I feel that I've been on a collision course with justice for a while now. Coming out of the evangelical tradition, the "continuing" Reformed tradition in the twentieth century, and (in some sense) the southern Presbyterian tradition, the biblical teaching on the ethics of justice is not a strong suit for me - this despite the fact that my own family history is heavily implicated in the racial issues that define the white southern experience. In short, I knew the Bible talked about justice but I didn't know much about what it said and what it meant for me, my life and vocation.
All that began to change last spring when I read two books which broke through my relative indifference: Mountains Beyond Mountains and Until Justice and Peace Embrace. The former, by Tracy Kidder, tells the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners in Health and advocate for health care among the poor (especially in Haiti). Until Justice is the theory, the theology, that undergirds Farmer's vision; it's a translation of the justice tradition into Reformed theological and philosophical categories by one of the best thinkers around, Nicholas Wolterstorff.
The next stage of the collision just happened; I bought Gary Haugen's Good News About Injustice last Friday and had finished it by Saturday night. This time the theology of justice and the story of its incarnation are woven together as Haugen tells about his U. N. mission to Rwanda to investigate the genocide and how it led him to found International Justice Mission in 1994.
Finally, I read the introduction and first essay in Charles Marsh's The Beloved Community about MLK in Montgomery. I was struck by his youth (25 years old!), his spiritual transformation, and, of course, his moral courage. A couple of beautiful stories: after his house was bombed, with his wife and baby inside, King showed up and single-handedly calmed and dispersed the angry crowd, exhorting them to "love their enemies." And, after their boycott victory, King and his followers instructed the blacks of Montgomery on how to board the buses with dignity, respect, and a hand towards reconciliation with their white oppressors.
The biblical theology of justice presented by Haugen and Wolterstorff, together with the stories of its application told by Haugen, Kidder, and Marsh, offer a compelling vision for the pursuit of justice in today's world. Perhaps these books will serve to awaken other "sleepy Christians" to God's call to "seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless, and plead the widow's cause" (Is. 1.17).
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Friday, August 17, 2007
No Country for Old Men
This is an old review I wrote about Cormac McCarthy's 2005 book No Country for Old Men. I'm posting it because since this McCarthy has published two more books, The Road and the play The Sunset Limited, both of which seem to support my main thesis below. (Plus, No Country for Old Men is being made into a movie by my faves the Coen brothers).
The worldview presented in McCarthy's books seems to be similar to some ancient form of gnosticism. (Modern self-described gnostic Harold Bloom discusses this in his introductory essay to Blood Meridian included in the Library of America edition). But it's a gnosticism that posits evil, not good, as the primary supernatural reality. History and human beings are strictly determined, infected with evil from the beginning and fated for a life of suffering, conflict and (of course) violence. "You think people was meaner then than they are now? the deputy said. The old man was looking out at the flooded town. No, he said. I don't. I think people are the same from the day God first made one" (Child of God, 168). The bleak nihilism that results can be seen most clearly in Blood Meridian: "You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow" (19). The book's Judge Holden is the most philosophically articulate of McCarthy's characters: he describes the true nature of the world as "a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning" (245). He sees war as "the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god" (249). Holden at times sounds like the wild west's answer to Nietzsche: "Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak" (250). And: "Only that man who has offered up himself entire to the blood of war, who has been to the floor of the pit and seen horror in the round and learned at last that it speaks to his inmost heart, only that man can dance" (331).
On the surface No Country for Old Men seems to mark something of a change for McCarthy. The principle "old man" in the story, Sheriff Bell, establishes a strong moral tone throughout the book in his italicized soliloquies included at the start of the chapters. In these sections Bell laments the moral state of contemporary America with its mindless violence and concludes that society has grown worse, evil more rampant. The principle cause of his concern is the string of murders committed by Chigurh, who appears as the perfect killing machine. Chigurh spouts a similar brand of nihilism as the other villains in McCarthy's ouvre. But this time his perspective is answered at much greater length by Bell's ruminations.
Bell's moralism has been ridiculed by a New York Times reviewer as "red-state" ruminations that may indicate McCarthy's descent into a kind of fundamentalist stupor in his old age. Not only is this line of thinking completely asinine, it misses the point of Bell's sections which conform to a pattern present throughout McCarthy's fiction. All of his primary villains have moralist counter-parts who, to wildly varying degrees, try to resist the total domination of evil but always to no avail. Think of The Kid and the ex-priest in Blood Meridian, and the young cowboy protagonists in The Border Triology. Though these men often speak with a sense of moral hope, they are always defeated in the end; more precisely, the majority of them end up on the slab.
