My dear mother has introduced me to the genius of the American Playwright. A better start could not be made than Eugene O'Neil's Pulitzer Prize winning play. The major characters are a Mary, James Tyrone, Edmund, and Jamie. Mary struggles with a potent morphine addiction and violent mood swings, James Tyrone is a retired actor who had potential to be great, but settled for a second hand acting position in an unfulfilling play. He is frugal--almost to a fault. Jamie is the failed elder son, who lives a life of squander and debauchery. Edmund is poetic, thoughtful, sickly and suffering from consumption.
O'Neil paints a vivid portrait of a family striving with itself against a cascading anguish of denial, regret, and emotional trauma. Mary stands out most acutely for her morphine addiction and heart wrenching mood swings, she is somehow with them but very distant. Her poignant ending words: "I married James Tyrone and was happy for a time..." ache with a pathos that finds love out of human frailty. Only the best actors could pull off a play like this which relies so much on dialogue and very little action.
The most vivid character is Edmund who must represent Eugene himself in this nearly autobiographical portrayal of his own family. The most moving line of the play comes before it in the introduction:
For Carlotta, on our 12th Wedding Anniversary. Dearest: I give you the original script of this play of old sorrow, written in tears and blood. A sadly inappropriate gift, it would seem, for a day celebrating happiness. But you will understand. I mean it as a tribute to our love and tenderness which gave me the faith in love that enabled me to face my dead at last and write this play--write it with deep pity and understanding and forgiveness for all the four haunted Tyrones....These twelve years have been a journey into light--into love. You know my gratitude. And my love!
Deep seated regret is a recurring theme in 20th century literature, and Eugene O'Neil brilliantly captures the mood of a family desperately trying to love in spite of itself.
I highly recommend this book.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist by Norman Geisler and Frank Turek
I have often observed the audaciousness of the American religion, of which conservative, evangelical fundamentalism is the most boundless in its drive to know beyond belief. Why must we transcend faith with near certainty? Perhaps it is our will for religious freedom, not for the self, but from other selves that drives our fundamentalisms. Regarding the American religion, and the title of this book, I realize that it could take courage to be an atheist, which makes me think of Kierkegaard and his poignant question: "How does one become a Christian in the age of Christendom?" What special remnant exists in a nation where gallup informs me that 70% of us pray to Jesus?
Geisler and Turek have compiled an impressive argument that ranges from scientific, textual, philosophical, and moral defenses that make up a new kind of apologia for evangelicalism. Though many would regard evangelical Christianity as a kind of faith, the authors have formulated a rational defense that renders their conceptions of science, philosophy, morality and the Bible nearly certain.
To be sure, modern day secularism is an easy target in America, since I remain convinced that very few of us are actually secular. To that end, sometimes justifiably, the authors portray atheism as a kind of bankrupt philosophy that has no basis for objective morality and truth.
"If God exists, then there's ultimate meaning and purpose to your life. If There's a real purpose to your life, then there's a real right and wrong way to live it. Choices you make now not only affect you here but will affect you in eternity. On the other hand, if there is no God, then your life ultimately means nothing. Since there is no enduring purpose to life, there is no right or wrong way to live it. And it doesn't matter how you live or what you believe--your destiny is dust."
This revealing paragraph does not describe a thought-out atheist, but the author's conception of what atheism would lead to. Where would Geisler and Turek be without their certainty? "Your destiny is dust."
In a way, I feel sorry for them. The authors build for us a rational universe based upon a Newtonian--or even an Augustinian model that pretends--whenever possible, that the last five hundred years did not happen. Reducing Emmanuel Kant and David Hume to self defeating simpletons, the authors trash the depths of secularism through a wide general survey, that aches for clarification. One struggles to get through a book like this. It nearly defeated me as I began to realize that the devil was always in the details of these wide sweeping judgements. The more I read the more I began to realize that Science and Reason had become gigantic metaphors for a Bible that contained no words. Instead only half digested grunts and yearnings of certainty and moral authority were all that remained, which could mindlessly impose themselves on anyone who would sanction this shallow relief from critical thinking.
Geisler and Turek find atheism to be vacuous because it lacks moral objectivity. I wonder if either have ever read Bertrand Russell or Ayn Rand? Rand in particular is interesting since Christian Evangelicals often share her conservative fiscal conceptions of rational self interest. John Galt could be a Christian speaker at the Suburban Christian Business man's Prayer breakfast.
