The Catholic Agitator

Last summer when Jana and I were staying at a Benedictine monastery we were hanging out in the library. The monastery subscribed to a ton of Catholic newspapers, newsletters and periodicals, many from Catholic Worker communities. One of them--The Catholic Agitator--caught my eye.

Being the sort of person I am, the word "agitator" always grabs my attention.

The Catholic Agitator is the paper of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker (LACW) community that has been serving the poor and homeless on Skid Row for over forty years. Picking up the paper I was immediately engrossed in an article by Jeff Dietrich about the conflict between the LACW and the City of Los Angeles. The conflict had to do with shopping carts.

Apparently, the City of LA was cracking down on the homeless by confiscating the shopping carts they used to hold and transport their belongings. The City found these carts to be an eyesore so, to preserve appearances, they started taking the carts away. How could they legally do this? The City claimed that the shopping carts were stolen property, taken from local grocery stores.

Of course that wasn't the real reason for taking the carts away. The real reason had to do with the fact that the shopping carts made the homeless visible. That was the real crime of the homeless. Being seen. And taking away the carts would help vanish the poor on the streets of LA. Without shopping carts people could drive around the city and not see poor people. Shopping carts broke the illusion by making the homeless visible. 

Knowing what was going on the LACW decided to help their friends. They bought their friends their own personal shopping carts. No longer stolen property the City couldn't take the carts away. But that didn't stop them from trying. What ensued was The Shopping Cart War between the City of LA and the LA Catholic Worker.

Needless to say, reading about the War I immediately became of fan of Jeff Dietrich, the LA Catholic Worker and their newsletter The Catholic Agitator.

You can find subscription information for The Catholic Agitator here. And if you'd like to quickly catch up with Jeff Dietrich and his best writing in The Catholic Agitator collected over forty years, let me point you to the edited collection Broken and Shared. I just started Broken and Shared and so far have found it to be a wonderful, provocative, challenging and inspiring read.

This summer I'm speaking at the Pepperdine Lectureship in Malibu. I'm thinking about blowing off the Hollywood environs of Malibu ASAP to spend some time on Skid Row with the LACW...

Against Bigness

"I am against bigness and greatness in all their forms, and with the invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, stealing in through the crannies of the world like so many soft rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, and yet rending the hardest monuments of man's pride, if you give them time. The bigger the unit you deal with, the hollower, the more brutal, the more mendacious is the life displayed. So I am against all big organizations as such, national ones first and foremost; against all big successes and big results; and in favor of the eternal forces of truth which always work in the individual and immediately unsuccessful way, under-dogs always, till history comes, after they are long dead, and puts them on top."
--William James

Harding University Lecture

For any readers at Harding University or for those living close to Searcy, Arkansas, just a heads up that I'll be giving a lecture on Harding's campus this evening, Tuesday (Jan. 29).

The lecture is for the L.C. Sears Collegiate Seminar Series hosted by Harding's Honor College. The title of the lecture is "Winter Christians and Sick Souls: Spirituality in an Age of Doubt" and will be given in Cone Chapel at 7pm.

Faith as Honoring

I've been thinking a lot lately about faith as honoring.

What does it mean to have faith? One answer I've thinking about--for months and months--is that faith is a way of honoring as we move through our lives.

From the time we wake up in the morning to the time to go to bed we look out on a world that is flat, open to interpretation, and sort of like a Rorschach blot. Mark Twain once quipped that "Life is one damn thing after another." Our days are like that. Something happens, then something else happens. A string of events until we fall back asleep.

As we move through this sequence of events we make choices about honoring. Some things will happen during the day that we will applaud and cheer. Which things? What are those things that we applaud during the day? What things do we honor, praise, encourage, note, and respect? To use Old Testament language, where do we stop and say, "This is holy ground."? Where do we linger to build an altar and say, "Surely God was in this place."?

But the religious language isn't necessary. Everyone applauds things and honors things throughout the day. And we each do this differently. Someone at your workplace might be being honored or applauded today. But you might disagree, for whatever reason. Someone at your workplace might be being ignored or treated with contempt today, and you might disagree. You might think this person is actually a treasure, a person worthy of honor and respect. 

Again, we all honor and we all do it differently.

Faith, in this view, is a particular--distinctively Christian--way of honoring.

My thoughts here are informed by texts like 2 Corinthian 12 where Paul uses his famous body metaphor. As background, the wealthy patrons of the Corinthian church were not honoring the poorer members of the church. In the face of that behavior Paul says:
2 Corinthians 12.21-26
The eye cannot say to the hand, ā€œI don’t need you!ā€ And the head cannot say to the feet, ā€œI don’t need you!ā€ On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Paul's intervention is an honoring intervention. He says, in effect, "You need to learn to honor differently." Weaker, contemptible, shameful and dispensable parts of the body need to be treated with "special honor." God honors in a particular and distinctive way. Specifically, God gives "greater honor" to those people who lack honor in the world. Examples here abound, an example from James:
James 2.1-6a
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, ā€œHere’s a good seat for you,ā€ but say to the poor man, ā€œYou stand thereā€ or ā€œSit on the floor by my feet,ā€ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my dear brothers and sisters: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor.
I'm also thinking of the Beatitudes--"Blessed are the..."--about how Heaven applauds and honors in a way different from the world.

The practice of the Christian faith, then, is learning to honor in a particular way. Life isn't one damn thing after another. Some things are honored. Some things are dishonored. Some things are applauded. Some things get crickets chirping. Some things get respect, care, and attention. Other things are ignored, neglected or disdained.

The Christian faith has a distinctive approach to this activity of honoring, a particular honoring aesthetic if you will. Faith is about learning to honor in this distinctive way, about learning to paint the world with this particular aesthetic and artistic sensibility.