Sheriff Bell is no different from these earlier good characters, except that he escapes death by abandoning his pursuit of Chigurh. However, this "defeat" is "more bitter to him than death" (306) because he must live with his moral failure, all the while knowing that Chigurh is still at large. In this aftermath Bell confesses in total despair: "I don't have no answer to take heart from" (303). He is, like the rest of the old people he discusses throughout the book, completely lost and adrift in a world plagued by unfathomable and invincible evil.
Cormac's latest
Despite being spoofed by Wes Anderson in The Royal Tennenbaums, Cormac McCarthy is still one of my favorite contemporary novelists. I just finished his latest, No Country for Old Men. The pace is similar to that of Blood Meridian, and No Country has already been compared to it in terms of its violence. (By the way, the violence of this latest book doesn't come close to Blood Meridian, which is still, by far, the most violent book I've ever read). The body count is high, and also like Blood Meridian, much of the carnage is caused by a mysterious, nearly supernatural figure of evil, Anton Chigurh. These men haunt McCarthy's other novels, including Outer Dark, Child of God and The Border Trilogy, and are the subject of most of the metaphysical speculation that takes place among the characters.The worldview presented in McCarthy's books seems to be similar to some ancient form of gnosticism. (Modern self-described gnostic Harold Bloom discusses this in his introductory essay to Blood Meridian included in the Library of America edition). But it's a gnosticism that posits evil, not good, as the primary supernatural reality. History and human beings are strictly determined, infected with evil from the beginning and fated for a life of suffering, conflict and (of course) violence. "You think people was meaner then than they are now? the deputy said. The old man was looking out at the flooded town. No, he said. I don't. I think people are the same from the day God first made one" (Child of God, 168). The bleak nihilism that results can be seen most clearly in Blood Meridian: "You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow" (19). The book's Judge Holden is the most philosophically articulate of McCarthy's characters: he describes the true nature of the world as "a hat trick in a medicine show, a fevered dream, a trance bepopulate with chimeras having neither analogue nor precedent, an itinerant carnival, a migratory tentshow whose ultimate destination after many a pitch in many a mudded field is unspeakable and calamitous beyond reckoning" (245). He sees war as "the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one's will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god" (249). Holden at times sounds like the wild west's answer to Nietzsche: "Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak" (250). And: "Only that man who has offered up himself entire to the blood of war, who has been to the floor of the pit and seen horror in the round and learned at last that it speaks to his inmost heart, only that man can dance" (331).
On the surface No Country for Old Men seems to mark something of a change for McCarthy. The principle "old man" in the story, Sheriff Bell, establishes a strong moral tone throughout the book in his italicized soliloquies included at the start of the chapters. In these sections Bell laments the moral state of contemporary America with its mindless violence and concludes that society has grown worse, evil more rampant. The principle cause of his concern is the string of murders committed by Chigurh, who appears as the perfect killing machine. Chigurh spouts a similar brand of nihilism as the other villains in McCarthy's ouvre. But this time his perspective is answered at much greater length by Bell's ruminations.
Bell's moralism has been ridiculed by a New York Times reviewer as "red-state" ruminations that may indicate McCarthy's descent into a kind of fundamentalist stupor in his old age. Not only is this line of thinking completely asinine, it misses the point of Bell's sections which conform to a pattern present throughout McCarthy's fiction. All of his primary villains have moralist counter-parts who, to wildly varying degrees, try to resist the total domination of evil but always to no avail. Think of The Kid and the ex-priest in Blood Meridian, and the young cowboy protagonists in The Border Triology. Though these men often speak with a sense of moral hope, they are always defeated in the end; more precisely, the majority of them end up on the slab.
Sheriff Bell is no different from these earlier good characters, except that he escapes death by abandoning his pursuit of Chigurh. However, this "defeat" is "more bitter to him than death" (306) because he must live with his moral failure, all the while knowing that Chigurh is still at large. In this aftermath Bell confesses in total despair: "I don't have no answer to take heart from" (303). He is, like the rest of the old people he discusses throughout the book, completely lost and adrift in a world plagued by unfathomable and invincible evil.
Monday, August 13, 2007
The Primacy of Legalism
"Satan is a legalist."
Those words come from Sinclair Ferguson during one of his lectures on the "Marrow Controversy" at a pastors' conference many years ago (available here). Ferguson's three lectures - on the free offer of the gospel, the nature of legalism, and the nature of antinomianism - have had a seminal impact on my thinking since I first heard them about 8 years ago, shortly after I started work as a pastor.
