A Matter of Perspective

I'm currently reading Home by Marylinne Robinson, which is a sequel (or rather, a companion volume) to her novel Gilead, which is one of my favorite novels ever. Gilead is written as an extended letter from a man to his son in a small town in Iowa in 1956. The man, John Ames, is an elderly Congregationalist minister who has learned that he has a terminal heart condition. Everyone who reads it seems to have a different idea what it's about, but I would say that it is about loving this world, while knowing that it is transient. There's no disputing that it's a slow read, but it is a profound meditation on history, death, family, forgiveness, death, the kind of sadness that isn't unhappy, hope, vocation, death, pastoral care, plumbing, friendship, sacramentality, and death. Much of the plot of Gilead involves the best friend of the protagonist and his family, particularly his wayward son. Home takes place at the same time as Gilead, and relates some of the same events, but it is told from the perspective of the Boughton household. I was a bit skeptical of this idea when I first heard about it, and it's definitely not as good as Gilead and every bit as slow. But I'm only two thirds in, and I've heard the book is building up to something. At any rate, I find the book valuable, if for no other reason, than that it shows how a character we come to love a great deal in Gilead, Rev. Ames, might plausibly be experienced in a very different way. We know him to be kind, thoughtful, intelligent, humorous, and caring. We also know from Gilead that a certain action he takes is a casual remark in passing that is instantly regretted, but we learn in Home that it is received as deliberate, and does great harm, and the character we know to be otherwise is perceived as judgmental and aloof.

This got me thinking, of course, that so much of what we say and do can be experienced as very different than we intend, and this is also true of how we experience other people. This could of course be a lesson about "every thoughtless utterance," but I'm thinking more about "judge not, lest ye be judged." The tragic fact is that even if we are very deliberate and thoughtful in all we say and do, it may still have the intended effect or be received in the way we'd intended. This thought bothered me, particularly in light of a recent interview in which I'm pretty sure several of the people interviewing got an impression of me that I don't think is quite fair. And the question that then occurred to me, with regard to John Ames and to myself, is this: does God judge us and our actions as they are experienced by other people, or as we experience and intend them? And the answer, of course, is neither. God of course knows us better than we know ourselves, and certainly better than others know us. The mitigating circumstances are known, the good intentions are known, as are the self-delusions. But God's judgment is based entirely on grace. We are created by grace, we are reckoned righteous by grace. It is not our righteousness that ultimately matters, but Christ's. I've never been a fan of the more legal metaphors of salvation, but I'm getting at the same thing as imputed righteousness.

Empathy goes a long way in this life, perhaps getting us as close as we can come to grace. But grace goes beyond empathy. I expect that the next sermon I preach will probably be about the similarity and also the radical difference (sorry for breaking my own rule about the use of the word 'radical'). It will hopefully make the point I'm hovering around better than this post.

On Romans 13 and its aftermath

If I were given permission from God to excise one passage from the Bible, I think I might have to go for Romans 13:1-7. That's the part where Paul tells the Roman Christians to submit to the government, "for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God." This is one of those passages that almost never gets invoked except to defend the status quo, and usually the status quo at its worst. It goes on to say that the government "is God's servant to execute wrath on the evildoer." The idea that government exists to restrain evil was central to the political thought of St. Augustine (who at is better moments, is a theological favorite of mine), who as a prominent bishop in North Africa, appealed to the Roman authorities to put an end to the Donatist schism. This passage was obliquely invoked by Rick Warren to lend credence to back up Sean Hannity's wish that the American government should assassinate the president of Iran. Warren's interpretation is just ridiculous, since by this Romans 13 logic, Ahmadinejad would also be an authority instituted by God. I also heard this passage invoked or alluded to a few times back in 2003-4 against those who actively opposed or spoke out against the war. Again, that made no sense at all, especially when the governing authority is a democracy. Thankfully, the national mood seems to have changed since then.

So what does this passage mean and what, if anything, is it good for? Clearly Paul believes that government has a legitimate role in human affairs. And he says that this role is to restrain evil, and that as long as one does no evil, one should have nothing to fear from the government. But let us take a step back and note that the government he is talking about is the Roman Empire, and that Paul himself would break its laws and die at its hand. And surely neither Paul nor any other Christian would consider Paul's crimes evil. So we are told to obey the law by a man who openly broke the law. As Roman persecution of Christians continued (it was probably never as widespread as the stories we tell in Sunday school would make it out to be, but it was never unheard of either), a later New Testament author would give somewhat more nuanced advice: "Now who will harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord" (1 Peter 3:13-15a). Peter (or whoever wrote this letter, it doesn't really matter) also considers imperial authority to be derived from God, but it can still do evil and hinder good, and the Christian must resist the evil and do the good even when this will be punished by the government. So it is clear that in calling the government the servant of God, neither Paul nor Peter is giving it a blank check.

