor ideas about the nature of culture and cultural change. Christians tend to think you change culture by battling--person by person--to effect a values-based revolution, winning over the hearts and minds of the American people.

And yet, Hunter has us pause and think about something odd: This nation is overwhelmingly Christian. Given this, how did the majority group become so culturally marginalized?

Hunter has us contrast the cultural influence of Christians with the Jewish and gay communities. Jews make up 2-4% of the American population. And yet, their cultural influence in the arts, sciences, and letters has been enormous. In a similar way, about 7-8% of the American population is gay. And yet, this small group exerts enormous cultural influence, mainly in the arts and entertainment. Ellen DeGeneres gets to judge American idol, James Dobson never will.

How are we to explain these differences? How come Christians generally (and evangelicals particularly) are so impotent in the culture wars when they vastly outnumber these other groups?

The answer goes back to Hunter's claim about Christians being confused about cultural change.

Recall, Christians tend to think that cultural change will occur through a populist values revolution. Hunter thinks this is a confusion because culture is so much deeper than values. Culture largely works outside of awareness, in play well before we get to "values." It's like that joke David Foster Wallace told about two young fish:

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

Culture is just like that. You don't even notice it. So it's really hard to even fight about it. Or "win hearts and minds" about it. Let alone create a "values revolution." Because whenever you point out the culture we are swimming in the general response is "Water? What the hell is water?"

Here is Hunter describing culture:

Only in a highly abridged sense, then, is culture a worldview. Perhaps the most important thing to realize is that this "worldview" is so deeply embedded in our consciousness, in the habits of our lives, and in our social practices that to question one's worldview is to question "reality" itself. Sometimes, we are self-conscious of and articulate about our worldview, but for most of us, the frameworks of meaning by which we navigate life exist "prereflectively," prior to conscious awareness. That is, our understanding of the world is so taken-for-granted that it seems utterly obvious. It bears repeating that it is not just our worldview of what is right or wrong or true or false but our understanding of time, space, and identity--the very essence of reality as we experience it.

So "change the world" Christians are facing a bit of a problem. How do you change reality itself? Particularly when you are a part of it? We can call this the "What the hell is water?" problem.

But cultures do change. So how does that happen?

According to Hunter, cultural change isn't bottom up. It is, rather, top down. Recall, culture is less about populist sentiment than about institutions that have differential cultural leverage, what Hunter calls cultural or symbolic capital. Much of this cultural capital is simply the power to define reality itself. This power is granted by a variety of cultural institutions. For example, I can put "Dr." in front of my name. That's a form of cultural power, which grants me leverage to name reality when topics related to psychology come up on this blog. (On theology I'm generally full of crap.) However, I also work at Abilene Christian University. Ever heard of it? Probably not. The point is, if I was Dr. Richard Beck from Harvard or Cambridge then I'd have even more cultural power. I'd likely be writing books that appeared on bestseller lists, writing op-ed pieces for the New York Times, and be a regular guess on Oprah and cable TV. And as my cultural capital increased I'd have greater and greater power to name and define reality.

The point is, cultural change occurs via the work of cultural elites. A slowly rising flood of books, editorials, movies, and cable interviews that slowly change how we see the world. The settled consensus begins to be challenged intellectually and artistically and, eventually, the culture changes. Think about cultural changes in America. Abolitionism during the Civil War. The Civil Rights movement. The 60s. Thinks about how elites drove all those changes. The culture changed because sermons changed. Newspaper editorials changed. Books got published. Entertainers challenged the status quo.

And all this creates a bit of a problem for Christians, particularly evangelicals, who have (not illegitimate) problems with the existence of elites in their midst. And yet, this frustration simply recognizes the truth of the matter: There are so few of them and, yet, they have the cultural power to define reality.

In the face of this reality Christians have done something very curious. Rather than intentionally trying to produce cultured elites--as the Jewish and gay communities have produced--Christians have largely abandoned the institutions of cultural power (think about New York and Hollywood) to create their own subculture. Their own music, movies, books, and TV shows. And as Hunter notes, the output of this cultural production has been absolutely astounding. Because, like we said, there are a lot of Christians out there! Think of a book like The Shack. A publishing phenomenon. And yet, a Christian sensation like this leaves hardly a cultural ripple, being mainly consumed by the Christian subculture. Plus, a great deal of the Christian cultural output is kitsch. Christian writing, music and art is generally perceived to be of low quality. And if you've been in a Christian bookstore recently (I was yesterday) you understand this assessment.

In short, Christians do have a vibrant culture. It's just what Hunter calls a "weak culture." Christian cultural production is strongest where the leverage for cultural change is weakest. Hunter on this conclusion:

In terms of the cultural economy, however, Christians in America today have institutional strength and vitality exactly in the lower and peripheral areas of cultural production. Against the prevailing view, the main reason why Christian believers today (from various communities) have not had the influence in the culture to which they have aspired is not that they don't believe enough, or try hard enough, or care enough, or think Christianly enough, or have the right worldview, but rather because they have been absent from the areas in which the greatest influence in the culture is exerted. The culture-producing institutions of historical Christianity are largely marginalized in the economy of culture formation in North America. Its cultural capital is greatest where leverage in the larger culture is weakest.

Oddly, rather than working to enter the arenas of cultural power many, mostly evangelical, Christians actively foster and take pride in an anti-intellectualism. Rather than creating a richer Christian culture, the goal is to battle "the elites." Given this strategy, how could you possibly hope to win the culture war? If you foster anti-intellectualism and take pride in kitsch then how are you going to win this battle to "name reality"?

Well, you basically give up on trying to change culture and attempt to grab the only other power available to you: The government. Because while you don't have cultural capital (those damned elites have that!) you do have the numbers and you can turn churches into voting collations.

And so Christianity goes political.

In 1990 Frank Meshberger published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association claiming to see something unusual in the depiction of God in the central panel of Michelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel.

Specifically, Meshberger thought he saw a brain.

Dr. Meshberger wrote up his observations in an article entitled An Interpretation of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam Based on Neuroanatomy. In the article Meshberger has us consider cross-sections of the human brain:


And compare these cross-sections with the shape behind Michelangelo's depiction of God:


Can you see it? If not, Meshberger traces the shape for us:


What's going on here?