One of the many insights Ferguson shares (one also shared by the Marrow Men and their followers) is that an aspect of the essence of sin is legalism. The argument runs like this: God created us for union and communion with him by faith, which is trust in God's goodness. At the heart of sin, therefore, is unbelief in God's goodness: believing that he cannot be trusted to love and take care of me, keep his promises, etc. This is the dynamic driving the first temptation and sin in Genesis 3 and all subsequent sin.
Ferguson argues that this unbelief in God's goodness drives all of us into a legalistic stance with God (and/or the false gods which we inevitably choose to serve in his place) where we seek to leverage the divine with our rules and rituals in order to get what we fear God isn't good enough to give us. Since we don't trust God to provide for us, we have to take care of ourselves through manipulating him.
This legalism rooted in unbelief is the basic posture of the human heart in sin. Ferguson goes on to point out that many theologians accept this account up to a point but then posit that the sinner eventually throws off his legalism and rebels against the divine, rejecting all religious rule-keeping and ritual, in order to pursue an autonomous antinomianism. Certainly this dialectic between legalistic religion and non-legalistic irreligion is what appears to happen. But, Ferguson says, the fundamental posture of the heart towards God has not really changed in antinomianism: the primal distrust of God is still there and the "legal frame" continues to serve as the lens through which the sinner sees God. In antinomian license the sinner is merely expressing the same unbelief in a different way, choosing another strategy to try to get what he wants. The antinomian is a frustrated legalist, still desperately trying to escape the bondage of his distorted view of God.
Thus, Satan, the ultimate antinomian, is at heart a legalist.
Much like Keller does with the concept of idolatry, Ferguson shows that the legal heart bound in unbelief drives both religion and irreligion, pursuits of righteousness and rebellion, legalism and license.
All sin is a form of legalism.
Tim Keller's - and the CCEF crowd's - work on idolatry, mentioned above, fits in with this account by Ferguson. They point out that all sin is idolatry; and that's true. Maybe we could say it this way: all sin is idolatrous legalism (or legalistic idolatry!) driven by a heart that no longer believes in God's goodness. Satan is a legalistic idol-broker to a deluded human race. (Jack Miller, Richard Lovelace, Ferguson, and Keller have all done wonderful work preaching, teaching and applying these truths in books, articles, sermons, their ministries, etc).
I bring up this "sin as legalism" idea for a couple reasons.
One has to do with the fine posts over at Sean Lucas' blog on "Cheese, Fundamentalism, and Antithesis." Sean is interacting with some of the Reformation 21 folks about how the "antithesis" theme in Reformed theology influences our Christ/culture theory and our evaluations of movements within fundamentalism, broader evangelicalism, and the Reformed world (something I'd like to post on soon). Part of the follow-up discussion occurs between ex-fundamentalists (in the socio-cultural sense), some who appreciate aspects of their fundamentalist experience and others who see it as deeply destructive. But I wonder if part of the "balanced" evaluation of both the positives and negatives of fundamentalism is rooted in a tendency to see legalism and license as equal, opposite errors; for if Ferguson's (and Keller's, et al) account is right, they're not. We should, like Jesus in Luke 15, understand legalism as the primary problem and license as just one of its expressions. Thus, I side with the more critical evaluations of fundamentalist institutions with a history of legalism because of Ferguson's account above: legalism, especially in its orthodox Christian form, is one of the primary evils in our world, which literally wrecks people and the church. Those of us in the pastorate know how long its effects can linger in the consciences and hearts of its victims; we know how many "younger brothers" are driven secretly by a legal frame. Thus, legalism can't be described as one error among many, it must be seen (along with idolatry and pride) as a primary enemy of the gospel and the church and given no quarter.
Ferguson's account of legalism also has ramifications for the whole "new perspective on Paul" debate. There are several weaknesses in the new perspective that have been pointed out by many: weak historical-theological scholarship, a neglect of detailed discussion of the ordo salutis, etc. But my main problem with the new perspective is it's apparent lack of pastoral and biblical attention to the nature of sin generally, and legalism specifically. Of course, these scholars are at pains to correct the long-standing popular charicature of 1st century Judaism as filled with blatant soteriological Pelagians; point taken. But legalism, at least among theologians and scholars of Scripture, is rarely that obvious; and that's true whether we're talking about the 1st century or the 21st. In fact, what the Marrow Controversy and its lessons teach us is that one's creedal theology may be entirely biblical in its understanding of grace - and, at the very same time, our hearts still be dominated by legalism. For legalism is not a historical-theological error that comes and goes, but the repetition of the oldest lie there is: the fundamental lie about God's goodness that comes as naturally to us as breathing and that never fully leaves us, despite the substantial freedom we have from it in the gospel. It's this legalism that Jesus and Paul, Luther and Calvin, were dealing with in their day and that we must deal with ruthlessly in ours.
