Anti-Imperialism

Halden has a couple of good posts on Christian political witness and anti-imperialism. Links below:

A Plea for Anti-Empire Polemics (1/20/2009)

"...not to say that critiques of Bush-style neoconservatism are wrong, rather it is that they are just far too easy. Any Christian critique of empire worth its salt must be able to do more than lob shots at the chicanery of the Bush administration. ... If America was an empire yesterday it remains one today despite the Obama administration’s proclamations of hope and seismic change. ... We will almost certainly see a lapse in the rush of anti-empire publications in the next few years. For far too many “progressive” Christians being anti-empire just means being anti-Bush. What is needed now, in light of the (false) hope of the newly inaugurated Obama presidency is ongoing critique of the problems of American empire."

The Ethics of Witness (2/18/2009)

"This puts the Christian in the extremely unpopular position of remaining a critic of all forms of earthly political sovereignty, even (especially?) when they seem to be becoming more morally appealing and worthy. ... What is important to note here is that the inherent antipathy of Christianity towards secular politics is not a negative reaction determined by that which it is against. It is rather the overflow of the abundant gift of life that is wrought by Christ in the resurrection."

Please go read the entire posts yourself.
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"Make me a channel of Your Peace."

-St. Francis

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Selections from Rudolfo Llinas Talk at UT

(click photo to link to source)

"There is no such thing as mind."

"The brain has but one function: to move intelligently, or intelligent motricity." (very close paraphrase of a central thesis)

"Life, a property of matter is, as are giraffes, inevitable." (direct quote from slide)

"We are not descended from monkeys, we are monkeys." (close to direct quote)

"Cells have personality!" Every individual neuron, as I understand it from his presentation, has a unique way of representing the external world. Cognition works by consensus. All of these individual, quirky representations are summed up and then, with so much variation, the only thing they have in common: that's the truth. Hence, a system made up of unreliable elements is much more reliable than a system made of of reliable elements. (Because if all the elements worked in the same way, 'reliably', then they could all be wrong in the same way.)

"There is no higher and lower!" The brain is a circuit. The thalamus is connected to the cortex, and then the cortex connects back to the thalamus (e.g., in vision). (Note: the cortex does not connect to the "soul".)

Consciousness is synchrony of thalamus & cortex. One provides information (content), the other provides context. When content is put into context, we have attention (consciousness).

Even pigeons recognize themselves in the mirror. All animals are self-aware. Dogs don't recognize themselves in mirrors, but they are not visual, rather they are olfactory. Unlike us, they can mark a fire-hydrant with their scent and recognize themselves there afterwards.

"It's beautiful!" (He used that word a lot. Not specifically of the cephalopod below, although he could have!)


He showed a video of a cephalopod hiding. These are different versions I found on YouTube of exactly the same video:



And in slow motion:


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"Make me a channel of Your Peace."

-St. Francis

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Romance -- no, not love. Apparently not theology, either.

On “Romance”

(It occurs to me that it would have made sense for me to do this on Valentine’s Day. Oh, well. My curiosity actually arose from my reading my World Religions textbook on Monday, however—I was reading in the chapter on Christianity about Schleiermacher and romantic theology. My driving question: how are all the various uses in contemporary English of “romance” and “romantic” related to one another?)

Let me trace the etymology of the word “romance”, with the help of the Oxford English Dictionary. The original, literal meaning of the word is: vernacular French (the language). This is as opposed to Latin (the non-vernacular). Presumably, this is because French—or at least the Latin of which it was at one point a dialect or offshoot (I’m not really a philologist so I’m not quite sure how this works)—was spoken in Rome, or associated with Romans. By extension, the term came to be applied to the whole group of languages descended from Latin.