Well, apparently, like his contemporary and rival Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo was also an anatomist who dissected human cadavers. Presumably for artistic explorations into human anatomy. This activity, however, was condemned by the church and generally involved grave robbing. So both Da Vinci and Michelangelo did this work in the greatest of secrecy.

Suddenly, in light of this revelation and Meshberger's article, the race was on to find other anatomical drawings in the Sistine chapel.

Just this month Ian Suk and Rafael Tamargo, in the scientific journal Neurosurgery, have published another discovery. Suk and Tamargo believe they see in the panel The Separation of Light from Darkness, leading up from the center of God’s chest and forming his throat, a precise rendering of the human spinal cord and brain stem. Here is the panel The Separation of Light from Darkness:


Here is a closer look at God. You might want to click on it to make it larger. Can you see the brainstem around the throat area?


If you can't see it, here is the relevant image from Suk and Tamargo:


Now the question is, if these images are anatomical images, what was Michelangelo up to? There are two schools of thought about this. The positive view was that Michelangelo saw the handiwork of God in the human body. Thus, these anatomical references represent a fusion of the physical and the spiritual. A more cynical view is that Michelangelo was painting these bits of anatomy as a form of protest or defiance against the Catholic church. In this version Science is protesting against Superstition.

But who can say? Regardless, it's an interesting way to learn some brain anatomy and art history at the same time.

A Virtual Tour of the Sistine Chapel can be found here. Look around, maybe you'll see something interesting.

Every summer I do research with undergraduate students at ACU. I generally pick research topics that relate to current events or might have some appeal to students. For example, to name a few things I've blogged about, we've done research on PostSecret, attitudes about torture, and religious blasphemy.

This summer I have two teams of students, each doing something very different.

The first group picked the subject of tattoos and Christianity.

Historically, Christians have tended to look down on tattoos. Some of this has been motivated by Leviticus 19:28:

Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.

Some of the stigma also comes from the fact that tattoos were associated with unsavory characters like sailors. (Tattoos were introduced to Britain and America after Captain Cook's men came home with tattoos from Tahiti.)

In short, for much of American history at least, tattoos were associated with deviance and alternative lifestyles. And yet, over the last decade or so, tattoos have gone mainstream. A study from 2006 found that 25% of people between ages of 18 and 50 have a tattoo. That number was up from 16% only three years earlier.

Interestingly, a lot of this tattooing is being done by Christians who are using tattoos for spiritual purposes. Christians use all sorts of tattoos--Greek or Hebrew words, bible verses/references, Christological or pneumatological symbols (e.g., cross, dove)--to "mark" an event of spiritual significance or to use the tattoo as a prompt or reminder of mission or identity.

And it's not just Christians who are doing this. Many people are using tattoos for spiritual or religious purposes. In class, I've been using the language existential tattooing versus aesthetic tattooing. Although this distinction is crude and the categories overlap, existential tattoos are tattoos that have an existential function. That is, the tattoo might have religious significance or be tied up with personal identity. Existential tattoos have symbolic significance. By contrast, aesthetic tattoos are, at root, forms of body art or fashion. The tattoo's function here is mainly to "look good" given some aesthetic standard. Again, this distinction is crude and it should allow for both/and. It's simply a stab of mine at sorting out the various motives for getting a tattoo.

So, any existential tattoos out there? And is the existential versus aesthetic contrast getting at something useful in motives associated with Christian tattoos?

As for me, if you care to know, no, I don't have any tattoos. I tend to use religiously themed jewelry for my existential prompts. But my tattooed students have, however, educated me a great deal about tattoos and culture. I now know, for instance, what a "tramp stamp" is. The things you learn when you hang out with undergraduates...

Last week I finished James Davison Hunter's book To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, & Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. It was a great and thought provoking read. Highly recommended. Three extended and interrelated essays make up To Change the World and I thought I devote some posts to each to give you the shape of Hunter's argument.

In the first part of To Change the World Hunter focuses on the impulse within Christianity "to change the world." In surveying contemporary Christian culture Hunter tracks this impulse. My own school gets mentioned in Hunter's survey on page 5 as the motto of my school--Abilene Christian University--is "To Change the World." Much of this world making tends to focus on American or Western culture, the fight against the forces of secularism and modernity. To change the world means to "reclaim our Christian values" or to fight for "a Christian nation" or to win "the culture wars." That is, Christianity often sees itself as pitted against an increasingly godless and valueless culture. "To change the world," then, implies winning this cultural battle over "values."

Given this conflict, Hunter proceeds to analyze the view of culture frequently deployed by Christians in this fight. That is, if the goal is to change the culture then what, exactly, is culture and how might you go about changing a culture? Because if you get this wrong (i.e., you misconstrue what culture is) then you end up picking ineffective and counterproductive strategies "to change the world." In fact, Hunter contends Christians have made this mistake. Christians are fundamentally confused about the nature of culture and the mechanics of cultural change. Consequently, Christian efforts "to change the world" have often been futile (the irony) or destructive to the integrity of the faith (the tragedy).

So how, exactly, are Christians ironically and tragically wrong about culture and cultural change?

First, the Christian view of culture has, by and large, focused on "values." American culture is decadent and in decline because of poor choices, immoral ideas, and a godless worldview.

Second, if this is what culture is--secular and non-biblical values--then the mechanism of cultural change seems clear: Change the values. This strategy is generally captured in the call for Christians to "win the hearts and minds" of the American people. That is, cultural change is believed to occur through a populist values-based revolution, to recruit/convert ("win over") more and more people to the Christian value system. A parallel strategy is to get people who share or espouse Christian values into positions of political power to legislate Christian values to the godless masses.

Summarizing, given the view Christians have of culture--it's about godless ideas and values--the way to change the culture is to 1) create a populist revolution focused on values, or 2) get Christians into positions of political power so that Christian values can become the law of the land.

But all this, according to Hunter, is based upon a flawed view of culture and, as a consequence, these Christian efforts "to change the world" have had both ironic and tragic consequences.

