faithasawayoflife

Adam Clayton's Money Quote

Adam Clayton, one of my favorite bass players (I admit it--partly I love U2 and partly the guy is just not a virtuoso so I can actually play his lines) said it this way: "I just keep the bottom moving."  I love it. If more people had the humility and dignity to do that key work rather than trying to all be Bonos the world'd be a better place. Not that Bono doesn't make the world a better place. But I mean, without the bottom holding steady, we'd be in a world of trouble.

Anon and peace,

Chris

Finishing Wittgenstein's Biography

Last night I finally turned the last page on Ray Monk's monumental biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. It was touted as a book that finally could hold together his strange and compelling life along with this difficult philosophical work.  That Monk does with brilliance.   Yet the great surprise to me was the way the book read as a spiritual biography, almost a biography of a very troubled saint.  Not of course in any traditional sense of sainthood, but in the sense that, as Monk writes, "in a way that is centrally important but difficult to define, he had lived a devoutly religious life" (580).   As one way to see the sense in which this was true, an anacdote from near the end of his life is telling.  He was in these last months living with his friend and student Elizabeth Anscombe's house in Oxford.  Gravely ill, he asked Anscombe, who was Catholic, if she could find him a priest to speak with--a 'non-philosophical priest' as he put it.  He did not want to discuss the finer points of Catholic doctrine, but rather to be introduced to someone to whose life religious belief had made a practical difference.  Fr. Conrad, a Dominican, came by twice to talk.

Highly recommended book.

Anon, and peace,

Chris

help me with media questions for my book on U2

on my blog chronicling the journey of writing and publishing my book on U2 buried at the bottom of my post, i asked for help but no one took me up on it. let me ask again here. the marketing people at brazos asked me to write myself 10 questions and then answer them, and this will be sent in the media packet to help potential reviewers know what to ask me!

it cracks me up because it would be like, here, ask me my own question. oh, by the way, you already have my answer!

well, there must be some way to have fun with it. if you are willing, post your questions about U2 and faith here or email them to me and I'll write the answer here as well. you can read the intro of my book by going here and downloading it.

anon, and +peace

rescuing the bible from spong AND robertson

nicholas kristof, columnist for the new york times, did something many religiously orthodox christians like me will cringe at, but it deserves a careful look, and i've done it before myself, in a different way. that is: he gave sincere attention to another book by jack spong.

kristof's op-ed over the weekend deals with form episcopalian bishop john shelby spong's new book: the sins of scripture. he was writing it last summer when i did a bit of fieldwork in a course he taught at hartford seminary. the point, besides recycling some of his inflammatory theories like st. paul was a repressed gay man, is to say listen, the bible say some pretty awful things and many of them are portrayed as god's action or will. witness, for example, the command to kill the amalekites, man woman, child or infant (1 samuel 15).

kristof's genus in reviewing spong's work is to marginalize the more extreme claims and follow the hermeneutic of generosity. kristof writes, "this book is long overdue, because one of the biggest mistakes liberals have made has been to forfeit battles in which faith plays a crucial role. Religion has always been a central current of American life, and it is becoming more important in politics because of the new Great Awakening unfolding across the United States. Yet liberals have tended to stay apart from the fray rather than engaging in it."

kristof concludes that "Some of the bishop's ideas strike me as more provocative than persuasive, but at least he's engaged in the debate. When liberals take on conservative Christians, it tends to be with insults - by deriding them as jihadists and fleeing the field. That's a mistake. It's entirely possible to honor Christian conservatives for their first-rate humanitarian work treating the sick in Africa or fighting sex trafficking in Asia, and still do battle with them over issues like gay rights. Liberals can and should confront Bible-thumping preachers on their own terms, for the scriptural emphasis on justice and compassion gives the left plenty of ammunition. After all, the Bible depicts Jesus as healing lepers, not slashing Medicaid."

for the record, the evangelicals (at least some of them) are pushing for a fuller reading of the bible and its moral values than currently in fashion with segments of the political debate.

i personally would argue that the scripture's first and primary aim is to show forth god's grace and mercy known in jesus christ, and the spirit's power to draw us into living as his disciples. when the bible becomes a source for battles over which of us is right or which is damned, we've missed the claim made clearly by jesus in scripture: 'do not judge, or you too will be judged' but if those christians who, as i do, decry the conservative use of the bible as a moral legitimation for a narrow political program, don't publicly offer alternative readings of the bible and its contemporary relevance, then we're truly as sorry as kristof suggests.