So “romance” refers to a language, or a class of languages. What happens when you write a composition in that language? Well, then you have a “romance”. In particular, the OED informs us, a romance (by contrast with literary works in Latin, the non-vernacular) is “A tale in verse, embodying the adventures of some hero of chivalry, esp. of those of the great cycles of mediæval legend, and belonging both in matter and form to the ages of knighthood; also, in later use, a prose tale of a similar character.” I assume that this sort of literature was the most typical written in French, at least at one point in history. Le Morte d’Arthur comes to my mind here—a bit of a red herring, considering that (despite the title) this is actually a work of 15th century English literature (and, this is a prose work, not verse). I venture to guess that Mallory based this work, in part, off of older, French verses. So I suppose this gives us a good example of the “in later use” meaning.

A “romance” later becomes simply a novel; a prose work of fiction. (I think this is the meaning of the French roman?) OED tells us that a romance in this sense is more specifically, “A fictitious narrative in prose of which the scene and incidents are very remote from those of ordinary life; esp. one of the class prevalent in the 16th and 17th centuries, in which the story is often overlaid with long disquisitions and digressions.” Next, it says, a romance is “A romantic novel or narrative.” (Don’t you love it when dictionaries use inflected forms of a word to define that word? Actually, we can forgive OED here because it has already defined “romantic” non-circularly, i.e. earlier in the entry.) So, technically, a “romance” is a novel hearkening back to the “good-old days” of chivalry and knighthood, quests, and so on. “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, you surely realize, is therefore a romance film. I’m wondering if there could ever truly be such a thing as a feminist romance. (Of course, the proper response is, keep going in the entry for further evolutions of the meaning of the word [sorry, Julian, I mean the usage of the word, of course, and so throughout this post :-p].)

We’re at OED’s definition #4, now. A “romance” is “A Spanish historical ballad or short poem of a certain form.” This seems to make sense, given the extension of “romance” to refer to other Latin-derived languages than French, and the application of the term to verse in the appropriate language. (Why this form of Spanish verse is a “romance” and not others remains a mystery.) Now, the OED says something I find puzzling: “From Sp. romance, whence also F. romance.” Wait…unless I misunderstand the term “whence”, OED is claiming that the French word “romance” derives from the Spanish word “romance”. This seems odd to me, since the first meaning given in this entry meant the French language, specifically! Perhaps what this means is that “romance” began in French, to refer to French, was extended to certain types of French literature, was then borrowed by Spanish to refer to certain types of Spanish literature, and then borrowed back by French to refer to still more types of French literature. ?? Anyway, “a Spanish historical ballad” doesn’t seem implausibly far afield from our earlier definition, i.e. an Arthurian legend of chivalry (or some such).

This next definition is listed as 4b, which means it is closely related to the foregoing. “Mus. A short vocal or instrumental piece of a simple or informal character.” Is this because the Spanish ballads were set to a certain kind of music, which then became “romantic music”? (The 1881 Grove’s Dictionary of Music is cited here: “Romance, a term of very vague signification, answering in music to the same term in poetry, where the characteristics are rather those of personal sentiment and expression than of precise form.”) I suppose that’s where the writers of OED came up with the adjective “informal” to describe romantic music. (Sarah—how does this definition of romantic music strike you? There’s nothing else about music in the entry.)

Definition #5: (back to literature now), “That class of literature which consists of romances; romantic fiction. spec. a love story; that class of literature which consists of love stories.” Ah-ha! For the first time, romance is connected to love stories. (Presumably, our current understanding of “romantic” having to do with love comes from “romance” as a literary classification—having to do with language, form, and mythical-chivalrous content—happening (on occasion) to contain love stories as well.

Here’s 5b: “Romantic or imaginative character or quality; redolence or suggestion of, association with, the adventurous and chivalrous. spec. a love affair; idealistic character or quality in a love affair.” Perhaps this is what someone like Anne of Green Gables would mean by calling something “romantic”. (Something I’d like to know—can’t “tomboys” be romantic, or interested in romance, since they are [one on possible stereotype] interested in adventure rather than in playing lady to a knight?)