Those words come from Sinclair Ferguson during one of his lectures on the "Marrow Controversy" at a pastors' conference many years ago (available here). Ferguson's three lectures - on the free offer of the gospel, the nature of legalism, and the nature of antinomianism - have had a seminal impact on my thinking since I first heard them about 8 years ago, shortly after I started work as a pastor.
One of the many insights Ferguson shares (one also shared by the Marrow Men and their followers) is that an aspect of the essence of sin is legalism. The argument runs like this: God created us for union and communion with him by faith, which is trust in God's goodness. At the heart of sin, therefore, is unbelief in God's goodness: believing that he cannot be trusted to love and take care of me, keep his promises, etc. This is the dynamic driving the first temptation and sin in Genesis 3 and all subsequent sin.
Ferguson argues that this unbelief in God's goodness drives all of us into a legalistic stance with God (and/or the false gods which we inevitably choose to serve in his place) where we seek to leverage the divine with our rules and rituals in order to get what we fear God isn't good enough to give us. Since we don't trust God to provide for us, we have to take care of ourselves through manipulating him.
This legalism rooted in unbelief is the basic posture of the human heart in sin. Ferguson goes on to point out that many theologians accept this account up to a point but then posit that the sinner eventually throws off his legalism and rebels against the divine, rejecting all religious rule-keeping and ritual, in order to pursue an autonomous antinomianism. Certainly this dialectic between legalistic religion and non-legalistic irreligion is what appears to happen. But, Ferguson says, the fundamental posture of the heart towards God has not really changed in antinomianism: the primal distrust of God is still there and the "legal frame" continues to serve as the lens through which the sinner sees God. In antinomian license the sinner is merely expressing the same unbelief in a different way, choosing another strategy to try to get what he wants. The antinomian is a frustrated legalist, still desperately trying to escape the bondage of his distorted view of God.
Thus, Satan, the ultimate antinomian, is at heart a legalist.
Much like Keller does with the concept of idolatry, Ferguson shows that the legal heart bound in unbelief drives both religion and irreligion, pursuits of righteousness and rebellion, legalism and license.
All sin is a form of legalism.
Tim Keller's - and the CCEF crowd's - work on idolatry, mentioned above, fits in with this account by Ferguson. They point out that all sin is idolatry; and that's true. Maybe we could say it this way: all sin is idolatrous legalism (or legalistic idolatry!) driven by a heart that no longer believes in God's goodness. Satan is a legalistic idol-broker to a deluded human race. (Jack Miller, Richard Lovelace, Ferguson, and Keller have all done wonderful work preaching, teaching and applying these truths in books, articles, sermons, their ministries, etc).
I bring up this "sin as legalism" idea for a couple reasons.
One has to do with the fine posts over at Sean Lucas' blog on "Cheese, Fundamentalism, and Antithesis." Sean is interacting with some of the Reformation 21 folks about how the "antithesis" theme in Reformed theology influences our Christ/culture theory and our evaluations of movements within fundamentalism, broader evangelicalism, and the Reformed world (something I'd like to post on soon). Part of the follow-up discussion occurs between ex-fundamentalists (in the socio-cultural sense), some who appreciate aspects of their fundamentalist experience and others who see it as deeply destructive. But I wonder if part of the "balanced" evaluation of both the positives and negatives of fundamentalism is rooted in a tendency to see legalism and license as equal, opposite errors; for if Ferguson's (and Keller's, et al) account is right, they're not. We should, like Jesus in Luke 15, understand legalism as the primary problem and license as just one of its expressions. Thus, I side with the more critical evaluations of fundamentalist institutions with a history of legalism because of Ferguson's account above: legalism, especially in its orthodox Christian form, is one of the primary evils in our world, which literally wrecks people and the church. Those of us in the pastorate know how long its effects can linger in the consciences and hearts of its victims; we know how many "younger brothers" are driven secretly by a legal frame. Thus, legalism can't be described as one error among many, it must be seen (along with idolatry and pride) as a primary enemy of the gospel and the church and given no quarter.