In fact, bearing in mind that Paul was writing about an empire that was hostile to Christianity, one might go so far as to say that to attribute the existence of imperial authority to God isn't even to say that it is a good thing. If you were to read other treatments of governments in the Bible, you might get the impression that God only allows them to exist in order to let evil run its course. I'm thinking of Revelation, the second half of Daniel, the first chapter of Habakkuk, and maybe a few others. Governments may be part of God's design, but we run the risk of blatant idolatry when we identify them as the whole of God's design. And perhaps most importantly, it should be noted that Paul makes no distinction between "good" and "evil" government. As I noted above, nationalistic Americans should be very wary of quoting this verse, because it applies just as much to tyrants and communists as to presidents and parliaments. And we'll see if they keep spewing out this government is God's servant crap now that we have a progressive Democrat in office. I hope they don't, and that they don't resume it when their party is back in power.

But there's a liberal version this idolatry too, and that is to identify any political agenda with God's design. We've cried foul for the last eight years as we watched conservatives do this. Let's be sure not to make the same mistake ourselves. Our party currently has an electoral mandate, but not necessarily a divine mandate. Our government may be able to restrain some evil, and it's good that they're thinking about evils like poverty and climate change now instead of just people we don't like (even people we don't like for good reasons). But demagoguery is bad no matter who's doing it. So don't start!

Fast-forward

After a hellish ordeal of a finals week at my beloved Divinity School, I suddenly find myself bored on vacation. So what better time than to try to reboot my moribund blog that nobody will ever read, unless somebody is looking for something stupid I said someday. Obviously, a lot has changed in the world since my last post, a snide comment about a tasteless joke on the part of our soon-to-be-ex-President, now the lamest duck who ever quacked. Something about the state of discourse as the campaigns proceeded made me not feel like contributing much to the digital landfill. Kos and Yglessias and even Andrew Sullivan were doing just fine without my two cents, which would have been redundant anyway, though my facebook status frequently shared whatever oneliners I came up with. But we won! We also have a semi-firm date for withdrawl from Iraq that even Bush endorses, we've had signals from Russia that they will be giving us more headaches in the future, and we are in the Worst Financial Crisis Since the Great Depression. And yet, pretty much everybody has been pleased with Obama's preparations to take office, and though I had a few worries about his economic agenda during the election, I think I join the vast, vast majority of Americans in saying I'm very glad he won. I've heard a lot of people say that only an idiot would want to be President now, which may be true. But I've also heard it said that this is the worst time in the nation's history to assume the office, which is patently false. If I had to suddenly change bodies and time periods with any President on his first day, I'd take Obama's first day on the job over Lincoln's or FDR's. And they are widely considered two of our best ever. So I remain relatively optimistic about our country's political future.

The thing that actually concerns me most at the moment is Russia. Obama is inheriting a plan from Bush to build missile defense facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic, to which Russia is opposed, and it threatens to put missiles in Kalinengrad and point them at European cities if we go through with it. Obama's going to be in a bad position because this is probably a bad idea anyway, but he can't just back down without looking weak to both the American cable news audience and, perhaps more importantly, the Russians. So I expect him to push for some sort of compromise that nobody will think is a good idea, but what else is he supposed to do? It looks like Bush is bowing out fairly gracefully, but he's poisoned this particular well whether he meant to or not.

In personal news, I've gone from being a "freelance theologian" (read: unemployed slacker) to a bona fide Ph.D. student. All my classes focused on 19th and early 20th century Germany last quarter. It was good to finally delve into some figures I've always meant to read but never had, including the likes of Kant and Barth, and I think I even wrote a pretty good paper on Schleiermacher that I plan to keep working on, and maybe present at a conference or something. But aside from being the initial preparation for one of my doctoral exams, this quarter confirmed for me that my interests are mainly patristic and medieval Greek and Latin, and modern English, French, and Spanish, NOT 19th century German. Next quarter will be entirely patristic though, so I'm looking forward to that. Happy Advent then, and more updates as things occur to me.

Did you hear the one about the dead puppy?