6. A “romance” can also be a lie, a fiction, a story, an untruth, a tall-tale, a false-hood, yes, a “whopper”. It helps if it is “picturesque”. Perhaps ordinary, un-extravagant, un-picturesque falsehoods wouldn’t qualify as romances. By the way, the parenthetical comment at the end of this entry made me blink a few times: “An extravagant fiction, invention, or story; a wild or wanton exaggeration; a picturesque falsehood. Also without article (cf. ROMAN CATHOLIC n. and a.).” Is there some suggestion here that Catholicism is “roman” or “romantic” because it is made-up or extravagantly false? No, silly! The point is merely that “romance”, meaning falsehood, can occur with or without the article, for linguistically related reasons to “Roman Catholic” occurring with or without the article.
Definition #7 is about “romance” making a contribution to various compound words.
Definition #8 is the last one in this entry, where it finally becomes an adjective (in the foregoing it has always been a noun): “Having the character or attributes associated with romance; chivalrous; romantic.” Notice again the close connection with chivalry, moreso than with love or romance in our common usage.

In all this, I haven’t had much help connecting “romance” to the Romanticism described by my World Religions book—i.e., post-Revolution French people’s longing to escape modern urban civilization and its corrupting influence, and to return to an idealized agrarian, village, family-oriented lifestyle—let alone to the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher. (BTW--When we say that Schleiermacher’s theology was romantic, we do not mean that he went about singing silly pop songs about being “in love” with Jesus, or “Jesus-is-my-boyfriend” songs, as is asserted by some to be a fashion of our own contemporaries.) Schleiermacher’s view was that emotion, not reason, was how people connect to God, and that religion is basically a “feeling of absolute dependence”. (Maybe some people would connect feeling absolutely dependent with a “Jesus-is-my-boyfriend” attitude—however, “absolute dependence” in my mind hardly characterizes a healthy romantic relationship, e.g. between husband and wife, lover and beloved).

Perhaps I’ll have to write a letter of complaint to the editors; the entry seems incomplete, and this is supposed to be an unabridged, definitive lexicon.
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"Make me a channel of Your Peace."

-St. Francis

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Brief Digression -- Literalism and Genesis

I'm following a series of posts on reading Genesis 2-3 (two posts so far) by "RJS" at Scot McKnight's blog "Jesus Creed" -- see link in the right-hand column of this page.

I want so share two bits of this conversation, and invite comment on related issues here (or on Facebook).

This is a list offered by one commenter of problems that arise when one attempts to read Gen 1-2 "literally".

Gen 1:

-- the universe, the earth, and life on earth were not created in 6 days. It's more like 14 billion years.

-- the earth was not in existence or in place before the Sun; the earth, like every other planet, arose through the gradual accretion of debris that coalesced over a long period of orbit around the Sun;

-- there is not and never was an expanse of waters above the earth

-- seed bearing plants were not the first kind of plants

-- the moon does not produce light

-- animals and humans were not all vegetarian

Gen. 2:

-- there was a weather cycle including rain by the time plants appeared

-- human beings did not appear suddenly out of nothing

-- the geography of the three rivers flowing out of Eden never existed (we know of two of the rivers, not the third, and they do not have a common headwater above the Persian Gulf)

-- conflict with Gen. 1: man created before animals in Gen. 2

-- male and female humans evolved together; women were not cloned from a man's rib

-- no angel with a flaming sword has yet been discovered in Iraq.

Gen. 3:

-- snakes do not talk

-- God does not walk

And this is from a comment by the same person about the complexities involved in trying to fix one meaning (rooted in authorial intent) for this text--or any Pentateuchal text:

So, I think we have multiple overlapping exegetical hermeuentical issues here:

-- what did the sources (presumably an oral tradition or traditions stretching back to Egypt and Mesopotamia) underlying Gen. 2 understand and intend those stories to mean;

-- what did the Yahwist author / community that first encoded this oral tradition "intend" Gen. 2 to mean;

-- what did the redacting community that compiled the Priestly and Yahwist traditions in Gen. 1 and 2 into a canonical text intend and understand it to mean;

-- what did the Apostolic authors of the NT literature referring to the canonical Hebrew scriptures intend and understand about their use of the Hebrew scriptures.