The core of Hunter's criticism is that the Christian view of culture is too Hegelian. For those who don't know Hegel, what this means is that Christians are placing too much emphasis on ideas, ignoring the historical, structural, and institutional forces (among other things) involved in culture. No doubt ideas are important, but the impoverished view of culture most Christians have leave them ill-equipped to see the "values" deeply embedded in the structures and institutions of their lives. Let me give two examples Hunter discusses.

Take capitalism. Capitalism is so deeply embedded in how Americans see the world that many Christians are simply incapable of stepping back to critically evaluate how the "values" of capitalism and consumerism might be affecting the church. In fact, vast stretches of evangelical culture are deeply consumeristic, materially and spiritually. In short, by failing to recognize how "values" and "worldviews" are embedded in our systems of commerce and governance, Christians are only targeting the thinnest slice of the American Worldview, blind to how much they themselves have imbibed the wine of the Enlightenment. And if you're as drunk and the next guy how do you expect to "win the culture wars"?

As a second example, take individualism, an example closely aligned with capitalism. The Enlightenment notions of individual autonomy, independence, rights, freedom and liberty run deep in the American consciousness. These "values" shape how we approach just about every societal issue. And, as with capitalism, Christians have often failed to see how Enlightenment individualism has affected them. The communitarian vision of New Testament Christianity is almost wholly absent from the evangelical world. In fact, by and large, those communitarian values are an anathema.

The point in all this is that, by ignoring the structural and historical aspects of culture, Christians have tended to believe that the "culture war" was about gay marriage, abortion, and teaching evolution to school children. The belief is that, if we "win" on these issues, we will have created a "Christian nation" characterized by "Christian values." According to Hunter, however, these efforts are doomed to failure. It's like chasing a fly when an elephant is standing in your living room. You might hit the fly but nothing, long term, is going to change.

Further, Christians are confused about the power of laws to change culture. Laws don't change culture. So the Christan focus on legislation is also misguided. To illustrate this, Hunter asks us to consider the temperance movement. This was, by and large, the most successful populist revolution in Christian values America has ever seen, then or now. Christians were finally successful in bringing pressure upon the American political system to get values-based laws passed. And the outcome, we all know, was a failure. The lesson? Laws don't change culture. Changing a law might be a moral victory (similar to the victory with prohibition), but if Christians are really wanting to change the culture they will need to do a whole lot more than change laws. Populist movements about values issues will to ebb and flow in this nation, with "victories" and "defeats" on each side. But make no mistake, these are not changes that dramatically alter the course of American culture. If anything, a "victory" on one side produces an energized counter-movement. The political "wins," thus, are often Pyrrhic.

The conclusion? If Christians really want to change the culture they need to get a collective clue about what culture really is and how one might go about changing one. Otherwise, efforts "to change the world" are doomed before they even get started.

I just finished reading Tony Jones' wonderful book The Teaching of the Twelve: Believing & Practicing the Primitive Christianity of the Ancient Didache Community.

I didn't know anything about the Didache (pronounced DID-ah-kay) prior to reading this book. And I can't imagine a better introduction to the Didache for the non-specialist than The Teaching of the Twelve. A wonderful bonus of the book is Jones' fresh translation of the Didache, which can also be found online here at Paraclete Press.

The first line from The Teaching of the Twelve is: "The Didache is the most important book you've never heard of."

Which just about summed it up for me. I'd never heard of it. But Jones starts us off with a nice, crisp historical overview. The main details are this. Scholars had known for some time that the Didache--translated "the teaching"--existed as church fathers referred to it from time to time. However, no copies were known to exist. So the Didache, like so many other early Christian writings, seemed lost to history. However, in the late 1800s a copy of the Didache was discovered. Subsequent research has dated the manuscript to the 1st Century, some having it as early as 70 CE. This is noteworthy because this makes the Didache one of the earliest Christian writings, within living memory of Jesus of Nazareth and earlier than many of the books currently in the New Testament.

So what is the Didache? As Jones describes it, the Didache was a manual or handbook that functioned as a "rule of life" for the Didache community. Much of the content of the Didache was likely used in Christian catechesis, the year long training and apprenticeship that one had to undergo before receiving Christan baptism and full inclusion into the Christian community. Much of the material relevant to this training is found in the first section of the the Didache from 1.1-6.3, the discussion of "the two ways."

After this discussion of Christian lifestyle, ethics, and practice the Didache moves into practical discussions related to the liturgical rhythms of the Christian community: baptism (7.1-4), prayer and fasting (8.1-3), the celebration of the Eucharist (9.1-10.6), and Lord's Day gatherings (14.1-3).

There are also discussions related to Christian hospitality and how to handle traveling teachers and prophets (11.1-13.7). There is a brief discussion about appointing church leaders (15.1-3). And finally, the Didache concludes with an apocalyptic exhortation (16.1-8).

After providing the historical background and his translation of the Didache, Jones then uses the final four chapters of The Teaching of the Twelve to reflect on the Didache, thinking through how this glimpse of "primitive Christianity" might have implications for the contemporary church. To help flesh out these insights Jones shares the insights of a small Christian community in rural Missouri called the Cymbrogi (celtic for "companions of the heart") who have tried to live out the Christian community as revealed in the Didache.

There were two parts of the book and the Didache that I found particularly thought provoking. First, in 2.7, after a long vice list, the Didache concludes (the translation here is Jones'):

Hate no one; correct some, pray for others, and some you should love more than your own life.

That simple command "hate no one" is just a diamond in itself. But the more interesting thing is the juxtaposition of this command after the long vice list in 2.2-6. The Cymbrogi community takes 2.7 to refer to back upon 2.2-6. That is, having described all these "sinners" the Didache says: Don't hate these people. In fact, try to help them. Or pray for them. And some of these "sinners" you should "love more than your own life." Jones writes that "Hate no one" is "the guiding premise of the [Cymbrogi] community; their tag line; their mission statement."

I like that. I wish "Hate no one" was the mission statement of every church.

The second striking thing about the Didache comes in 6.2 (again from Jones' translation):

For if you are able to bear the entire yoke of the Lord, you will be perfect; but if you are not able, then at least do what you can.

I love that sentiment. "At least do what you can." There is a kind of no-nonsense practicality about the Didache that's very encouraging. It's very humane. Do what you can. Lots of days that's about all I can muster.