Ferguson's account of legalism also has ramifications for the whole "new perspective on Paul" debate. There are several weaknesses in the new perspective that have been pointed out by many: weak historical-theological scholarship, a neglect of detailed discussion of the ordo salutis, etc. But my main problem with the new perspective is it's apparent lack of pastoral and biblical attention to the nature of sin generally, and legalism specifically. Of course, these scholars are at pains to correct the long-standing popular charicature of 1st century Judaism as filled with blatant soteriological Pelagians; point taken. But legalism, at least among theologians and scholars of Scripture, is rarely that obvious; and that's true whether we're talking about the 1st century or the 21st. In fact, what the Marrow Controversy and its lessons teach us is that one's creedal theology may be entirely biblical in its understanding of grace - and, at the very same time, our hearts still be dominated by legalism. For legalism is not a historical-theological error that comes and goes, but the repetition of the oldest lie there is: the fundamental lie about God's goodness that comes as naturally to us as breathing and that never fully leaves us, despite the substantial freedom we have from it in the gospel. It's this legalism that Jesus and Paul, Luther and Calvin, were dealing with in their day and that we must deal with ruthlessly in ours.
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
Arcade Fire & Morrissey
Two good articles over at The Believer.
One is a review of The Arcade Fire's first tour.
The other is a longer essay examining the phenomena of Morrissey's iconic status among his fan base, and, more specifically, his popularity among American Latinos. A couple of classic Smiths legends are repeated here, like the one about a crazed fan who took over a radio station and forced the DJ (at gunpoint) to play nothing but The Smiths for hours.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Summer of Deliverance
I just finished Summer of Deliverance, by Christopher Dickey about his relationship with his famous poet-novelist father, James Dickey. Although I've never read any James Dickey (I did see the movie Deliverance) I've heard stories about him from my step-father who was a student of his at USC. I knew that the elder Dickey was quite a character and had read a couple of positive reviews of this book by his son.
The book is not a biography of either man; it's a semi-autobiography of a relationship between father and son written from the son's perspective. The story told is far from rosy; James Dickey was a dedicated narcissist, more devoted to his artistic craft and the persona that arose from his success than to his family. He was a serial adulterer, a mean drunk, a habitual liar and (at least in the opinions of many literary critics) a genius. The art world only read the poetry and his one great novel; Dickey's family had to live with the rest. Thus, Summer of Deliverance speaks powerfully to the question of the relationship between art, the artist's character and relationships. It's been far too easy for critics and readers to dismiss the destructive personal lives of many great artists as part of some necessary price they paid to make their work. Woody Allen quotes Oscar Wilde (?) to the effect that "Ode to a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies." But when one of the old ladies in question is your mother - as it was in Christopher Dickey's case - the statement, and the lifestyle it's intended to defend, is revealed as simply cruel.
What's most remarkable about Summer of Deliverance, however, isn't the pain of James Dickey's family life; it's the story of a redemption long sought and finally experienced by the father and son in their relationship. Christopher Dickey has given a gift to all fathers, sons, and artists in this wise, moving book.
The book is not a biography of either man; it's a semi-autobiography of a relationship between father and son written from the son's perspective. The story told is far from rosy; James Dickey was a dedicated narcissist, more devoted to his artistic craft and the persona that arose from his success than to his family. He was a serial adulterer, a mean drunk, a habitual liar and (at least in the opinions of many literary critics) a genius. The art world only read the poetry and his one great novel; Dickey's family had to live with the rest. Thus, Summer of Deliverance speaks powerfully to the question of the relationship between art, the artist's character and relationships. It's been far too easy for critics and readers to dismiss the destructive personal lives of many great artists as part of some necessary price they paid to make their work. Woody Allen quotes Oscar Wilde (?) to the effect that "Ode to a Grecian Urn is worth any number of old ladies." But when one of the old ladies in question is your mother - as it was in Christopher Dickey's case - the statement, and the lifestyle it's intended to defend, is revealed as simply cruel.
What's most remarkable about Summer of Deliverance, however, isn't the pain of James Dickey's family life; it's the story of a redemption long sought and finally experienced by the father and son in their relationship. Christopher Dickey has given a gift to all fathers, sons, and artists in this wise, moving book.
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Open
Well I'm biting the bullet and starting this, against the swarm of urges to qualify everything to death, to fend off all possible judgments. But there's alot of wisdom in not taking yourself too seriously, although I realize that blogs can be an exercise in precisely the opposite. Public narcissism ain't pretty. But neither is hiding in self-conscious fear or a perfectionism that demands everything be 'just so.'
So we'll see what happens.
I'd like to post on whatever comes to mind, but will probably discuss theology, parenting, kids, psychology, music, movies, books, pastoring, church life. I may post sermons, papers, reviews and stuff like that too.
Peace.
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