And learning to honor in this particular way, acquiring this sensibility, isn't easy, natural or intuitive. Being a great artist--being a Christ-like human being--takes effort, a lifetime of effort and practice. You don't just wake up and choose to honor in this way. It takes a lifetime of constant cognitive, affective and behavioral practice.

In the end, I don't know what exactly it means to be a Christian. But I think it involves at least this much.

Fridays with Benedict: Chapter 5, Obedience

Starting with Chapter 5 the Rule of St. Benedict starts turning to issues of humility, specifically with how to cultivate humility among the monks. The first step: obedience. This is going to be a hard word for many of us:
Chapter 5
1The first step of humility is unhesitating obedience...7Such people as these immediately put aside their own concerns, abandon their own will, 8and lay down whatever they have in hand, leaving it unfinished. With the ready step of obedience, they follow the voice of authority in their actions. 9Almost at the same moment, then, as the master gives the instruction the disciple quickly puts it into practice in the fear of God; and both actions together are swiftly completed as one...14This very obedience, however, will be acceptable to God and agreeable to men only if compliance with what is commanded is not cringing or sluggish or half-hearted, but free from any grumbling or any reaction of unwillingness...16...the disciples' obedience must be given gladly.
I can't imagine many of us wanting to sign up for this sort of thing. Who wants to be unhesitatingly obedient to authority?

I struggle with this as I'm an inherently rebellious person. I'm cheerful and affable at work, but I don't like authority figures and tend to ignore or break rules. How I ended up as a Department Chair is something of a mystery.

Still, I find value in Benedict's directives about obedience. Two thoughts.

First, what strikes me about Benedict's description of obedience is its vision of being interruptable. When the request is made the monk "immediately puts aside their own concerns" and lays down "whatever they have in hand, leaving it unfinished." As I've written about before, I think this vision of interruptibility is key to being hospitable and available to others. That is, we don't need to imagine these requests as coming from an authority figure. These can be requests from anyone at all, a child, a spouse, a co-worker, a person on the street. And yes, even a boss. Being interruptable is being available and welcoming of others.

Second, it's important to note that Benedict's call for obedience isn't an end in itself. He's not trying to create a group of slaves. The call to obedience is a spiritual formation practice aimed at cultivating humility through the mortification of the will.

Again this might be hard to stomach for many of us, but Benedict is pointing to a very real problem. We are often prideful, vain, stubborn, selfish, self-indulgent and narcissistic. Most of us readily admit this about ourselves, and we know firsthand the spiritual and relational damage it causes.

But here's the question: What are we doing about it? What are we doing, concretely and behaviorally, to mortify (kill off) our pride, vanity, stubbornness, selfishness, self-indulgences, and narcissism?

Such questions help us see, a wee bit, what Benedict is after in Chapter 5 of The Rule. Obedience isn't about obedience. It's about pride, vanity, and narcissism. Obedience is a concrete spiritual practice aimed at combating these impulses in our lives.

So this raises a question: If we aren't practicing monastic obedience, and I'm not suggesting that you should, where are we getting some equivalent formation? Where are we learning to mortify our will today?

Beyond hospitality, maybe practicing interruptibility can be of help here as well.

The Location of Christianity

Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins his little book Life Together in a most provocative way:
The Christian cannot simply take for granted the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. In the end all his disciples abandoned him. On the cross he was all alone, surrounded by criminals and the jeering crowds. He had come for the express purpose of bringing peace to the enemies of God. So Christians, too, belong not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the midst of enemies. There they find their mission, their work.
This seems to be missional Christianity at its most basic: Renouncing the "privilege of living among other Christians" and rejecting the "seclusion of a cloistered live" to live "in the midst of enemies."

When I ponder this what strikes me is how little Christians talk about "loving our enemies." This was, one could argue, the most distinctive aspect of Jesus's teaching and ethic, the foundational principle of the Christian way of life. We should be pounding this point home Sunday after Sunday. It should be our guiding light, the standard and goal of all our spiritual formation efforts. Love your enemies. Forgive your enemies. Bring peace to your enemies. This is our mission and work.

But you hardly hear a word about this in our churches.

The Second Call

Ever since my encounter with the little way of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, I've been thinking a great deal about fidelity to the smallness and insignificance of our actions. When we start out on our spiritual journey we tend to have pretty heroic expectations and visions of ourselves. From there we either wind up driven or depressed. Driven to live up to the heroic expectations or depressed when we cannot.

But there is a third way. Jean Vanier, founder of the L'Arche community, calls this "the second call." If our first spiritual calling is heroic, ambitious and big the second call is toward servanthood, smallness and insignificance. Spiritual maturity comes when we respond to the second call in life, the way of the cross. Vanier in his book Community and Growth:
The first call is frequently to follow Jesus or to prepare ourselves to do wonderful and noble things for the Kingdom. We are appreciated and admired by family, by friends or by the community. The second call comes later, when we accept that we cannot do big or heroic things for Jesus; it is a time of renunciation, humiliation and humility. We feel useless; we are no longer appreciated. If the first passage is made at high noon, under a shining sun, the second call is often made at night. We feel alone and are afraid because we are in a world of confusion. We begin to doubt the commitment we made in the light of day. We seem deeply broken in some way. But this suffering is not useless. Through the renunciation we can reach a new wisdom of love. It is only through the pain of the cross that we discover what the resurrection means.
Maybe it's me getting older, but I'm feeling the second call getting stronger and stronger in my life.

Fried Bologna

This post is probably going to gross out quite a few of you. You may be a foodie. You may be a vegetarian. Apologies all around, because this post is about fried bologna.

