When I came to college I realized I was indebited to St. Thomas. When I felt the church should work to help the poor, MLK and Gutierrez guided the way. When I wanted to fashion a church to fight injustice, Rauschenbusch and Day provided examples. When I found God's mystery to be too much for me, Barth and Kierkegaard welcomed me.
I feel like a man walking through the woods following old trails. As I walk I hope to find the places where great theologians have tread. Not because I am great, but because others forged the way for me.
Our theologies are merely the stories of our own wanderings after God.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Silence is Deafening
The Gospel of St. Mark, selected verses:
“It was the third hour when they crucified him. They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their fist…In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves…Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Some women were watching from a distance… In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs.”
At the crucifixion, Christ is utterly alone. For three years he shared every day, every night, every meal, every possession with his disciples. Now, in his greatest hour of need, they are nowhere to be found. Christ is left to suffer at the hands of his persecutors. The silence of the disciples at the moment when they were required to object the loudest mirrors our own failings as the Church to cry out on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. For those who hang upon the cross of suffering, the silence of the church is deafening.
Writing about the German church’s response to the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The church was silent where she should have cried out…the church confesses that she has witnessed the lawless application of brutal force, the physical and spiritual suffering of countless innocent people, oppression, hatred and murder, and that she has not raised her voice on behalf of the victims and has not found a way to hasten to their aid. She is guilty of the deaths of the weakest and most defenseless brothers of Jesus Christ.”
We, the American church, are guilty of remaining silent as the poor and the oppressed suffer. We have not raised our voice to feed the homeless but mocked them, we have not cared for the elderly and dependents but have forgotten them, we have not visited the prisoner but reviled him, we have not loved the prostitute but hated her, we have not supported the migrant worker but outcast him, we have not cared for our brothers and sisters abroad but sought our own kingdom and our own righteousness. The cross of suffering is not only endured in the wake of an earthquake in Haiti. It is daily borne and suffered by the weakest and most defenseless members of our world. Daily we are confronted, like St. Peter, as to whether “You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus.” Shall we respond with a curse? Shall we cry out for the poor and the oppressed?
My silence is deafening.
“It was the third hour when they crucified him. They crucified two robbers with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their fist…In the same way the chief priests and the teachers of the law mocked him among themselves…Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him. At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Some women were watching from a distance… In Galilee these women had followed him and cared for his needs.”
At the crucifixion, Christ is utterly alone. For three years he shared every day, every night, every meal, every possession with his disciples. Now, in his greatest hour of need, they are nowhere to be found. Christ is left to suffer at the hands of his persecutors. The silence of the disciples at the moment when they were required to object the loudest mirrors our own failings as the Church to cry out on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. For those who hang upon the cross of suffering, the silence of the church is deafening.
Writing about the German church’s response to the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The church was silent where she should have cried out…the church confesses that she has witnessed the lawless application of brutal force, the physical and spiritual suffering of countless innocent people, oppression, hatred and murder, and that she has not raised her voice on behalf of the victims and has not found a way to hasten to their aid. She is guilty of the deaths of the weakest and most defenseless brothers of Jesus Christ.”
We, the American church, are guilty of remaining silent as the poor and the oppressed suffer. We have not raised our voice to feed the homeless but mocked them, we have not cared for the elderly and dependents but have forgotten them, we have not visited the prisoner but reviled him, we have not loved the prostitute but hated her, we have not supported the migrant worker but outcast him, we have not cared for our brothers and sisters abroad but sought our own kingdom and our own righteousness. The cross of suffering is not only endured in the wake of an earthquake in Haiti. It is daily borne and suffered by the weakest and most defenseless members of our world. Daily we are confronted, like St. Peter, as to whether “You also were with that Nazarene, Jesus.” Shall we respond with a curse? Shall we cry out for the poor and the oppressed?
My silence is deafening.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Santa Claus by Howard Nemerov
[A little out of season, but I heard this and enjoyed what Nemerov had to say.]
Somewhere on his travels the strange child
Picked up with this overstuffed confidence man,
Affection's inverted thief, who climbs at night
Down chimneys into dreams, with this world's goods,
Bringing all the benevolence of money,
He teaches the innocent to want, thus keeps
Our fat world rolling. His prescribed costume,
White flannel beard, red belly of cotton waste,
Conceals the thinness of essential hunger,
An appetite that feeds on satisfaction;
Or, pregnant with possessions, he brings forth
Vanity and the void. His name itself
is corrupted, and even Saint Nicholas, in his turn,
Gives off a faint and reminiscent stench,
The merest soupcon1, of brimstone and the pit.