I would add at least one more: what did / does the Holy Spirit intend for this text to mean as inspired scripture?

I'm becoming more and more convinced that seeking out an individual, unified "authorial intent" isn't really all that helpful with this sort of text.

Here is the link to this commenter's own site (which I haven't visited, but will after posting this): http://www.tgdarkly.com/blog

What do readers think? How do you read Genesis 2-3? Do you aim to find a single meaning which is the Word of God in this text? Dr. Heth always said "one meaning; many applications", but I see difficulty in applying this to the Pentateuch or the OT in general because I'm not sure whose authorial/editorial intent counts, and I suppose that these texts were used during the canonization process to preach different messages to different situations-in-life in different generations. How can God speak to us through these texts?

Vi - a respondent on this post said (in reply to the list of problems raised by attempted literal readings of Gen 1-2) that C. John Collins' _Genesis 1-4_ seems to clear up a lot of these problems. Is this Dr. Collins a prof of yours? Not that that makes you accountable to speak for him or anything, but I'd welcome any insights you have, and I'm curious as to what impressions you formed in a Pentateuch class (assuming you took one) at Covenant.

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"Make me a channel of Your Peace."

-St. Francis

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Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, Articles 2 & 3: Jesus Christ & the Holy Spirit

At Toledo Mennonite Church, we are spending 24 days (starting today, Feb. 9, 2009) together as a congregation studying the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, one article at a time.

For more on the Confession of Faith, including a full text, go here.

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Here is the summary statement of Article #2, entitled "Jesus Christ". (Link to full-text):

2. We believe in Jesus Christ , the Word of God become flesh. He is the Savior of the world, who has delivered us from the dominion of sin and reconciled us to God by his death on a cross. He was declared to be Son of God by his resurrection from the dead. He is the head of the church, the exalted Lord, the Lamb who was slain, coming again to reign with God in glory.

One classic method of doing biblical Christology is to study the names or titles of Christ used in the Bible. What names does this article of the Confession call Jesus?

1. Jesus Christ
2. The Word of God made flesh
3. The Savior of the world
4. The Son of God with power
5. The Head of the Church
6. The Exalted Lord
7. The Lamb Who was slain
8. The only Foundation which is laid and can be laid
9. The Messiah
10. The Seed of David
11. Prophet of God's Kingdom
12. Teacher of Divine Wisdom
13. Faithful High Priest
14. King who chose the way of the cross
15. Servant
16. Preacher
17. Healer
18. The only Son of God
19. The One in Whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell
20. The image of the invisible God
21. Him through Whom and for Whom all things have been created
22. Our Lord and the not-yet recognized Lord of the world
23. The One Who shall be acknowledged Lord of all
24. The Lamb of God Who will reign forever and ever

Those who composed this article of this confession consciously gave it an Anabaptist flavor, by emphasizing:

"for example, Jesus' obedience and suffering in his work of atonement, his humility and servanthood as the pathway to exaltation, the believers' experience of Christ in the community of faith, the integration of faith and ethics, and peace as central to the character of Christ."

As has come out in a couple of recent conversations with Sarah, I tend to emphasize the Lordship of Jesus. Jesus is the Resurrected Son of God, the Exalted One, the One given authority over all things, to Whom I owe allegiance. (Even while my allegiance is chosen.) This Lordship is the basis of my anti-imperialist philosophy. And it is the basis of my hope--hope for the salvation of the world and the reconciliation of all things in Christ to God. In a recent study of Ephesians I saw clearly that Jesus' exaltation and authority--and our exaltation with Him--is the basis for our doing the works God has created us, in Jesus, to do. It is the basis for our mission--love of enemy, love of neighbor, proclamation of Jesus' Lordship over a world invaded by sin, injustice, violence, and death, invitation to reconciliation with each other and with God in the new man, Jesus. It is the basis of our spiritual gifts.