A long time ago I wrote a post about the origins of Tex Mex cuisine and other Depression-era recipes. The post was about various recipes that emerged during the American Depression that became staples, in the larger culture or in particular homes. Two Depression-era dishes that are a part of the Beck family are Poor Man's Chocolate Cake (a cake made with vinegar and baking soda and no eggs or milk) and Peas & Gravy Over Toast.

This post is about another dish from my childhood: fried bologna.

I grew up in Western Pennsylvania where bologna sandwiches are a regional specialty (just check out the Wikipedia page), as it is in other Appalachian regions. And when you were trying to stretch a dime during the Depression bologna was often the only meat on hand. With pork chops, roast, chicken, and steak being too expensive you could have hot meat for dinner if you fried bologna. That's what the Depression-era Becks used to do, passing on the dish to later Beck generations. We weren't poor in my family, but bologna sandwiches were a staple of my childhood and I think Mom did fry bologna from time to time when there wasn't a whole lot in the fridge and she wanted to give us something hot.

Jana's family also had fried bologna. So awhile back, when we looking in the fridge figuring out what to eat, I said, "Why don't we fry up the bologna and have fried bologna sandwiches? I haven't had one of those in years." So we did and the boys liked it. Since, every once in a while, we'll have fried bologna sandwiches.

Jana and I were talking about this the other week and she said, "You know, when I mention that we have fried bologna sandwiches every once in a while people have one of two very strong reactions. They are either totally disgusted or they are filled with nostalgia for their childhood."

The Becks are filled with nostalgia, and we salute those Depression-era moms--and the moms and dads today--who stretched those dimes for their families.

Fridays with Benedict: Chapter 4, What are the Instruments of Good Works?

After describing the monastery as a "school for the Lord's service" in the Prologue of the Rule, Benedict sets out what we might call the "learning outcomes" of this education. What life should the monk be striving for? What does spiritual growth and maturity look like? What's on the syllabus of this spiritual education? Chapter 4 of the Rule of St. Benedict gives the list (from Leonard Doyle's translation):

Chapter 4
1. In the first place, to love the Lord God with the whole heart, the whole soul, the whole strength.
2. Then, one's neighbor as oneself.
3. Then not to murder.
4. Not to commit adultery.
5. Not to steal.
6. Not to covet.
7. Not to bear false witness.
8. To honor all (1 Peter 2:17).
9. And not to do to another what one would not have done to oneself.
10. To deny oneself in order to follow Christ.
11. To chastise the body.
12. Not to become attached to pleasures.
13. To love fasting.
14. To relieve the poor.
15. To clothe the naked.
16. To visit the sick.
17. To bury the dead.
18. To help in trouble.
19. To console the sorrowing.
20. To become a stranger to the world's ways.
21. To prefer nothing to the love of Christ.
22. Not to give way to anger.
23. Not to nurse a grudge.
24. Not to entertain deceit in one's heart.
25. Not to give a false peace.
26. Not to forsake charity.
27. Not to swear, for fear of perjuring oneself.
28. To utter truth from heart and mouth.
29. Not to return evil for evil.
30. To do no wrong to anyone, and to bear patiently wrongs done to oneself.
31. To love one's enemies.
32. Not to curse those who curse us, but rather to bless them.
33. To bear persecution for justice's sake.
34. Not to be proud.
35. Not addicted to wine.
36. Not a great eater.
37. Not drowsy.
38. Not lazy.
39. Not a grumbler.
40. Not a detractor.
41. To put one's hope in God.
42. To attribute to God, and not to self, whatever good one sees in oneself.
43. But to recognize always that the evil is one's own doing, and to impute it to oneself.
44. To fear the Day of Judgment.
45. To be in dread of hell.
46. To desire eternal life with all the passion of the spirit.
47. To keep death daily before one's eyes.
48. To keep constant guard over the actions of one's life.
49. To know for certain that God sees one everywhere.
50. When evil thoughts come into one's heart, to dash them against Christ immediately.
51. And to manifest them to one's spiritual guardian.
52. To guard one's tongue against evil and depraved speech.
53. Not to love much talking.
54. Not to speak useless words or words that move to laughter.
55. Not to love much or boisterous laughter.
56. To listen willingly to holy reading.
57. To devote oneself frequently to prayer.
58. Daily in one's prayers, with tears and sighs, to confess one's past sins to God, and to amend them for the future.
59. Not to fulfill the desires of the flesh; to hate one's own will.
60. To obey in all things the commands of the Abbot even though he (which God forbid) should act otherwise, mindful of the Lord's precept, "Do what they say, but not what they do."
61. Not to wish to be called holy before one is holy; but first to be holy, that one may be truly so called. 
It's an interesting list. Most of it I find convicting and powerful. But there are other places where the list is grim and medieval. I find the worries about laughter in 54 and 55 to be a bit much. And I don't resonate with 11 ("To chastise the body.") and 45 ("To be in dread of hell."). Still, the Rule is a medieval monastic guide, so things like this are to be expected. And I do think modern non-monastic equivalents can be devised for these passages. I think the concerns over laughter can be fruitfully applied to our modern quest to be titillated and entertained, which inculcates a silly and shallow superficiality in us.

I also think there is a logic to chastising the body. Psychologists have discovered that willpower is like a muscle. The more you use it the stronger it gets. So things like fasting are sort of like willpower exercise. If you regularly practice saying no to yourself your willpower muscle grows in strength, giving you greater freedom of choice. Thus the paradox many religious traditions point toward: if you learn to deny yourself you'll become free.