Now, at the season when the Child is born
To suffer for the world, suffer the world,
His bloated Other, jovial satellite
And Sycophant, makes his appearance also
In a glitter of goodies, in a rock candy glare.
Played at the better stores by bums, for money,
This annual savior of the economy
Speakes in the parables of the dollar sign:
Suffer the little children to come to Him.
At Easter, he's anonymous again,
Just one of the crowd lunching on Calvary.
Somewhere on his travels the strange child
Picked up with this overstuffed confidence man,
Affection's inverted thief, who climbs at night
Down chimneys into dreams, with this world's goods,
Bringing all the benevolence of money,
He teaches the innocent to want, thus keeps
Our fat world rolling. His prescribed costume,
White flannel beard, red belly of cotton waste,
Conceals the thinness of essential hunger,
An appetite that feeds on satisfaction;
Or, pregnant with possessions, he brings forth
Vanity and the void. His name itself
is corrupted, and even Saint Nicholas, in his turn,
Gives off a faint and reminiscent stench,
The merest soupcon1, of brimstone and the pit.
Now, at the season when the Child is born
To suffer for the world, suffer the world,
His bloated Other, jovial satellite
And Sycophant, makes his appearance also
In a glitter of goodies, in a rock candy glare.
Played at the better stores by bums, for money,
This annual savior of the economy
Speakes in the parables of the dollar sign:
Suffer the little children to come to Him.
At Easter, he's anonymous again,
Just one of the crowd lunching on Calvary.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Two complementary thoughts
"In 1861 Imre Madach published “The Tragedy of Man”, a “Paradise Lost” for the industrial age. The verse drama, still a cornerstone of Hungarian literature, describes how Adam is cast out of the Garden with Eve, renounces God and determines to recreate Eden through his own efforts. “My God is me,” he boasts, “whatever I regain is mine by right. This is the source of all my strength and pride.”
Adam gets the chance to see how much of Eden he will “regain”. He starts in Ancient Egypt and travels in time through 11 tableaux, ending in the icebound twilight of humanity. It is a cautionary tale. Adam glories in the Egyptian pyramids, but he discovers that they are built on the misery of slaves. So he rejects slavery and instead advances to Greek democracy. But when the Athenians condemn a hero, much as they condemned Socrates, Adam forsakes democracy and moves on to harmless, worldly pleasure. Sated and miserable in hedonistic Rome, he looks to the chivalry of the knights crusader. Yet each new reforming principle crumbles before him. Adam replaces 17th-century Prague’s courtly hypocrisy with the rights of man. When equality curdles into Terror under Robespierre, he embraces individual liberty—which is in turn corrupted on the money-grabbing streets of Georgian London. In the future a scientific Utopia has Michelangelo making chair-legs and Plato herding cows, because art and philosophy have no utility. At the end of time, having encountered the savage man who has no guiding principle except violence, Adam is downcast—and understandably so. Suicidal, he pleads with Lucifer: “Let me see no more of my harsh fate: this useless struggle.”...At the end of Madach’s poem, Adam is about to throw himself off a cliff in despair, when he glimpses redemption. First Eve draws near to tell him that she is to have a child. Then God comes and gently tells Adam that he is wrong to try to reckon his accomplishments on a cosmic scale. “For if you saw your transient, earthly life set in dimensions of eternity, there wouldn’t be any virtue in endurance. Or if you saw your spirit drench the dust, where could you find incentive for your efforts?” All God asks of man is to strive for progress, nothing more. “It is human virtues I want,” He says, “human greatness.”
Ms Neiman asks people to reject the false choice between Utopia and degeneracy. Moral progress, she writes, is neither guaranteed nor is it hopeless. Instead, it is up to us." -The Economist, 'Onwards and Upwards,' (12/17/09)
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"The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one's aim is to die a dog's death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one's aim.