What of the humility of Jesus? Jesus is "the king who chose the way of the cross". Philippians tells us to have the mind of Christ in His chosen humiliation to death. What impact does this have on my theology and practice as a Christ-follower?

I think my pacifism must be rooted in Jesus' humility. It couldn't be rooted in Jesus' authority and kingship alone--that could root a kind of Constantinianism--or perhaps Cromwellianism--just as well, by itself.

I want to be pacific in my theological and philosophical discourse (but then, was Jesus? As Julian pointed out on Sunday, Jesus was apparently not afraid to shame his debate partners). I want to be like Jesus in not stopping my pursuit of the Kingdom of God because of resistance from the world and its powers, violent or otherwise. But too often I take the path of least resistance. Procrastination, for example, is much easier than work. And procrastination does not (usually) help me advance the Kingdom of God through my relationships to others. (Well, it depends on how I procrastinate.)

Jesus said, "My Kingdom is not of this world; if it was, my servants would be fighting." I need to go on asking myself: do I succumb to the world's rules as I seek to further the Kingdom of God? Am I even tempted? Do I recognize when I am so tempted?

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Here is the summary statement of Article #3, entitled "Holy Spirit". (Link to full-text):

3. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the eternal Spirit of God, who dwelled in Jesus Christ, who empowers the church, who is the source of our life in Christ, and who is poured out on those who believe as the guarantee of redemption.

In oneness with Jesus, the Spirit is my Lord and my God, and the Spirit is humble, nonviolent, and stops at nothing for the advancement of the Kingdom. The Spirit makes me, with other Christians, one in Christ. The Spirit empowers the members of the Church to do our work. Our having the Spirit is the sign of God's blessings, promises, and gifts to us. The Spirit is present and working through the members of the Body of Christ most when we are unified. Somehow, we must be unified in our diversity of faith and practice, because I believe the Spirit is present and active in the Church today. I want to see the Spirit in my brothers and sisters in Toledo Mennonite. I want to hear the Spirit's call, and feel the Spirit move me to act and use His gifts, given to me, well. I want our church to be visibly alive, the tangible Body of Christ in Toledo.

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"Make me a channel of Your Peace."

-St. Francis

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Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, Article 1: God

At Toledo Mennonite Church, we are spending 24 days (starting today, Feb. 9, 2009) together as a congregation studying the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective, one article at a time.

For more on the Confession of Faith, including a full text, go here.

The title of this document is very deliberate. There is no definite article in the title; it is neither the definitive confession of faith, nor is it the Mennonite perspective on the Christian faith (let alone the perspective of the Church of Jesus Christ on matters of doctrine). While according to the introduction to the Confession of Faith, Anabaptists have been writing confessions of this sort since the 1527 Schleitheim Articles, it has been my impression that Anabaptists are not so into creeds as certain other movements arising out of the Reformation have been. (My impressions on this point are, I believe, drawn from John Roth's Beliefs: Mennonite Faith and Practice: namely, that Anabaptists value "doing theology in community", emphasize "the priesthood of all believers" and Protestant notions of "sola scriptura", and see Anabaptist theology as an ongoing conversation albeit within a certain traditional framework). The Anabaptists of the Radical Reformation rejected, I think, the new Reformed scholasticism which defined orthodoxy in terms of a (practically) authoritative tradition that replaced the authoritative tradition of the Catholic Church. (My historical theology here is admittedly sketchy--please correct me if I am guilty of error!)

Still, the Confession of Faith in a Mennonite Perspective is intended by its authors to serve six stated functions:

(1) to provide guidelines for the interpretation of Scripture, while at the same time, the confession itself is subject to the authority of the Bible.
(2) to provide guidance for belief and practice; a written statement should support but not replace the lived witness of faith.
(3)to build a foundation for unity within and among churches.
(4)to offer an outline for instructing new church members and for sharing information with inquirers.
(5) to give an updated interpretation of belief and practice in the midst of changing times.
(6) to help in discussing Mennonite belief and practice with other Christians and people of other faiths.