But Jones takes it further. He contrasts the "do what you can" spirit of the Didache with the history of doctrinal conflict within Christianity about all manner of things. Think of how picky Christian churches are about the minutiae of doctrine, ritual, and church organization. Jones suggests we compare that obsessive-compulsive pickiness with how the Didache discusses proper baptism rituals (7.1-3):

Concerning baptism, you should baptize this way: After first explaining all things, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in flowing water.

But if you have no running water, baptize in other water; and if you cannot do so in cold water, then in warm.

If you have very little, pour water three times on the head in the name of Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

As Jones observes, the whole "do what you can" vibe informs these recommendations: If you can, this is the way to do it. But if you can't do it that way, try this. And if that doesn't work, try this other way. Basically, do what you can. How different is that spirit from what you've observed to be the case in most churches? In most churches I've known it's not "Do what you can." but "You better do it this exact way--and I mean this EXACT way--and if you don't you're going to hell!"

Compared to many modern churches the Didache community seemed to have a level-headed, humane, sensible, and pragmatic spirit about it. Would that more churches were like this.

If you polled psychologists and asked them to name the best book in the discipline I'd wager Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning would top the list. If you haven't read it you really should.

Two weeks ago we gave a copy of Man's Search for Meaning to all our graduating seniors, each copy signed by the faculty.

In the first part of the book Frankl, who was Jewish, recounts his experiences as a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps. In the second half of the book Frankl takes those observations and creates a psychotherapy based upon the role of meaning in human existence. Some selections from the book:

We all had once been or had fancied ourselves to be ‘somebody.’ Now were treated like complete nonentities. The consciousness of one’s inner value must be anchored in higher, more spiritual things, so it cannot be shaken by camp life. But how many free men, let alone prisoners, possess it?

***

Does a man have no choice of action in the face of such circumstances? We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: To choose one’s own attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

***

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn and teach the despairing men that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly.

***

Any attempt to restore a man’s inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. As Nietzsche said, ‘He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.'

This evening I came across this clip at The Daily Dish, a clip of a lecture Frankl gave to some American students on idealism and meaning in life:

The other day I was sitting in a meeting where we were talking about how the hot new word in academic circles is "Othering." First, we had other. Then we had Other, capital O. Now we have Othering.

I expressed my dislike of the term. Mainly on aesthetic grounds. I don't like the sound of it. However, I do get what the term is doing and find value in its attempt to name, succinctly, a sinful dynamic: The process of turning a fellow human being into something foreign, alien, strange, and "not one of us." In a single word, Othering names what I consider to be the root cause of sin.

It's Othering that makes it so hard to be a part of a group. Any group. Even if the group is completely arbitrary. Consider the psychological research where participants come into the laboratory and are assigned to one of two groups by the flip of a coin. Later in the experiment the participants are asked to allocate rewards and punishments in a game/task to their fellow participants. Time after time, participants show favoritism toward their own group. This knowing full well that their group was formed by the flip of a coin! Think on that. Othering needs nothing more than a flip of a coin to begin doing its work. Now imagine how Othering scales up if we start thinking about skin color, language differences, and the love of God and Country.

Today is Pentecost, the celebration of the events in Acts 2, when God poured out his Spirit upon humanity as a sign of the inbreaking of the Kingdom. But what does this mean? What is the sign of signs that marks this "Kingdom of God"?

I'd suggest this: The Kingdom is marked by its assault on Othering. Where Othering has vanished the Kingdom has come.

Consider how Pentecost echos back to the primordial story of the Tower of Babel, where human hubris (in a tale similar to many Greek myths of humans-seeking-to-be-gods) is thwarted by God in the creation of the language barriers between the nations:

Genesis 11.1-8
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."

So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

But God doesn't leave humanity in this condition where Othering flourishes. God's plan is to pull humans back into solidarity but, this time, in a redeemed state, under the Lordship of the Lamb. Thus, in Pentecost, as you all well know, the confusion and curse of Babel--and the sins of Othering--are reversed in the Kingdom:

Acts 2.1-24, 36
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs-we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?"

Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

'In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
I will show wonders in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.'

"Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.

"Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."

And the event of Pentecost--reexperienced every day as the Spirit continues to prompt Christian communities to overcome Othering in their midst: personally, locally, nationally, and internationally--is a foretaste of a greater eschatological culmination:

Revelation 7.9-12
After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:

"Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb."

All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying:

"Amen!
Praise and glory
and wisdom and thanks and honor
and power and strength
be to our God for ever and ever.
Amen!"

Have a blessed Pentecost.

In his book The Depth of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends S. Mark Heim is trying to do two things. On the one hand he wants to find a way to affirm the soteriological visions found in other world religions. But on the other hand he wants to embrace the theological distinctives of the world religions and to question the notion that we are all pointed in the same direction.

More, Heim is writing from a Christian perspective and he does, in the end, want to affirm the "superiority" (that's a bad word for this, but crudely makes the point) of the Christian vision of salvation, but in a way that fully embraces (rather than co-opts) the soteriological visions of other world religions.

So the question becomes, how do you keep all these balls in the air? How do you make all these affirmations simultaneously?

Heim builds his argument around what he calls a "religious end." Heim defines a religious end this way (p. 21):

A religious end or aim is defined by a set of practices, images, stories, and concepts which has three characteristics. First, the set provides material for a thorough pattern of life. The ultimacy often spoken in the definitions of religion is here given a quite concrete meaning. The religious end and the path that leads to it do not address only a limited dimension of life or one particular human need among others. They are ultimate in providing a framework that encompasses all the features of life, practice and sublime, current and future.

Importantly, Heim continues, elements of the religious end "are understood to be constitutive of a final human fulfillment and/or to be sole means of achieving that fulfillment.

Summarizing (or, perhaps, oversimplifying), a religious end is a worldview that has a telos (a goal) aimed at some vision of human fulfillment or flourishing. In religious language, a religious end is a lifepath that leads to salvation. Concretely, Buddhism is going somewhere. Christianity is going somewhere. Islam is going somewhere.

So where are they going?