Dear International Friends:

I swear, we don't know him. He just keeps showing up at all our parties.

The American leader, who has been condemned throughout his presidency for failing to tackle climate change, ended a private meeting with the words: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

(Via logopolys)

Real blogging may be a bit sporadic until I finish the sermon I'm preaching on Sunday (at the rate it's going, that'll be sometime around 9:00 or 10:00 on Saturday night).

A Little Passive-Aggressive Behavior Never Killed Anyone

I just a newspaper article about animal rights protesters harassing scientists at their homes. Even when I think that they may actually have a point in some of the cases they condemn, such behavior is simply unacceptable, and makes me even less sympathetic to their cause (a fallacy, to be sure). At any rate, I realized that I had been planning to bake a vegetarian quiche for dinner tonight (and lunch tomorrow). Now I think I'm going to have a turkey sandwich. :-)

Jesse Helms, and my first link to another blog

Jesse Helms died. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, so it goes. I'm somewhat fond of a Latin phrase whose origins I've never checked: de mortuis nihil nisi bonum. Of the dead [say] nothing but good. I shall therefore say nothing further about Senator Helms.

However, if I were going to say anything, it would be something along the lines of what my friend Ben says over at his blog. If I actually have any readers, I highly recommend Ben's blog to them. He mostly writes about politics, and he bothers to be a bit more informed on the subject than I usually am. In fact, before forming an opinion on a political matter, I usually check Ben's blog to see if he's said anything about it, and then I pretend it was my idea. Go thou and do likewise.

"All other ground is shifting sand"

I've seen several articles in the last few days commenting on, analyzing, lamenting, or lambasting Obama's recent moves toward the center. Thankfully, I do not have cable at the moment, so I have been spared the impassioned nonsense and trivialities they will certainly have been spewing nonstop over all of this. The main question raised in most discussions of the matter seems to be whether the Republicans will be able to create the image of Obama as a "flip-floper" like they did with John Kerry (fires of hell consume them). I have been rather annoyed with Obama over many of his proposals for the past few weeks, particularly his support for immunity for telecommunications companies that have assisted the minions of Satan Bush administration's domestic wiretapping program. He calls it a compromise to get certain protections codified. Fair enough, but I'm not happy about it. The faith-based funding stuff doesn't actually represent a change in his platform, and it might actually be a good idea. The Iraq thing, I think, is mostly a cosmetic change. But in terms of the media narrative and the Republican rhetoric, it matters very little whether any of the recent shifts are shifts in substance or merely in emphasis. It matters even less whether they are changes for the better. And even more irrelevant is whether McCain has changed his positions more often and more drastically than Obama ever has or will.

I was asked at a party yesterday if I would refuse to officiate at a wedding if the couple declined to undergo premarital counseling (assuming I ever make it out of the limbo that is the Methodist ordination process). My knee jerk response was that there is no way in hell I would ever officiate at such a wedding, and I would admit no exceptions, because once exceptions are allowed, everybody thinks their case merits one. No sooner were the words out of my mouth though that I imagined a couple of cases where I would probably throw out the rule book and open up the missal (in honor of the holiday, the case involved a soldier about to go on a mission from which he would not likely return). Would I be a hypocrite in such a case? Maybe, but I'd be a real asshole if I acted otherwise.

The point is that some flexibility is absolutely essential in real life. And with a politician, I think that the best that can be hoped for is that his or her campaign promises will indicate the sort of person he or she will be in office, and perhaps the policies that he or she would implement under ideal conditions. I voted for George W. Bush in 2000, when I was more conservative than I am now. Even if I still held the opinions I held back then, I would consider the first Bush administration a betrayal. There was a rather vast difference between compassionate conservative George Bush and nation building George Bush. Obama's recent shifts hardly deserve mention in the same breath. At worst, they confirm the long held suspicion of many that Obama is not the messiah. I believe Obama would be the first to agree. In the meantime, McCain has also been reinventing himself a bit, which in itself is not something I begrudge him. However, the particular direction he is going leads me to the conclusion that the John McCain I enthusiastically voted for in the 2000 primary (my first election ever-and unlike my vote for Bush, not one I would take back) no longer exists, and I don't like the new guy so much. The BBC's got a good list of both candidates' recent shifts/flip-flops/refinements.

Edit: It occurs to me that the lyric I attempted to quote in my title, the refrain of Edward Mote's hymn "My Hope is Built," is actually "On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand." Doesn't serve my point quite as well, but I wouldn't want to build on either.