After reading I don't have... I began to imagine a Christian moralist, sitting comfortably in his Church discussing the plight of American secularism and the decline of foundational ethics and morality, while the Marxist Atheist is dolling out soup in the inner city, with no "objective basis for his beliefs." Since conservative evangelical ethics are similar to Ayn Rand's objectivism, it is almost funny to contemplate how Rand wouldn't be caught dead in a soup kitchen.
The discussion on Science and Evolution wore me down, and after a while I began to realize that both Evolution and Creationism have an anxious relationship to one another. Their development can be traced as literary scheme that is anti-thetical in some ways to the other. Perhaps much can be learned and unlearned from scientists in both camps.
On the section of Biblical inerrancy and the historical Jesus, I am left cold by the Author's certainty which goes beyond speculation, to almost sheer fantasy. I am beginning to realize that "inerrant" does not describe anybodies actual experience in reading the Bible, which is a biblia or anthology of Jewish books that first and foremost contain language. The Bible is written with real words and a human being has the unique ability to decipher and evaluate them if she chooses to. Geisler and Turek offer to decipher those words for us, so that we need not read the Bible, or read a book on Evolution or Creation Science. They will do it for us, and thus they will convince the convinced.
Geisler and Turek have compiled an impressive argument that ranges from scientific, textual, philosophical, and moral defenses that make up a new kind of apologia for evangelicalism. Though many would regard evangelical Christianity as a kind of faith, the authors have formulated a rational defense that renders their conceptions of science, philosophy, morality and the Bible nearly certain.
To be sure, modern day secularism is an easy target in America, since I remain convinced that very few of us are actually secular. To that end, sometimes justifiably, the authors portray atheism as a kind of bankrupt philosophy that has no basis for objective morality and truth.
"If God exists, then there's ultimate meaning and purpose to your life. If There's a real purpose to your life, then there's a real right and wrong way to live it. Choices you make now not only affect you here but will affect you in eternity. On the other hand, if there is no God, then your life ultimately means nothing. Since there is no enduring purpose to life, there is no right or wrong way to live it. And it doesn't matter how you live or what you believe--your destiny is dust."
This revealing paragraph does not describe a thought-out atheist, but the author's conception of what atheism would lead to. Where would Geisler and Turek be without their certainty? "Your destiny is dust."
In a way, I feel sorry for them. The authors build for us a rational universe based upon a Newtonian--or even an Augustinian model that pretends--whenever possible, that the last five hundred years did not happen. Reducing Emmanuel Kant and David Hume to self defeating simpletons, the authors trash the depths of secularism through a wide general survey, that aches for clarification. One struggles to get through a book like this. It nearly defeated me as I began to realize that the devil was always in the details of these wide sweeping judgements. The more I read the more I began to realize that Science and Reason had become gigantic metaphors for a Bible that contained no words. Instead only half digested grunts and yearnings of certainty and moral authority were all that remained, which could mindlessly impose themselves on anyone who would sanction this shallow relief from critical thinking.
Geisler and Turek find atheism to be vacuous because it lacks moral objectivity. I wonder if either have ever read Bertrand Russell or Ayn Rand? Rand in particular is interesting since Christian Evangelicals often share her conservative fiscal conceptions of rational self interest. John Galt could be a Christian speaker at the Suburban Christian Business man's Prayer breakfast.
After reading I don't have... I began to imagine a Christian moralist, sitting comfortably in his Church discussing the plight of American secularism and the decline of foundational ethics and morality, while the Marxist Atheist is dolling out soup in the inner city, with no "objective basis for his beliefs." Since conservative evangelical ethics are similar to Ayn Rand's objectivism, it is almost funny to contemplate how Rand wouldn't be caught dead in a soup kitchen.
The discussion on Science and Evolution wore me down, and after a while I began to realize that both Evolution and Creationism have an anxious relationship to one another. Their development can be traced as literary scheme that is anti-thetical in some ways to the other. Perhaps much can be learned and unlearned from scientists in both camps.
On the section of Biblical inerrancy and the historical Jesus, I am left cold by the Author's certainty which goes beyond speculation, to almost sheer fantasy. I am beginning to realize that "inerrant" does not describe anybodies actual experience in reading the Bible, which is a biblia or anthology of Jewish books that first and foremost contain language. The Bible is written with real words and a human being has the unique ability to decipher and evaluate them if she chooses to. Geisler and Turek offer to decipher those words for us, so that we need not read the Bible, or read a book on Evolution or Creation Science. They will do it for us, and thus they will convince the convinced.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
A Confederacy of Dunces
Great fiction is fun! This is a beautiful work of art that was published eleven years after John Kennedy Toole, the author, tragically commited suicide.