Exclusivism suggests that all but one of these paths is going to hell. This places one path (usually yours) over against the other paths. By contrast, pluralism suggests that, despite the diversity of these paths, they are all going to the same place.

We'll already talked about the problems with these two views. Trying to find a way through Heim suggests another way.

Specifically, he asks: What if everyone gets to where they are going? What if each religious end leads the believer/practitioner to its vision of human bliss and fulfillment?

What Heim is challenging in his book is the notion that religions must wind up in the same place. So what if we imagine a diversity of religious ends? Different paths with different destinations. Let's examine this using the examples of Buddhism and Christianity.

Consider the religious end known as Buddhism. We begin with the Four Truths of the Buddha:

1. Life is suffering/unease (dukkha).
2. Suffering is caused by craving and attachment.
3. There is an end to suffering (nirvana)
4. The path to nirvana (the cessation of suffering) is the Eightfold Path.

So a Buddhist follows the eighfold path to cease craving and attachment. When this is accomplished suffering ends and nirvana is attained.

Now let's step back and ask: Is the Buddhist religious end the same as the Christian's religious end?

Not really. No doubt there are areas of overlap. Non-attachment is a part of the Christian witness. For example, here is Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also...

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

But despite these areas of overlap, the Christian view of salvation isn't the extinguishment of craving/desire. Rather, following St. Augustine here, the Christian view is that our desires are fundamentally disordered, pointed at all the wrong stuff (e.g., sex, power, money). Christian salvation is taking all these fallen and broken forms of love (because desire is, at root, a form of love) and focusing them upon God, the object of our true desire. As Augustine writes at the start of his Confessions, "Our hearts are restless, until they rest in You."

So we have two really irreconcilable views. For Buddhists salvation is the cessation of desire. For Christians it is the right ordering of desire (in the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount we take the cravings for the stuff of this world and root them in the Kingdom of Heaven).

In short, Buddhism and Christianity are two distinct religious ends. Buddhism isn't going to produce Christian salvation. And Christianity isn't going to produce the Buddhist nirvana. As Heim notes, "There is no way to the Buddhist end but the Buddhist way." And the same goes for the other world religions or life philosophies.

What I like about Heim's proposal is that it shifts us away from issues of truthood and falsity. Which is how we typically approach these debates. Is your religion true or false, right or wrong? In contrast, the focus on religious ends asks us to examine the kind of humanity your path is trying to produce. What is your vision for a fulfilled and flourishing humanity? That's a much more interesting and productive conversation. Heim on this point:

[W]e shift from dealing solely with flat issues of truth and falsehood to facing alternatives. We ask not "Which religion alone is true?" but "What end is most ultimate, even if many are real?" and "Which life will I hope to realize?"

So, since many of you are Christians, where does this leave the Christian claim that "true" salvation is only found in Jesus?

The point for Heim is that recognizing the the diversity of religious ends doesn't mean one cannot claim an ultimate religious end. For Christians, Heim suggests, our religious end is aimed at participation in the Triune love of God. We can, if we chose to, claim that this end is the "best," that it represents the ultimate vision of human fulfillment. Not that other religious ends are terrible, just that some wonderful and beautiful piece would be missing. A piece only found in Jesus.

Of course, the Buddhist might disagree. But at least we are talking about what Jesus means for human fulfillment rather than debating the truthhood or falsehood of Buddhism versus Christianity. Which is, in my opinion, a much more interesting conversation. Practically speaking, what is so special about following Jesus? Could I share experiences with a Buddhist and perhaps convince him that something was missing from Buddhism that can only be found in Jesus? Sure I could. (And it could go the other way around.)

The point is that, if we allow for multiple religious ends, that God will allow you to get where you are going, we can still make the following claims:

1. That the Christian vision of salvation is "best."
2. That the only way to reach the Christian salvation is through Jesus.
3. Evangelism (proclaiming the "good news") is vital to the Christian life.

And yet we do this, if we follow Heim, in a radically new way. A way that honors each religious end in its distinctiveness and allows for respectful and robust conversation about the visions of human fulfillment being offered.

Last night I finished Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.

It's an interesting read. I'll likely have more to say about the book in the future, but today I'd just like to share with you a bit, from the book, of Jesus' prayer in the garden of Gethsemane. This is, in Pullman's telling, the prayer (and, one would guess, Pullman's own prayer) of a Jesus who has lost his faith in God and who here imagines the kind of church he'd like to see represent him after his death:

"Lord, if I thought you were listening, I'd pray for this above all: that my church set up in your name should remain poor, and powerless, and modest. That it should wield no authority except that of love. That it should never cast anyone out. That it should own no property and make no laws. That is should not condemn, but only forgive. That it should be not like a palace with marble walls and polished floors, and guards standing at the door, but like a tree with its roots deep in the soil, that shelters every kind of bird and beast and gives blossom in the spring and shade in hot sun and fruit in the season, and in time gives up its good sound wood for the carpenter; but that sheds many thousands of seeds so that new trees can grow in its place. Does the tree say to the sparrow 'Get out, you don't belong here?' Does the tree say to the hungry man 'This fruit is not for you?' Does the tree test the loyalty of the beasts before it allows them into the shade?"

The Center for Public Christianity has published a few videos from an extended interview with Stanley Hauerwas.


Here is Hauerwas on the subject of death:

Reflections on Death from CPX on Vimeo.

A few years ago, my good friend Mark gave me, as a gift, S. Mark Heim's book The Depth of the Riches: A Trinitarian Theology of Religious Ends. Mark knew I liked Heim as Mark was the one who pointed me to Heim's wonderful book Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross (which I did a blog review of). But I think the real reason Mark gave me the book is because he knew that I subscribed to universalism and have a taste for heterodox soteriological/eschatological systems.

In The Depths of the Riches Heim is trying to find a path between two soteriological systems that he finds, for various reasons, unattractive. On the one hand is what is known as exclusivism. This is the notion that salvation can only be found from within the Christian faith (or whatever your "home" faith happens to be). All other world religions, in this view, lead to damnation. In contrast to exclusivism is pluralism. In this view, all world religions, ultimately, lead to God and salvation. Although the paths up the mountain may vary they all, in the end, arrive at the same place.