Finally, I don't spend a lot of time dreading hell. But I do think a lot about God's judgment. For example, I think a lot about the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25. For me to "dread hell" is to practice the works of mercy.

Remembering Liam

A year ago today our faith community lost one of our most courageous and compassionate members, Liam Lowe. If you read here at the page you might have noticed a link above to Liam's Wells, Liam's still ongoing effort to help dig wells in Third World villages who lack clean water sources. Last year when I wrote about Liam many of you generously donated to Liam's Wells.

Liam was incredibly creative and a wonderful artist. This last fall much of Liam's artwork was displayed in a show at the Abilene Center for Contemporary Arts which was covered in this article in the Abilene Reporter News.

During Liam's 14-month battle with leukemia I wrote a few poems trying to capture and express the grief many of us were experiencing at our church. This was one of them:

There is so much sadness
in the world.
And the edges of it
so icy and sharp--
the territory of our bleeding.
And there a numbness
too cold for weeping.
But deep inside
the concavity of pain
there is a warmth--
the ache of love--
that thaws all loss
to the torrent and dew
of grief.

Judas as Severus Snape

I was having a conversation with my ACU colleague Trevor Thompson about the NT characterization of Judas. During that conversation Trevor compared Judas to Severus Snape.

The comparison has to do with the Greek word paradidomi. Literally, paradidomi means "to hand over." The word is used a little over 120 times in the NT, and 44 of those references are applied to Judas. In the uses outside of Judas the meaning of paradidomi is generally rendered as the morally neutral "to hand over." But when applied to Judas the translations shift to the morally loaded rendering of "betray." But what if, as some scholars have suggested, we kept consistent and rendered paradidomi as "to hand over" in the Judas episodes? How might that affect how we read the story and understand Judas?

This question is made more interesting when we examine how the gospels treat Judas. The two earliest gospels--Matthew and Mark--tend to have rather neutral takes on Judas. Matthew and Mark tend to see Judas simply one instance among the collective betrayal of all Jesus's followers. But in the later gospels, Luke and John, Judas is a more sinister character, even diabolical. (For a summary of all this see my post here.)

And things get even more interesting when we look at Gnostic texts like the Gospel of Judas where Judas is seen as aiding Jesus, helping Jesus get to the cross so that Jesus could escape his body.  (Gnostics had a dim view of human corporeality.)

And while seeing Judas as a hero might seem far fetched to many conservative Christians, there is an ambivalence surrounding his actions. Specifically, if salvation is reduced to Jesus's death on the cross, if all that is really important about Jesus is that he gets killed, then how do you not avoid seeing Judas in a somewhat sympathetic light? By handing Jesus over isn't Judas participating in our salvation? On the human level Judas's actions are a "betrayal," but on another level Judas is, apparently, a critical player in the drama of the crucifixion as he is the one who "hands over" Jesus to the Jewish authorities. For the death of Jesus to occur (and salvation inaugurated) the "handing over" is the critical part. Whether or not that "handing over" was a "betrayal" is, from one perspective, largely irrelevant. Thus the ambivalence. The "handing over" is sort of bad and sort of good, depending upon how you look at it.

Which brings us to Severus Snape.

[Spoiler Alert]

At the end of The Half-Blood Prince (Book Six in the Harry Potter series) Snape is revealed, finally in the eyes of readers, as the Judas we've always suspected him to be. Snape kills Dumbledore.

But all this is turned on its head in the final book, The Deathly Hallows, when we, in the last moments of Snape's life, discover that Snape's betrayal was actually a part of Dumbledore's plan. And the plan had a salvific purpose as it was meant to save the soul of Draco Malfoy.

In the end, Snape's "betrayal" was sort of a bad thing and sort of a good thing, depending upon how you look at it.

The Catonsville Nine

I recently finished an excellent book by Shawn Peters: The Catonsville Nine: A Story of Faith and Resistance in the Vietnam Era. This is the first full historical treatment of the Catonsville Nine. And though Peters's book is a careful academic history (the book is published by Oxford University Press) the book moves along at a nice readable clip.

The Catonsville Nine protest was one of the more iconic anti-war protests--because two Catholic priests were involved, the brothers Daniel and Philip Berrigan--against the war in Vietnam. Beyond the Berrigan brothers the Nine included David Darst, John Hogan, Tom Lewis, Marjorie Melville, Thomas Melville (the Melville's were married), George Mische, and Mary Moylan. All were Catholics.

On May 17, 1968 the Nine entered the building of the draft board in Catonsville, Maryland, removed the A-1 draft files (along with some others), took them outside and set them on fire with homemade napalm.



At the time of the Catonsville action Philip Berrigan and Tom Lewis had already been convicted for their actions as a part of the The Baltimore Four protest where they had entered a Selective Service facility and poured blood over draft files.

The trial of the Nine became a rallying cry for the anti-war movement and inspired other actions, like the Milwaukee 14, the D.C. Nine and the Camden 28. Footage of the Milwaukee 14:



The drama of the Nine was heightened by the very public chase of Daniel Berrigan. Refusing to turn himself in the Catholic priest went underground, often appearing at public anti-war events only to disappear before the FBI could nab him. Fr. Berrigan was eventually captured by the FBI after a few months on the run at William Stringfellow's house. Mary Moylan of the Nine stayed underground and at large for nine years.

Defending the actions of the Nine to reporters on the scene David Darst said, "I wanted to make it more difficult for men to kill each other."

One of the lingering theological debates about the Catonsville Nine was if their actions were truly in keeping with the principles of Christian nonviolence and pacifism. First, they destroyed property. Second, they also had to manhandle head clerk Mary Murphy, holding her back when she tried stop the Nine from removing files. These aspects of the action gave some Catholic pacifists--most notably Thomas Merton and Dorothy Day--some heartburn. However, both Day and Merton lauded the motivations of the Nine if not their tactics.