It is my view that the Confession serves primarily a pedagogical and ecumenical purpose, and at the same time offers Mennonite-Anabaptist congregations with some basis for ongoing conversation as we practice doing theology in community. It provides a common framework, but not one with absolute authority. Our own congregation at TMC values its ideological diversity. I myself would offer the metaphor of the raft: we may be redesigning and rebuilding it while we are sailing on it, but we certainly need enough raft to stand on while we do so. (And there are limits to how radically we might redesign the raft without sinking and drowning!)

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Here is the summary statement of Article #1, entitled "God". (Link to full-text):

1. We believe that God exists and is pleased with all who draw near by faith. We worship the one holy and loving God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit eternally. God has created all things visible and invisible, has brought salvation and new life to humanity through Jesus Christ, and continues to sustain the church and all things until the end of the age.

The short devotional offered by one of our members for today is a meditation on 2 Corinthians 9:8:

And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.

He writes: "This verse describes for me some of the primary attributes of God as well as demonstrates God’s care for creation, especially those who have been created in God’s image."

Consonant with the historic, orthodox Christian faith, Mennonites believe in the Triune God as the whole Church confesses in the Nicene Creed. What we believe about God pertains to the acts of God in redemptive history. God is the Creator of heaven and earth. God has acted through Christ to give life to humanity in calling a community of faithful disciples. The article declares: "Beginning with Abraham and Sarah, God has called forth a people of faith to worship God alone, to witness to the divine purposes for human beings and all of creation, and to love their neighbors as themselves. (Gen. 12:2-3; Lev. 19:18; Rom. 4:11-25; 1 Pet. 3:9-11) We have been joined to this people through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ and by confessing him to be Savior and Lord as the Holy Spirit has moved us (Gal. 2:20; Rom. 3:22)."

Mennonite identity is centrally, first and foremost, membership in the people of God. We are a community of faith, not merely a class of individuals. And it is as a community that God--acting in Christ and in the Holy Spirit--has created us, His Church (see article #9).

We believe that God is beyond our understanding (Exod. 3:13-14; Job 37; Isa. 40:18-25; Rom. 11:33-36); yet we also believe that God has communicated truth to us about him. "We believe that what we know of God through revelation fits with who God really is." "God both surpasses human understanding and is truly knowable through revelation. Our knowledge of God rests in this tension."

We believe God is most fully revealed in the person of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, as the Nicene Creed says "very God of very God" (John 1:14, 18; Heb. 1:1-4).

We believe God is revealed as love. "We confess that in the divine being these attributes [which sometimes appear contradictory to us] are perfectly united." Yet, "according to Scripture, the love of God has a certain priority in relation to other divine attributes." So, we confess that God is "holy love", "almighty love", "preserving love", "righteous love", "redemptive love", "suffering love", and "faithful love" (Exod. 20:4-6; 34:5-7; Ps. 25:4-10; Isa. 6; 54:10; Matt. 5:48; Rom. 2:5-11; 3:21-26; 1 John 4:8, 16).

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Biblical theism is the cornerstone of Mennonite Christianitiy. Christianity is about being in relation to God, as part of a community of faith. Above all, God relates to us by His love--love which surpasses our comprehension and experience of human love, yet which is sufficiently analogous to our concept of love that the word--but more the experience of Jesus' life and actions--communicates God's nature to us.

As Rich Mullins wrote, "We didn't know what love was 'til He came, and He gave love a face, and He gave love a name".

Loving my neighbor as myself, one of two equally great commandments summing up the whole will of God for His people according to Jesus, means then to live as Christ lived with respect to all other human beings: clean or unclean, sinful or righteous, Jew or Gentile, Christian or non-Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or agnostic, friend or enemy.
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"Make me a channel of Your Peace."

-St. Francis

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