The problems with these two positions are obvious. Exclusivists have to account for the fact that the mass of humanity (past, present, and future) are going to be damned. Given this claim, how can you assert that God is good? Sure, you can blame human choice for this situation but such a move fails to account for the sociological fact that most people adopt the religion of their family and native land. I grew up in a Christian family and in a Christian nation and, shocker!, I'm a Christian. How lucky of me to have exerted my "free will" to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior!

Given this situation, we might want to swing over to pluralism, But this position also leaves a lot to be desired. First, are all religions really equal? And how do we know they are pointed in the same direction? What if, to pick an extreme example, my God told me to conduct human sacrifice? Who gets to say this religion isn't a true manifestation of God's will?

To get past this problem some theologians have tried to identify the "common core" of "true religion" but, at the end of the day, this common core often winds up looking a lot like liberal humanism. Which is fine, but this conclusion seems to call religion as religion into question.

A second problem with pluralism, as Heim points out in his book, is that there are particularities and distinctives in the world religions that can't be so easily smoothed out. The world religions, if you look closely, really aren't different versions of "the same thing." If so, it's hard to contend that they are all pointed in the same direction. The problem basically boils down to the following. If you look for the common core amongst the world religions you end up finding something bland and banal because you abstract out the rich and thick theology of each faith. If, however, you attend to the peculiarities of each faith you end up noticing that the world religions really do have irreconcilable views of God, the good, and the nature of our eventual destinies.

So what are we to do? I'll walk through Heim's proposal in Part 2.

I was thinking today of the gospel according to John the Baptist. Specifically, here was John's mission:

Luke 3.3-6
He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
"A voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see God's salvation.' "

So John is preaching a message of repentance to "prepare the way of the Lord" in the hearts and minds of the people. So how were the people to repent and prepare for the Lord? John gets specific:

Luke 3.10-14
When all the people asked him, "What must we do, then?" he answered, "Anyone who has two tunics must share with the one who has none, and anyone with something to eat must do the same." There were tax collectors, too, who came for baptism, and these said to him, "Master, what must we do?" He said to them, "Exact no more that the appointed rate." Some soldiers asked him in their turn, "What about us? What must we do?" He said to them, "No intimidation! No extortion! Be content with your pay!"

What is striking in each bit of advice is how John focuses on the economic facets of life, work, and relationships. Repentance, for John, looks like this:

If you have extra clothing, share it.
If you have extra food, share it.
Do not charge (or collect) more than what is fair.
Do not pressure or extort people for money.
Be content with your paycheck.

I find this interesting as I tend to think of repentance as emotional, of feeling contrite. But for John, repentance is fundamentally about economics or, more precisely, getting right with money and our possessions. Preparing our hearts for the Lord begins with sharing, fairness, and contentment. That is, if someone is seeking a closer or better relationship with Jesus it seems the the first bit of advice John would give is pretty simple: Start with sharing your material possessions. That's the quickest way to Jesus.

Wonderful story (H/T Daily Dish) of a man and a gorilla:



In our Sunday School class I we've been talking through N.T. Wright's book After You Believe. In Chapter 3 of the book Wright tries to offer a vision of what we, as humans, were made for. What is the telos of our life? What will the New Creation be like and what will we do there?

When I was growing up I was told that heaven would be one, long worship service. And I just shivered. Now, I like singing. But for eternity? Surely there must be some job for us? Some work? Some task? Right?

Wright suggests that the answers to these questions go back the beginning, to the purpose we were created for in the first place:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food." And it was so...

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

According to Wright, the New Creation is Eden Restored and we are to "work it and take care of it." And a part of that work is caring for the fish, the birds, the plants, and every living creature. We are, at root, gardeners and caretakers. This is what we were born to do. This is who we are.

So when I think of Damian and Kwibi, of my family and Bandit, of the art of Andy Goldsworthy, or as I look at my yard right now--sweating over this keyboard having just finished mowing, raking and edging--I think that heaven is actually going to be a lot of fun. There will be work to do. Work that I'm preparing for. And work that has already started.

My rest is over. Have a blessed Lord's Day. Back to the yardwork. More practice for Eden.

It was during college when I first began struggling with the doctrine of imputed righteousness. This is the notion, as I'm sure you know, where the believer is saved by having the righteousness of Jesus reckoned or "imputed" to him or her. Growing up, this doctrine was conveyed through a variety of metaphors. The one that sticks out in my mind is the one where Jesus is God's rose-colored glasses. On Judgment Day when God looks at me in all my sin and wickedness he doesn't see me at all. Rather, he sees Jesus. Having Jesus' righteousness imputed to me Jesus functions like these glasses that God dons and, looking through the glasses, God doesn't see my sin, he sees the righteousness of Christ.

The trouble with this metaphor was that I had read The Wizard of Oz as a kid. I'm talking about the book written by L. Frank Baum not the movie, they are very different. In the movie the Emerald City is, well, made of emeralds. But in the book it's all a fraud, through and through. So why does everyone think the city is made of emeralds? Well, this is why:

There was a bell beside the gate, and Dorothy pushed the button and heard a silvery tinkle sound within. Then the big gate swung slowly open, and they all passed through and found themselves in a high arched room, the walls of which glistened with countless emeralds.

Before them stood a little man about the same size as the Munchkins. He was clothed all in green, from his head to his feet, and even his skin was of a greenish tint. At his side was a large green box.

When he saw Dorothy and her companions the man asked, "What do you wish in the Emerald City?"

"We came here to see the Great Oz," said Dorothy.

The man was so surprised at this answer that he sat down to think it over.

"It has been many years since anyone asked me to see Oz," he said, shaking his head in perplexity. "He is powerful and terrible, and if you come on an idle or foolish errand to bother the wise reflections of the Great Wizard, he might be angry and destroy you all in an instant."

"But it is not a foolish errand, nor an idle one," replied the Scarecrow; "it is important. And we have been told that Oz is a good Wizard."

"So he is," said the green man, "and he rules the Emerald City wisely and well. But to those who are not honest, or who approach him from curiosity, he is most terrible, and few have ever dared ask to see his face. I am the Guardian of the Gates, and since you demand to see the Great Oz I must take you to his Palace. But first you must put on the spectacles."