For anyone interested in this era of American history, Christian activism, or the Catholic Left The Catonsville Nine is a very good book.

The Credo of Dorothy Day

I recently finished The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day. This has been by bedside reading for many months.

Throughout Dorothy's life leading the Catholic Worker there were three quotations she repeated over and over, over and over. The first was from Peter Maurin, her co-founder of The Catholic Worker. The second was from St. John of the Cross. The third was from Father John Hugo. You might say that these three quotes formed the credo of Dorothy Day:
"To make the kind of society where it is easier to be good."

"Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love."

"You love God as much as the one you love the least."

Fridays with Benedict: Chapter 3, Counsel and Authority

From Chapter Three--"Summoning the Brothers for Counsel"--from the Rule of St. Benedict:

Chapter 3
1As often as anything important is to be done in the monastery, the abbot shall call the whole community together and himself explain what the business is; 2and after hearing the advice of the brothers, let him ponder it and follow what he judges the wiser course.
Back in September when I was visiting with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove at the new monastic community Rutba House, I had a few questions I wanted to ask. The first one I asked was this, "How do you resolve the authority issue?"

Many new monastic and intentional communities are passionately anti-authority and anti-hierarchy. Many are anarchist. Consequently, their decision-making tends to be democratic and egalitarian. Which is all to the good, but it does create a suite of problems when the community is deadlocked or if members are engaging in behaviors that violate the covenant of the community. Jonathan's answer wasn't very specific, he recognized the problem and spoke about giftedness. If time would have permitted I'd have liked to have explored in a little more detail.

Classic monastic communities are very hierarchical. But in Benedict's Rule we see an attempt to find a middle way. The abbot is in charge but shouldn't be autocratic and dictatorial. When facing difficult decisions the abbot should solicit the advice of the brothers and ponder it. New monastic communities don't have abbots, but we see in Chapter 3 of the Rule something that should look familiar to these more egalitarian Christian communities.

The Trillion Dollar Coin: The Hot New Atonement Metaphor

Here's the hot new atonement metaphor of the season.

We, as sinners, have wracked up a debt we cannot pay. But God, in God's great mercy, mints a coin of infinite value. Not a a trillion-dollar coin, but a coin of infinite value! This coin is Jesus Christ. And God deposits this Coin in the Treasury of Heaven which can now--because of its infinite value--cover all our sin-debts.

Praise be to God!

Silliness aside, this metaphor is actually closer to Anselm's substitutionary thinking than the penal substitutionary model that later eclipsed it. Specifically, the trillion dollar coin metaphor doesn't hinge on God's wrath--a crime and punishment trope--but on the infinite value of Jesus that can cover any and all debts.

(And apologies to all my Non-USA readers if you've not kept up with our trillion dollar coin debate. A quick Google search of "trillion dollar coin" should catch you up.)

Targeting the Dove Sellers

All four gospels recount Jesus clearing the temple in Jerusalem. A provocative act that seemed to seal his fate during the Passover Week.

Three of the four gospels note that Jesus targeting a particular group when we cleared the temple. The dove sellers.
Mark 11.15-17
On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, ā€œIs it not written: ā€˜My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ā€˜a den of robbers.ā€™ā€

Matthew 21.12-13
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ā€œIt is written,ā€ he said to them, ā€œā€˜My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ā€˜a den of robbers.ā€™ā€

John 2.13-16
When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, ā€œGet these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!ā€ 
Jesus also targeted the money changers. But for this post I want to focus on the dove sellers. Why target these people and these transactions?

As most know, the preferred sacrifice to be offered at the temple was a lamb. But a provision is made in the Levitical code for the poor:
Leviticus 5.7
Anyone who cannot afford a lamb is to bring two doves or two young pigeons to the Lord as a penalty for their sin—one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering.
By going after the dove sellers we see Jesus directly attacking the group who were having economic dealings with the poor. When the poor would go to the temple they would head for the dove sellers.

The point being, while we know that Jesus was upset about economic exploitation going on in the temple, his focus on the dove sellers sharpens the message and priorities. Jesus doesn't, for instance, go after the sellers of lambs. Jesus's anger is stirred at the way the poor are being treated and economically exploited.

That is what causes Jesus to engage in a protest action that shuts down the financial system of the city during the annual peak of its commercial activity, where he "would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts" during the Passover week. An action akin to shutting down the Wall Street trading floor or shopping during Black Friday.

My New Hobby

I've recently written about my use of Anglican prayer beads. Well, I like them so much I've taken this to a whole new level.

Over the Christmas season I gave prayer beads as gifts to family members and some others at church. This made me want to give out more beads. But that is cost prohibitive.

That is, unless, I learned to make my own prayer beads...

So that's my new hobby. Making prayer beads for people. I use good materials--beading wire, glass beads--but each set is only about $2.00 in materials. So I can make lots and give them all away.

A picture of some of the ones I have made:

The Political Theology of Les MisƩrables

Jana and I are huge fans of the musical Les MisƩrables, so we've been living the dream lately. We got to see the show onstage again in November while at AAR/SBL in Chicago. Then the movie came out on Christmas Day. And we just found out that, after 20 years of trying, ACU has finally secured the permission to do Les MisƩrables for our 2013 homecoming musical.

Again, Jana and I are hardcore fans. She and I can sing every line and every part (male and female) of the musical soundtrack. I find the musical to be a profoundly spiritual, and distinctively Christian, experience. (Same goes for the book, which I read in college.)

Thinking the other day about the musical I had these thoughts about the political theology depicted in Les MisƩrables.