The book tells the story of the creative, scholastic, eccentric yet delusional Ignatius J. Reilly, a slothful character who is a kind of modern reinvention of Don Quixote or perhaps Thomas Aquinas. His disdain for modernity takes on the shape of a delusional catharsis. For instance, he is an avid movie fan, who attends simply to critique and bemoan the depravity of man. Ignatius is a multi-faceted character who belongs in the middle ages, or in the next world to come. He humorously invokes the Goddess Fortuna as circumstances befall him, spinning him in a spiral downward.
Myrna Minx is as fascinated by Ignatius as he is by her (although one wonders what either sees in the other). She is a Jewish beatnik from New York. Her religious, social, and political ideas couldn't be more different from his, which perhaps explains their chemistry that is predicated upon multiple layers of misunderstanding.
Toole takes the reader through a hodgepodge mixture of humor, satire, and gritty human experience to tell a very engaging and funny story. Confederacy reflects the structure of Ignatius' favorite book The Consolation of Philosophy, the book Boethius (6th century or so)wrote while in prison for a year. The irony couldn't be more rich, as Ignatius lives with his mother at age 30!
After reading the book, I find myself concluding with my Mom (She recommended the book) that Gus Levy is perhaps the most real character in the book, the one most like the author. He has both knowledge and compassion. Nearly everyone else in the story is missing those traits.
This is an amazing book, and it won a Pulitzer prize (Post humously). I highly recommend it.
The book tells the story of the creative, scholastic, eccentric yet delusional Ignatius J. Reilly, a slothful character who is a kind of modern reinvention of Don Quixote or perhaps Thomas Aquinas. His disdain for modernity takes on the shape of a delusional catharsis. For instance, he is an avid movie fan, who attends simply to critique and bemoan the depravity of man. Ignatius is a multi-faceted character who belongs in the middle ages, or in the next world to come. He humorously invokes the Goddess Fortuna as circumstances befall him, spinning him in a spiral downward.
Myrna Minx is as fascinated by Ignatius as he is by her (although one wonders what either sees in the other). She is a Jewish beatnik from New York. Her religious, social, and political ideas couldn't be more different from his, which perhaps explains their chemistry that is predicated upon multiple layers of misunderstanding.
Toole takes the reader through a hodgepodge mixture of humor, satire, and gritty human experience to tell a very engaging and funny story. Confederacy reflects the structure of Ignatius' favorite book The Consolation of Philosophy, the book Boethius (6th century or so)wrote while in prison for a year. The irony couldn't be more rich, as Ignatius lives with his mother at age 30!
After reading the book, I find myself concluding with my Mom (She recommended the book) that Gus Levy is perhaps the most real character in the book, the one most like the author. He has both knowledge and compassion. Nearly everyone else in the story is missing those traits.
This is an amazing book, and it won a Pulitzer prize (Post humously). I highly recommend it.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
A Generous Orthodoxy
Why I am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN ---By Brian Mclaren
I have long observed the audaciousness of the American religion as a phenomenon unique to Christianity. The so called "Emergent Church" could be a belated manifestation of what Nietzsche called our Will to power, or the surprisingly sophisticated theology of E.Y. Mullins, the Southern Baptist theologian who in the early 20th century, coined the phrase "Soul Competency;" every soul was determined competent to have an un-mediated Christian experience with the Bible. Soul Competency describes perfectly what liberal Christianity seeks, in a rejection of traditional creedal authority. Yet Mullins was perhaps too confident of his theological footing for liberals like Mclaren, who are embattled with evangelical fundamentalists who exude certainty and knowledge.
Though I am primarily a humanistic secularist, I side with Harrold Bloom, and others who find Liberal Christianity to be an imaginative triumph for the American experience, combining what is best in our poetic/religious past, John Milton, Emerson, Walt Whitman, with the pragmatism found in William James. Mclaren is both poetic and pragmatic in his faith that echos the great revivalist pastor, Henry Beecher who wrote "Charity before clarity." He wades in deep waters, and he is often unsure of his footing. One strives without success to find dogma in Mclaren.