"Why?" asked Dorothy.

"Because if you did not wear spectacles the brightness and glory of the Emerald City would blind you. Even those who live in the City must wear spectacles night and day. They are all locked on, for Oz so ordered it when the City was first built, and I have the only key that will unlock them."

He opened the big box, and Dorothy saw that it was filled with spectacles of every size and shape. All of them had green glasses in them. The Guardian of the Gates found a pair that would just fit Dorothy and put them over her eyes. There were two golden bands fastened to them that passed around the back of her head, where they were locked together by a little key that was at the end of a chain the Guardian of the Gates wore around his neck. When they were on, Dorothy could not take them off had she wished, but of course she did not wish to be blinded by the glare of the Emerald City, so she said nothing.

Then the green man fitted spectacles for the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion, and even on little Toto; and all were locked fast with the key.

Then the Guardian of the Gates put on his own glasses and told them he was ready to show them to the Palace. Taking a big golden key from a peg on the wall, he opened another gate, and they all followed him through the portal into the streets of the Emerald City.

The city is green--made of emeralds!--because everyone is wearing green sunglasses. It's all an illusion.

And I couldn't help but think that the doctrine of imputed righteousness made heaven look a lot like the Emerald City. Only this time the Wizard was wearing the tinted glasses making all of us look green.

So I couldn't shake all the questions that piled up about the doctrine of imputed righteousness. God still knows I'm a sinner, right? I mean, he's not fundamentally confused about my true nature, right? That, even though I've been reckoned as righteous I'm still, at root, a jerk. He knows that and can see that clearly, right? I'm in heaven, yes, but I'm still fundamentally a sinner. He sees that, right?

The root problem with the doctrine of imputed righteousness is that it trades the consequence for the cause. The goal, according to the doctrine, is to save you from hell (or, positively, to get to heaven). That is, the goal of salvation is to save you from the consequences of sin.

But that's confused and it creates the Emerald City Problem. Imputed righteousness--via those sunglasses--gets you into the city, you get saved from hell, but the fundamental problem--I'm selfish and self-absorbed--isn't really dealt with. So there we are, all sinners, now in the City. But still selfish, still holding grudges, still unkind.

In short, unless salvation deals with the cause--my distorted heart and mind--it fails to be a real salvation. Who cares about heaven and hell?! I want to be a better person. And, as best I can tell, there is no way this can just be handed to you. You can't borrow it from Jesus.

Nor would I, for one second, want that to be the case. I want to be known by God. From my fingertips to my toes. The good, the bad, the ugly. And I don't want sunglasses interfering. I want honesty. Transparency. No more games. Just God and me. Face to face. And boy, is that a scary prospect. And I'll need Jesus, but not between God and me. I'll need him standing beside me. Holding me up. Because I figure my knees will be feeling a little weak.

But I'm willing to go through this hell of exposure because I need some serious help. And it starts with entering the Wrath of God, the wrath I've learned to share and embrace. I'll allow the fire of God's love to begin to burn the sin, selfishness and pettiness out of my heart. And, Lord save me, it's gonna hurt. It will be embarrassing. Humiliating. But slowly, I'll come clean. With God, with you, with everyone I've ever wronged, and with everyone who suffered because I passed by on the other side of the road.

And you know what? If salvation doesn't involve this I don't want it. I want, more than anything in life, to be saved. Truly, deeply saved. No pretending. No sunglasses.

And guess who helped me see all this? You guessed it. My spiritual mentor and brother, George MacDonald. From his sermon the Last Farthing from Unspoken Sermons (Series II):

There has been much cherishing of the evil fancy, often without its taking formal shape, that there is some way of getting out of the region of strict justice, some mode of managing to escape doing all that is required of us; but there is no such escape. A way to avoid any demand of righteousness would be an infinitely worse way than the road to the everlasting fire, for its end would be eternal death. No, there is no escape. There is no heaven with a little of hell in it--no plan to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our pockets. Out Satan must go, every hair and feather! Neither shalt thou think to be delivered from the necessity of being good by being made good...Thou must be good; neither death nor any admittance into good company will make thee good; though, doubtless, if thou be willing and try, these and all other best helps will be given thee. There is no clothing in a robe of imputed righteousness, that poorest of legal cobwebs spun by spiritual spiders. To me it seems like an invention of well-meaning dulness to soothe insanity; and indeed it has proved a door of escape out of worse imaginations. It is apparently an old 'doctrine;' for St. John seems to point at it where he says, 'Little children, let no man lead you astray; he that doeth righteousness is righteous even as he is righteous.' Christ is our righteousness, not that we should escape punishment, still less escape being righteous, but as the live potent creator of righteousness in us, so that we, with our wills receiving his spirit, shall like him resist unto blood, striving against sin; shall know in ourselves, as he knows, what a lovely thing is righteousness, what a mean, ugly, unnatural thing is unrighteousness. He is our righteousness, and that righteousness is no fiction, no pretence, no imputation.

Let's go to the real Emerald City where there will be no sunglasses. A City where, yes, the "little bit of hell" we carry in will need to be dealt with. So heaven will, initially, burn a bit. Because, really, who enjoys confession and repentance? But that fire will fade. Or, rather, will turn warm and cozy. It's the love of God after all. It's called salvation.

From our good friend George, an interesting article in the Boston Globe about the Placebo Effect: We know it works, so should we use it as a medical intervention?

From Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow's piece:

But as evidence of the [placebo] effect’s power mounts, members of the medical community are increasingly asking an intriguing question: if the placebo effect can help patients, shouldn’t we start putting it to work? In certain ways, placebos are ideal drugs: they typically have no side effects and are essentially free. And in recent years, research has confirmed that they can bring about genuine improvements in a number of conditions. An active conversation is now under way in leading medical journals, as bioethicists and researchers explore how to give people the real benefits of pretend treatment.

But there's a bit of an ethical dilemma involved in the placebo effect: The deception.