I'm interested here in the contrast been Jean Valjean, Javert, and Enjolras (along with Marius and the other student-revolutionaries at the barricade).

Javert and Enjolras could be considered as two poles along a continuum in how one aligns political power with God. On the one end is Javert who represents a conservative, even Constantinian, vision where God is completely aligned with the state, particularly the law and order aspects of the state (although Javert also espouses the capitalistic theology where "honest work" is the way we "please the Lord"). Thus, to fail in the state's system--politically or economically--is to fall afoul of God. This view is at the heart of Javert's theological condemnation of Valjean. Valjean isn't just a criminal in the eyes of Javert, he's a sinner "fallen from God, fallen from grace." Thus Javert prays to God to help him find Valjean to restore order and harmony to the moral universe.

At the opposite end of the continuum from Javert we have the idealistic and revolutionary political theology of Enjolras. The student-revolutionaries are scandalized by the plight of the poor and plan to lead a violent popular uprising (Victor Hugo based these events on the 1832 June Rebellion in Paris). Though Enjolras and Javert find themselves in conflict, I place them on the same continuum as each seeks to take or use political power as means to accomplish the ends of God. They are the poles of Constantinianism on the one hand and Revolution on the other. But both agree that we need to "take charge" of the world, violently so, for the Kingdom to come.

And picking his way through these political theologies is Jean Valjean, the hero of the story.

I'd like to use Valjean to make a contrast with both Javert and Enjolras.

Regarding Javert, we see how Valjean's grace eventually explodes Javert's worldview. This conflict, the conflict between grace and law, drives much of the dynamic between Javert and Valjean. We come to see that God is aligned with grace and love as displayed by Valjean rather than with the justice embodied by Javert. The love, grace, and mercy of God cannot be reduced to the way political systems define and enforce law and order or the way economic systems define winners and losers. Valjean is poor and a criminal. That's how Valjean is seen by "the system," by Javert. But we see that the system is wrong and satanic. We see that Valjean is a saint.

The contrast with Valjean and Enjolras isn't one of direct confrontation as between Valjean and Javert. But I'd argue that a contrast is present in how Valjean and Enjolras relate to the poor. Les MisƩrables can be variously translated as The Miserable, The Wretched, The Miserable Ones, The Poor Ones, The Wretched Poor, or The Victims. These are the people the story revolves around, and we see Valjean and Enjolras approaching les misƩrables in different ways.

Again, Enjolras's remedy is one of violent revolution. And yet, these are idealistic, well-to-do "schoolboys" contemplating injustice philosophically and, one could argue, somewhat abstractly and distantly. This isn't to be judgmental, just to draw out a contrast with Valjean's interaction with les misƩrables.

In contrast with Enjolras, Valjean's relationship with les misƩrables is more personal. For Valjean there are no abstract discussions about corrupt political systems, there is only Fantine.

Fantine is the embodiment of les misƩrables, her story is the incarnation of tragedy, exploitation and victimhood. (Incidentally, in the movie Anne Hathaway's performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" is utterly soul-crushing, the singular performance of the movie.)

What drives Valjean for most of the story is his personal, concrete and lifelong commitment to Fantine, in particular his commitment to care for Cosette, Fantine's daughter. And I'd argue that this is a contrast with the revolutionaries at the barricade. For Valjean les misƩrables are not "the people" or "the poor" in the abstract but a particular person with a name. For Valjean les misƩrables is Fantine.

Incidentally, I think this is an important contrast for churches to ponder. For example, in my own faith community there is a lot of abstract talk about "the poor" and "the homeless." More, a lot of the members of my church are pretty passionate about "the poor" and "the homeless." But the vast majority of these same people don't actually know any poor or homeless people or count them among their friends. In short, they have no Fantine, no concrete personal relationship. All they have is the abstract radical rhetoric of liberals.

And finally, for my left-leaning and revolutionary friends who think I'm being too hard on Enjolras let me make a concluding observation.

I think it's noteworthy that in the story Valjean comes to care for Fantine because he is confronted with his own complicity in her tragic story. Valjean is both mayor and factory owner--politician and capitalist--and he presides over the systems that victimize Fantine. Fantine's life becomes fatally tragic because Valjean, the politician and capitalist, "turned away." When Valjean is finally confronted with his sin he commits himself to the care of Fantine and Cosette. This is, we might say, the second conversion of Valjean in the story, a conversion that stands as an indictment of the economic and political systems that create victims like Fantine.

And what of Valjean's first conversion? That occurred, as we all know, when Valjean is given the candlesticks by the priest as an act of forgiveness, mercy and grace. A gift that buys Valjean's soul for God. And what we witness in Les MisƩrables are the cascading ripple effects of that singular act of kindness. That act of grace changes the world. That act of mercy saves Valjean who goes on to save Fantine, Cosette, and Marius. And even Javert.

Two candlesticks--one act of mercy--saved them all.

And in contrast to Javert and Enjolras I wonder if those two candlesticks isn't the political theology we are all called to embrace.

Fridays with Benedict: Chapter 2, Adaptive Abbots

In Chapter 2 of the Rule "Qualities of an Abbot" Benedict discusses how the Abbot should deal with the various personalities and abilities of the monks. His advice? Be adaptive. You can't use a "one size fits all" approach:

Chapter 2
32[The Abbot] must so accommodate and adapt himself to each one's character and intelligence that he will not only keep the flock entrusted to his care from dwindling, but will rejoice in the increase of a good flock.
This is good advice across the board. For parents especially.