I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts … rather than resolving the paradox via pronouncements on the eternal destiny of people more convinced by or loyal to other religions than ours, we simply move on … To help Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and everyone else experience life to the full in the way of Jesus (while learning it better myself), I would gladly become one of them (whoever they are), to whatever degree I can, to embrace them, to join them, to enter into their world without judgment but with saving love as mine has been entered by the Lord (Pages 260-264)
This impassioned plea for love is also a tantamount rejection of Church authority. Like John Milton, Emergents are each "a sect of one," Mclaren being a prime example. Both Catholicism and traditional Protestantisms form a kind of social order--a people--through various practices and sacraments. Mclaren embraces what he deems the positive aspects of each branch of Christianity, while rejecting the over-arching authority of them, to find a new authentic love of Jesus. Somehow he succeeds in turning orthodoxy and its claims to authenticity on its head. The role of the Church in this scheme is difficult for me to decipher, since Liberal Christians from Roger Williams, E.Y. Mullins to Brian Mclaren have undermined traditional European Church Authority to the extent that any one person can become his own church. This leads me to my conclusion that American Christianity is boundless in its audacious claims to an un-mediated experience, of which Ralph Waldo Emerson is our immediate spiritual predecessor.
A dispassionate observer gets the sense that this is the eventual fate of protestantism in general, as it continues to evolve closer to the American experience, and it fades in Europe. Jesus is now non-denominational, and it is interesting to watch what he may emerge into. The best guide to Protestantism and its propensity toward this boundless freedom from Church authority is Ronald Knox, a Catholic who writes of the revivalists:
Religion became identified in the popular mind with a series of moods, in which the worshipper, disposed thereto by all the arts of the revivalist, reached the flavors of spiritual peace. You needed neither a theology nor a liturgy; you did not take the strain of intellectual inquiry, nor associate yourself whole-heartedly with any historic tradition of worship. You floated, safely enough, on the little raft of your own faith, eagerly throwing out the lifeline to such drowning neighbours as were ready to catch it; meanwhile the ship was floundering.
I have long observed the audaciousness of the American religion as a phenomenon unique to Christianity. The so called "Emergent Church" could be a belated manifestation of what Nietzsche called our Will to power, or the surprisingly sophisticated theology of E.Y. Mullins, the Southern Baptist theologian who in the early 20th century, coined the phrase "Soul Competency;" every soul was determined competent to have an un-mediated Christian experience with the Bible. Soul Competency describes perfectly what liberal Christianity seeks, in a rejection of traditional creedal authority. Yet Mullins was perhaps too confident of his theological footing for liberals like Mclaren, who are embattled with evangelical fundamentalists who exude certainty and knowledge.
Though I am primarily a humanistic secularist, I side with Harrold Bloom, and others who find Liberal Christianity to be an imaginative triumph for the American experience, combining what is best in our poetic/religious past, John Milton, Emerson, Walt Whitman, with the pragmatism found in William James. Mclaren is both poetic and pragmatic in his faith that echos the great revivalist pastor, Henry Beecher who wrote "Charity before clarity." He wades in deep waters, and he is often unsure of his footing. One strives without success to find dogma in Mclaren.
I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts … rather than resolving the paradox via pronouncements on the eternal destiny of people more convinced by or loyal to other religions than ours, we simply move on … To help Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, and everyone else experience life to the full in the way of Jesus (while learning it better myself), I would gladly become one of them (whoever they are), to whatever degree I can, to embrace them, to join them, to enter into their world without judgment but with saving love as mine has been entered by the Lord (Pages 260-264)
This impassioned plea for love is also a tantamount rejection of Church authority. Like John Milton, Emergents are each "a sect of one," Mclaren being a prime example. Both Catholicism and traditional Protestantisms form a kind of social order--a people--through various practices and sacraments. Mclaren embraces what he deems the positive aspects of each branch of Christianity, while rejecting the over-arching authority of them, to find a new authentic love of Jesus. Somehow he succeeds in turning orthodoxy and its claims to authenticity on its head. The role of the Church in this scheme is difficult for me to decipher, since Liberal Christians from Roger Williams, E.Y. Mullins to Brian Mclaren have undermined traditional European Church Authority to the extent that any one person can become his own church. This leads me to my conclusion that American Christianity is boundless in its audacious claims to an un-mediated experience, of which Ralph Waldo Emerson is our immediate spiritual predecessor.