a book about u2 and god

some of you may know i'm writing a book offering an interpretation of the religious voice of u2. yes, the rock and roll hall of fame band that is currently on tour in support of their recent record 'how to dismantle an atomic bomb.' i originally called the book 'icons of the cross' because i think so much of what is important to me about u2's theological voice is their embodiment of the theology of the cross: worldly, doubt-filled, and honest faith seeking love and peace and justice. they don't whack people over the head with an altar call for jesus, but they point, like icons do, the the element of soul in life, and to the cost of discipleship that the cross represents (e.g. bonhoeffer). i've blogged about this before elsewhere (here and here).

i just got an email from my editor at brazos press who wants me to consider this title instead: one step closer: why u2 matters to those seeking god. this obviously comes from the song on HTDAAB, which I like. below is bono's short version of the origin of the song (from Blender magazine). but i don't know how much i want to give up the image of the cross in the title. so--what to you all think? i've got to decide soon--by monday.

9 “One Step Closer to Knowing”
Sparse splinters of sound and a lonesome search for faith
Bono: “I was talking to Noel Gallagher [from Oasis] about my dad, who lost his faith toward the end of his life. And Noel asked, ‘Does he believe in God?’ And I said, ‘I don’t think he knows.’ So Noel went, ‘Well, he’s one step closer to knowing now.’ And I thought, ‘I’m going to write that song…’ ”

anon, and +peace

why i like paris hilton's multi-cross necklace on theological grounds

first of all let me say i, unlike some crabby fathers of the church, have nothing against jewelry. and although i'm tempted to say things that are critical of paris hilton personally, i won't (lest she comment on my blog pointing out the log in my eye). but since this line of jewelry jumped out at me when I was looking for a book on amazon, i thought i would react back, focusing especially on this item in her new jewelry line.

click on photo for a larger view:

the interesting thing to me is the way the glitter and excess of the whole image is subverted by two simple facts, if one has eyes to see. first, the simple fact that it is a cross. this can never, for me, escape either jesus' death on the cross or its meaning as redemptive solidarity with all those who suffer in the world. such a symbol mocks the excess of sterling and diamonds (crystals, actually, so as to be affordable to the masses). and then, lovely of lovelies, there are seven crosses. seven. the number of fullness. god created the world in seven. it is the image, therefore, of a wholly subverted commercial excess and self-referentiality. paris hilton compels us to look at her, and bids us desire to be looked at as we look at her, and yet in fixing our gaze on her, the product's depth becomes icon, pointing beyond. beyond to the fullness of one who looks upon us with a deeper love, a fuller grace, a measure that takes no account of such glitter but only the fullness of what dwells within us.

anon, and +peace

christo--a saffron spectacle

sonja, isaiah, grace, and friend maija on a rock in central park with 'the gates' in the background.

sunday after church we went down to nyc to walk through the new spectacle public art display of christo and his wife, jeanne-claude. the gist of it is a midwinter display of 7500 tall gates with half curtains hanging down on all the walkways of central park. almost as if they are blood running through the veins of the park, and following that image, the gates bring out throngs of people so that the walks are literally full of life. the nytimes had a pretty gushing take.

mako fujimura, an artist who works with our center's faith as a way of life project, said something that caught my attention and helped make sense of part of my experience walking around central park. "the art of the early 21st century may be remembered for its collective move from inside of the studio to the outside. andy goldworthy, in his 'rivers and tides' documentary recounts how he began to create his works at the beach on the way to his art classes, and realized that the world is his true 'studio.' christo and jeanne-claude certainly paved the way for this paradigm shift. the most significant contribution of their works will be to help all of us believe that the world is the greater and more significant studio or stage, and more importantly, to see that our own creative vision can directly affect landscapes and cities."

i'm currently teaching a series of classes on the theological voice of the rock band U2, and there is a similarity in that both U2 and christo create community through doing their art in a big way, in a public way, facing out towards the world. While christo and jeanne don't explicitly claim any christian motivation, as U2 clearly does, they both embody something that the church so very often doesn't do and that is seek to create community through doing something accessible and flashy and lovely out in and for the sake of the world.

too often, we do our art and lovely things inside, for our own sake, and therefore forsake the world for the safety of our 'studio.' what would it mean for us to follow the methods mako points to, of moving our christian arts of living and loving and celebrating and lamenting from inside of the studio (church) to the outside? scary? yes, and just maybe faithful, too.

anon, and +peace