I often tell my students, when you are getting ready to have your first child you read all these parenting books and get the notion that parenting is like playing offense. You have this plan of child-rearing in your head and when the kid shows up you expect to execute the plan and out will pop, at the end of the training, a final product, the product you planned for and manufactured.

But that's not what parenting is like at all. At all. Parenting isn't playing offense. It's playing defense. The kid shows up, you throw the parenting manuals out the window, and start improvising. Parents, like Benedict's ideal Abbots, "accommodate and adapt" to the child's "character and intelligence."

I also think the same lessons apply to being a good manager in the workplace.

The Most Remarkable Sequence in the Bible

Last summer I was teaching a class on the gospel of Mark. As we approached Mark 8-10, I described these three chapters as "perhaps the most remarkable sequence of the bible." I find this series of stories and teachings in the gospel of Mark to be breathtaking.

It begins with Peter's confession in 8.29, "You are the Messiah."

But Peter doesn't understand what this means. Jesus immediately describes what "Messiah" will look like (8.31): "He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again."

Peter can't get his head around this, so he pulls Jesus aside "to rebuke him." Jesus responds, "Get behind me, Satan! You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.ā€

Peter has confessed, but he does not know what he's confessing. Peter and the disciples don't yet understand the Way of Jesus. So after rebuking Peter, Jesus begins to explain:
ā€œWhoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it."
But what does this mean? What does this look like? What is this conflict between the Way of Jesus and the Way of Satan? What follows are series of stories about being little, least and last. The Way of the Cross comes crashing, repeatedly, into the false and satanic expectations of the disciples:
Mark 9.31a-34
He said to them, ā€œThe Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise.ā€ But they did not understand what he meant and were afraid to ask him about it. They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, ā€œWhat were you arguing about on the road?ā€ But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest
There it is again. The Way of Satan, the way around the cross. Wanting to be the greatest. Jesus responds by clarifying the Way of the Cross:
Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, ā€œAnyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.ā€
Jesus illustrates by taking a child and saying, in effect, "Start thinking small and seeing small. I am found here, among the smallest, weakest, and most overlooked. Look for these little ones. Welcome these and you welcome me and the Father"
He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, ā€œWhoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.ā€ 
And what if we don't welcome these "little ones"? What if we reject and despise the "little ones"? Jesus answers with fire and brimstone. If you don't welcome the little ones this is what you should expect:
ā€œIf anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea."
To make sure we don't miss this point about becoming obstacles to "the little ones" we immediately see an example of what Jesus was talking about:
People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ā€œLet the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.ā€ And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.
We must welcome the little ones. We must not cause the little ones to stumble. But Jesus goes further: We must become little.

"The Kingdom of God belongs to such as these."
 
But the disciples still don't get it. This whole sequence repeats itself. In Chapter 10 Jesus again points to the Way of the Cross. And the Way of Satan immediately, as before, reasserts itself: the striving to be the greatest.
Mark 10.32b-37
Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to him. ā€œWe are going up to Jerusalem,ā€ he said, ā€œand the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.ā€

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. ā€œTeacher,ā€ they said, ā€œwe want you to do for us whatever we ask.ā€ ā€œWhat do you want me to do for you?ā€ he asked. They replied, ā€œLet one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.ā€ 
Because of this a fight breaks out, everyone is still pushing to be the greatest:
When the ten heard about this, they became indignant with James and John.
And once again Jesus has to clarify--for the third time--what following him to the cross entails:
Jesus called them together and said, ā€œYou know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.
Again, I don't know about you, but I find the dense teachings of Mark 8-10 about the Way of the Cross to be one of the most remarkable sequences in all of the bible.

I put Mark 8.27-10.45 right up there with Matthew 5-7, Matthew 25.31-46, and Luke 10.29-37.

Cathedrals of Time

I hope you're enjoying the Christmas season. Yes, it's after the New Year, but your Christmas stuff should still be up. Because it's still Christmas! Christmastide lasts from the Feast of the Nativity (December 25) to the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6). These are the proverbial "Twelve Days of Christmas."

But I expect that most American Christians have already moved on from Christmas, having already gotten Christmas "put away" before the New Year.

As I wrote about last year on this topic, I think the biggest culprit in this truncating of Christmas is New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Smack in the middle of Christmastide is this other "holiday." Though it isn't, in fact, a "holy day" at all.

So what we have here is a clashing of times, with liturgical time being trumped by secular time. As I wrote last year:

[The] problem with Christmas ending early due to New Year's Day is that we are allowing secular time to trump liturgical time. Which defeats the whole point of the liturgical calender. Our lives are governed by the clocks of the world--the punchclock, the appointment book, the federal "holidays." The whole point of the liturgical calender is to create a "sanctuary in time," similar to the Jewish observance of the Sabbath. 
To illustrate this, I went on to quote Abraham Heschel's description of how how Jews use the Sabbath to create "holiness in time," that the life of the spirit is less about the geography of place than the topography of time. We shouldn't go to holy places as much as create holy times:
The Bible is more concerned with time than with space. It sees the world in the dimension of time. It pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things; it is more concerned with history than with geography. To understand the teaching of the Bible, one must accept its premise that time has a meaning for life which is at least equal to that of space; that time has a significance and sovereignty of its own...

Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time. Unlike the space-minded man to whom time is unvaried, iterative, homogeneous, to whom all hours are alike, qualitiless, empty shells, the Bible senses the diversified character of time. There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious.

Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time, to be attached to sacred events, to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of the year. The Sabbaths are our great cathedrals...

The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things in space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.
The liturgical calander is the "great cathedral" of the Christian faith. So let's keep the celebration going for a few more days.

As I reminded you last year, it's still Christmas.