A dispassionate observer gets the sense that this is the eventual fate of protestantism in general, as it continues to evolve closer to the American experience, and it fades in Europe. Jesus is now non-denominational, and it is interesting to watch what he may emerge into. The best guide to Protestantism and its propensity toward this boundless freedom from Church authority is Ronald Knox, a Catholic who writes of the revivalists:
Religion became identified in the popular mind with a series of moods, in which the worshipper, disposed thereto by all the arts of the revivalist, reached the flavors of spiritual peace. You needed neither a theology nor a liturgy; you did not take the strain of intellectual inquiry, nor associate yourself whole-heartedly with any historic tradition of worship. You floated, safely enough, on the little raft of your own faith, eagerly throwing out the lifeline to such drowning neighbours as were ready to catch it; meanwhile the ship was floundering.
One reads this with pleasure! Emergents are not exactly revivalists (although they could be), but I can't help but think of Mclaren here, who's little raft is emergence while the ship is orthodoxy. One can ask are Mclaren's formulations dialectical or simply self-contradictory? The same could be asked of Mullins and Roger Williams. Liberal Christianity perhaps finds in itself the boundless ability to defy its own reason, leaving us a new kind of spiritual poetry, and I am not unmoved by it. Will his generous orthodoxy breed a new kind of dogma? I'm nearly certain of it. The shape of it may even look something like the Fundamentalism it so anxiously wants to break with. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to contemplate the Liberal Christian mindset.
Monday, July 2, 2007
The Closing of the American Mind
Alan Bloom's translations of Plato's Republic, and Rousseau's Emily sit on a desk not far from my chair; they are torn and tattered from too much use. I share an odd sense of companionship with both writers that have been with me since my late teens, thanks to Bloom. Books can be like friends, or so Bloom thought in his monumental treatise on American Education, its precursors, and its failures, The Closing of the American Mind.
I have just finished rereading this amazing book after fifteen years of contemplating it. Bloom was the first contemporary writer to reach me, and pull me into the wonders of philosophy. He can be overtly dogmatic and he generalizes too much, but his point is wonderful. Education is about the wonder of life, the philosophical walk, that seeks to always improve, and live to the fullest, yearning for knowledge as the source of the Good life. Part of our education has always been about finding and producing treasure (tech schools and MBA's). But we have forgotten that other more important side that teaches us how to live with that treasure, appreciate it to its fullest, and find other spiritual nourishment through the great writers (Liberal Arts).
Valuing value is Blooms goal, as he treads upon the philosophical waters of Nietzsche and Plato, bringing us face to face with our easy going relativism's. "You're OK, I'm OK. As long as we both agree to be a bit haunted together." Bloom is a cultural relativist, not in the spiritually decadent sense of a Hip Hop rapper, or a Left Wing politician, but in the sense of one who understands the cost of relativism, the price of the abyss, and the joyous wonder of liberation an educated mind can find. Bloom revels in his freedom, illuminating for us our shallow half digested truths, and their German derivations. Relativism and subjectivity are mere steps along the way, corridors of thought open to us, but there are others and we are in danger of forgetting them.
Bloom died in 1992, too early for a great mind who took seriously Socrates quest. Philosophy was not merely a discipline, but a way of life. I highly recommend this book.
I have just finished rereading this amazing book after fifteen years of contemplating it. Bloom was the first contemporary writer to reach me, and pull me into the wonders of philosophy. He can be overtly dogmatic and he generalizes too much, but his point is wonderful. Education is about the wonder of life, the philosophical walk, that seeks to always improve, and live to the fullest, yearning for knowledge as the source of the Good life. Part of our education has always been about finding and producing treasure (tech schools and MBA's). But we have forgotten that other more important side that teaches us how to live with that treasure, appreciate it to its fullest, and find other spiritual nourishment through the great writers (Liberal Arts).
Valuing value is Blooms goal, as he treads upon the philosophical waters of Nietzsche and Plato, bringing us face to face with our easy going relativism's. "You're OK, I'm OK. As long as we both agree to be a bit haunted together." Bloom is a cultural relativist, not in the spiritually decadent sense of a Hip Hop rapper, or a Left Wing politician, but in the sense of one who understands the cost of relativism, the price of the abyss, and the joyous wonder of liberation an educated mind can find. Bloom revels in his freedom, illuminating for us our shallow half digested truths, and their German derivations. Relativism and subjectivity are mere steps along the way, corridors of thought open to us, but there are others and we are in danger of forgetting them.
Bloom died in 1992, too early for a great mind who took seriously Socrates quest. Philosophy was not merely a discipline, but a way of life. I highly recommend this book.
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