We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is a thin dangerous line. To die without gaming one's aim is a dog's death and fanaticism. But there is no shame in this. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai. If by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he pains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling." -Hagakure, chapter 1
Adam gets the chance to see how much of Eden he will “regain”. He starts in Ancient Egypt and travels in time through 11 tableaux, ending in the icebound twilight of humanity. It is a cautionary tale. Adam glories in the Egyptian pyramids, but he discovers that they are built on the misery of slaves. So he rejects slavery and instead advances to Greek democracy. But when the Athenians condemn a hero, much as they condemned Socrates, Adam forsakes democracy and moves on to harmless, worldly pleasure. Sated and miserable in hedonistic Rome, he looks to the chivalry of the knights crusader. Yet each new reforming principle crumbles before him. Adam replaces 17th-century Prague’s courtly hypocrisy with the rights of man. When equality curdles into Terror under Robespierre, he embraces individual liberty—which is in turn corrupted on the money-grabbing streets of Georgian London. In the future a scientific Utopia has Michelangelo making chair-legs and Plato herding cows, because art and philosophy have no utility. At the end of time, having encountered the savage man who has no guiding principle except violence, Adam is downcast—and understandably so. Suicidal, he pleads with Lucifer: “Let me see no more of my harsh fate: this useless struggle.”...At the end of Madach’s poem, Adam is about to throw himself off a cliff in despair, when he glimpses redemption. First Eve draws near to tell him that she is to have a child. Then God comes and gently tells Adam that he is wrong to try to reckon his accomplishments on a cosmic scale. “For if you saw your transient, earthly life set in dimensions of eternity, there wouldn’t be any virtue in endurance. Or if you saw your spirit drench the dust, where could you find incentive for your efforts?” All God asks of man is to strive for progress, nothing more. “It is human virtues I want,” He says, “human greatness.”
Ms Neiman asks people to reject the false choice between Utopia and degeneracy. Moral progress, she writes, is neither guaranteed nor is it hopeless. Instead, it is up to us." -The Economist, 'Onwards and Upwards,' (12/17/09)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"The Way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance. To say that dying without reaching one's aim is to die a dog's death is the frivolous way of sophisticates. When pressed with the choice of life or death, it is not necessary to gain one's aim.
We all want to live. And in large part we make our logic according to what we like. But not having attained our aim and continuing to live is cowardice. This is a thin dangerous line. To die without gaming one's aim is a dog's death and fanaticism. But there is no shame in this. This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai. If by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he pains freedom in the Way. His whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling." -Hagakure, chapter 1
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Another Quote
[Discussing Jer. 22:16] Remembering the cause of the needy is not something that good, respectable, paternalistically inclined, philanthropically oriented people do after they already know God. No, the remembering the cause of the needy is the way to know God. —Dr. Mark Taylor, Princeton Theological Seminary
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Wandering
As I was reading the Bible today, I came across the story of Cain and Abel. As I read the famous story, I found a part of the curse placed upon Cain by God quite interesting. God says, "You [Cain] will be a restless wanderer on the earth" (Gen. 4:12). I found it interesting that restlessness and wandering is given as a curse. American culture has always valued the lone wanderer, whether it be a Clint Eastwood cowboy or a Jack Kerouac novel. But is this a virtue or a curse? Do we all long for belonging, for community more than fierce independence? Or perhaps independence detached from fellowship. Can a wanderer truly survive without community? Or are we are at least searching like Kerouac for a brotherhood of wanderers? Do we search for roots, belonging, to be known and to know, because that is hardwired to our identity? Perhaps I should return to Bonhoeffer's 'Life Together'...
Friday, August 28, 2009
A funny convo from freshman yr of college
Austin: "Kenny, who is better: Jesus or Tupac?"
Kenny: "hmm...I think they're even."
Austin: "Really? Why?"
Kenny: "Well for three reasons: First, both Jesus and Tupac's respective deaths brought reconciliation. When Tupac died it ended the East coast, West coast rivalry. Second, both leaders were killed by their enemies and their followers still believe they're alive and teaching. Finally, I'm pretty sure Tupac's 'To Live and Die In LA' saved my soul."
Austin: "So what does Heaven look like then?"
Kenny: "That's easy. Heaven is like Jesus, Tupac, the Buddha, John Lennon, and Mohammad sitting around a table drinking beer and eating fried chicken."
Austin: "That sounds like a Heaven I want to be a part of."
Kenny: "Me too, Austin. Me too."
Kenny: "hmm...I think they're even."
Austin: "Really? Why?"
Kenny: "Well for three reasons: First, both Jesus and Tupac's respective deaths brought reconciliation. When Tupac died it ended the East coast, West coast rivalry. Second, both leaders were killed by their enemies and their followers still believe they're alive and teaching. Finally, I'm pretty sure Tupac's 'To Live and Die In LA' saved my soul."
Austin: "So what does Heaven look like then?"
Kenny: "That's easy. Heaven is like Jesus, Tupac, the Buddha, John Lennon, and Mohammad sitting around a table drinking beer and eating fried chicken."
Austin: "That sounds like a Heaven I want to be a part of."
Kenny: "Me too, Austin. Me too."
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