Experimental Theology 2012 Year in Review

Thanks so much for being a reader of this blog. I know most of you "lurk," reading but not commenting. No worries. I tend to do the same. Regardless, thanks for reading--daily, weekly, monthly, or whenever you check in.

And a big Thank You to all of you who read and comment, regularly or occasionally. I learn so much from you and am deeply encouraged by your expressions of gratitude and support.

Per my tradition, this is my end of year review. Most of these selections are driven by traffic (most viewed, viral and liked posts) and others are selected because I think the post is particularly interesting or highlights the diversity of content on the blog.

So here it is, the Experimental Theology 2012 Year in Review:

1. The Authenticity of Faith: The Varieties and Illusions of Religious Experience
This year my second book was published, The Authenticity of Faith. The book is an extended meditation upon the motivations involved in religious belief, particularly existential motivations. As I frame the issue in the book, The Authenticity of Faith sets out to examine the evidence behind Freud's contention that religious belief is motivated by a (largely unconscious) need for existential comfort, solace and consolation.

The book also contains my descriptions of the dynamics that distinguish "Summer Christians" from "Winter Christians."

Finally, in the final chapters of the book I cover some of my most innovative empirical research--the devil as a "functional theodicy," why Christian bookstore art is so bad, and why people get upset if you suggest that Jesus might have ever had diarrhea when he was ill.

2. The Slavery of Death Series (and coming book)
I finished up my Slavery of Death series in 2012. It was one of the most popular series I've done on the blog. Thanks to your encouragement I pulled that material into a manuscript. I'm excited to announce that Cascade will be publishing the book this coming year. Details to follow. The book description:
According to Hebrews, the Son of God appeared to ā€œbreak the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.ā€ What does mean to be enslaved, all our lives, to the fear of death? And why is this fear described as ā€œthe power of the devilā€? And most importantly, how are we—as individuals and as faith communities—to be set free from this slavery to death? In another creative interdisciplinary fusion, Richard Beck blends Eastern Orthodox perspectives, biblical text, existential psychology and contemporary theology to describe our slavery to the fear of death, a slavery rooted in the basic anxieties of self-preservation and the neurotic anxieties at the root of our self-esteem. Driven by anxiety—enslaved to the fear of death—we are revealed to be morally and spiritually vulnerable as ā€œthe sting of death is sin.ā€ Beck argues that in the face of this predicament resurrection is experienced as liberation from the slavery of death in the martyrological, eccentric, cruciform and communal capacity to overcome fear in living fully and sacrificially for others.
In the Acknowledgements of the book the following appears:
I would like to extend my deep gratitude to the readers of my blog Experimental Theology. My daily interactions with each of you have been a source of deep spiritual encouragement and constant intellectual stimulation. You were the ones who encouraged me to pull this material into book form and your comments helped shape and direct the final product. I hope the book blesses you and that you feel a sense of ownership as you hold it. 
3. The Little Way of St. Thérèse of Lisieux
This year I discovered the little way of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, summarized in a multiple part series. Proponents of the little way include people like Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton. Not a bad list.

The little way has profoundly affected my spiritual life. I'd say it has shattered me. I now preach the little way everywhere I go.

4. Blogging about the Bible
You know what's interesting? I think I blog about the bible more than fundamentalists do. Then again, my take on the bible is a bit different. A wee bit.

Sometimes I'm drawn to the quirky. Popular quirkiness from this year: Adam's First Wife, I Am a Worm, The Nephilim, Heading Coverings in Worship: Why Female Hair is a Testicle, and Control Your Vessel.

Sometimes I'm drawn to the provocative or disturbing. Popular from this year: Seeing Her, Whores, and Shaming Jesus.

And sometimes I write about biblical texts that I consider important, and might give a particular spin. Popular from this year: Let Them Both Grow Together, Becoming the Jubilee, The Sermon on the Mount: Study Guide, Treat Them Like a Pagan or Tax Collector, Going Outside the Camp, High and Low: The Psalms and Suffering, Welcoming Children, and A Community Called Forgiveness.

5. The Prison Bible Study
I've continued to blog about my experiences leading a bible study at a local prison. Popular posts this year about the prison bible study: I'll Fly Away, Living in Babylon, Monday Night Bible Study (a poem), and Singing and Resistance.

Also this year some reflections of mine about the prison bible study were published in a chapter of the recently published collection And the Criminals with Him: Essays in Honor of Will D. Campbell and All the Reconciled.

6. Autobiographical Posts
From time to time I write autobiographical posts. Most have a spiritual or theological point, though tenuously made. Popular autobiographical posts from the past year: The Bureaucrat, Uncle Richard Vampire Hunter, The Hunger Games and Harry Potter, Prayer Beads, and I Like the Color Pink,

7. Psychology and Theology
I continue to integrate theology with my discipline of psychology, even the statistical side of psychology. Two popular examples from this last year: Orthodox Alexithymia and Central Tendency in Skewed Distributions: A Lesson in Social Justice,

8. The William Stringfellow Project
This year I started my William Stringfellow Project. The project? To read all of William Stringfellow's books in chronological order in their first editions. I started the project off with a summary post of Stringfellow's theology and as of this writing we've done the first six of Stringfellow's books. Check the sidebar for the installments. We'll finish off the Project this coming year.

9. The Journey of Faith
From the beginning, this blog has talked about the mixture of faith and doubt. Popular posts from this year meditating on the issues of faith and doubt were: The Buddhist Phase, Skilled Christianity, Shopping in the WalMart of Belief, and god.

So there they are, the highlights of 2012!

Again, thanks for reading, commenting, and encouraging. Wishing you a blessed, peaceful, and grace-filled 2013.

Pax Christi,
Richard

Oh, and I also got a tattoo this year...