...any attempt to harness the placebo effect immediately runs into thorny ethical and practical dilemmas. To present a dummy pill as real medicine would be, by most standards, to lie. To prescribe one openly, however, would risk undermining the effect. And even if these issues were resolved, the whole idea still might sound a little shady--offering bogus pills or procedures could seem, from the patient’s perspective, hard to distinguish from skimping on care.

And yet, we know there is a mind/body connection. The placebo effect causes real, physical healing. Consequently, shouldn't we use this most natural of cures?

In the last decade-plus, however, the accumulating data have sparked a renewed interest in the placebo as a treatment in its own right. Numerous studies have shown that it can trigger verifiable changes in the body. Brain scans have shown that placebo pain relief is not only subjectively experienced, but that in many cases the brain releases its own internal painkillers, known as endogenous opioids. (This placebo effect can even be reversed by the opioid-blocker naloxone.) Another study, published in Science in 2009, found that patients given a topical cream for arm pain showed much less pain-related activity in the spinal cord when told it was a powerful painkiller. A 2009 study found that patients benefited as much from a fake version of a popular spinal surgery as they did from the real one; asthma patients have shown strong responses to a mock inhaler.

So here's the killer question, given my interest in the intersection of psychology and faith:

Is God a placebo effect? And would it matter?

A thought...

It seems to me that most Pro-Life people I know really aren't Pro-Life at all. They are, rather, Anti-Sex. That is, the abortion debate is often just a cover to wage war on the sexual revolution and the Dawn of the Pill. What many Pro-Life people are angry about is the casual sexuality of our age, an era of "abortion on demand." Pro-Life advocacy, then, is often (consciously or unconsciously) really a way to get sexually promiscuous people to face the "consequences" of sexual activity. The focus on life is often cover for Puritanical worries about sexuality in modern America.

Why do I draw this conclusion? Because most Pro-Life people I know are only Pro-Life in this one area, and only in this one area. They are not, generally speaking, consistently Pro-Life. For example, most Pro-Life people are...

...not Pro-Life when it comes to gun control.

...not Pro-Life when it comes to preemptive war.

...not Pro-Life when it comes to capital punishment.

...not Pro-Life when it comes to global malnourishment.

...not Pro-Life when it comes to universal health care.

...not Pro-Life when it comes to entitlement programs for the women and children of the working poor (to remove the economic incentives for abortion).

...not Pro-Life in promoting condom usage to prevent teenage pregnancy or AIDS in developing nations.

In short, the only thing many conservatives are Pro-Life about is, well, abortion. Which, incidentally, is the only thing on the list that's about regulating sexual behavior.

Which kind of makes you wonder...

Approximately 42 million abortions occur every year.

83% of these abortions occur in developing countries.

About half of the worldwide abortions are "unsafe."

97% of all unsafe abortions occur in developing countries.

Worldwide, 1 billion people do not have enough to eat.

More than 60% of undernourished persons are women.

Pregnant women, new mothers who breastfeed infants, and children are among the most at risk of undernourishment

One out of four children - roughly 146 million - in developing countries are underweight.

10.9 million children under five die in developing countries each year.

For those who want a little bit more about the research on women's roles being presented at the Christian Scholar's Conference I thought I'd point you to Shannon's blog where she informally describes her thesis research.

One of the things I enjoyed about chairing Shannon's thesis was getting to learn about the Ambivalent Sexism research, the theory that Shannon worked with in her study. Ambivalent Sexism Theory, as articulated by Peter Glick and Susan Fisk, suggests that while sexism is a form of prejudice it is marked by a deep ambivalence. That is, sexism is a unique and particular sort of prejudice. Generally, we think of prejudice as being characterized by strong negative feelings (and stereotypes) directed at a despised group. And, of course, many attitudes toward women are overtly derogatory. Glick and Fisk call this hostile sexism.

Although hostile sexism exists, few self-reflective people overtly express hostility toward women. Rather, what we tend to see is a more ambivalent form of sexism, what Glick and Fisk call benevolent sexism. Quoting Glick and Fisk (Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 70, 491-512):

We define benevolent sexism as a set of interrelated attitudes toward women that are sexist in terms of viewing women stereotypically and in restricted roles but that are subjectively positive in feeling tone (for the perceiver) and also tend to elicit behaviors typically categorized as prosocial (e.g., helping) or intimacy-seeking (e.g., self-disclosure).

The ambivalent nature of benevolent sexism stems from the fact that while a person might feel like he holds positive views about women the fact is, structurally speaking, these attitudes work to marginalize women and ensure that males remain in positions of dominance. That is, the overt content of the attitudes are "positive" and "flattering" but, at the structural level, these attitudes are sexist in that they keep the power differentials between men and women firmly in place. Glick and Fisk give an example:

For example, a man's comment to a female coworker on how “cute” she looks, however well-intentioned, may undermine her feelings of being taken seriously as a professional.

In general, benevolent sexism manifests itself in a paternalistic stance ("Men take care of women.") that is couched in notions of complementarity ("Men have leadership gifts and women have relational gifts.") and chivalry (i.e., the princess in the tower or the damsel in distress: Women wait and watch while we rescue/work/sacrifice/struggle for them). Overtly, these attitudes seem kind and noble but, structurally, they keep power firmly in the hands of men. It's a soft, sweet paternalism. A benevolent sexism.

To give more of the flavor of benevolent sexism as described by Glick and Fisk here are some of the items from the Benevolent Sexism subscale of their Ambivalent Sexism Inventory:

• No matter how accomplished he is, a man is not truly complete as a person unless he has the love of a woman.
• Many women have a quality of purity that few men possess.
• Women should be cherished and protected by men.
• Every man ought to have a woman whom he adores.
• A good woman should be set on a pedestal by her man.
• Men should be willing to sacrifice their own well being in order to provide financially for the women in their lives.

If you go to church a lot I expect you are very familiar with sentiments similar to these. Specifically, women are regularly praised in churches for qualities that "complement" men. And, unsurprisingly, the things women are "good at" tend not to be associated with positions of authority. Women are "good at" relationships and service, not leadership.

Given that benevolent sexism is so prevalent in churches Shannon was surprised to find out that little research had been done on the religious origins of benevolent sexism. Shannon's thesis--"Subtle Sexism in the Church: Religious Correlates of Ambivalent Sexism"--examined this topic.