Last week, a co-worker drew my attention to a foundation that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has created. It is the International Olympic Truce Centre (see here for the official website, and for the sources of the various quotations that follow… also note the way in which the IOC dominates the Board of Directors). Even thought the Centre was founded in 2000CE, it traces it’s origins back to the first Olympiad (c.776BCE) when a truce (ekecheiria) was established between the various Greek city-states for the sake of the Games, and also roots itself in the events of 1894CE, when the IOC was established “with the goal of contributing to a peaceful future for humankind through the educational value of sport”. Thus, the Olympic Truce calls “upon humanity to lay down its weapons and to work towards building the foundations of peace, mutual respect, understanding and reconciliation” and calls “for all hostilities to cease during the Olympic Games and beyond”.
Now, in my opinion, this is a fantastic example of ideology at work in the worst possible way. I’m not just talking about their fascinating historical narrative; rather, this becomes blatantly obvious when one realizes that the Olympics themselves are a fundamentally violent event (a lot of literature and websites exist detailing how this is the case, but you could start here for some easy reference points). The Olympics are consistently employed to destroy poor communities and environmental safe havens, steal real estate, criminalize poverty, erode civil rights, and place a vast amount of wealth in the hands of the already wealthy, while forcing tax payers to pick up the bills.
So, we notice the extremely narrow definition of violence employed by the Olympic Truce. Violence is understood as doing things like striking another person, destroying property or pulling down security barriers (erected on public land). However, things like destroying precious natural habitats, tearing down poor communities, and stealing housing from those with low incomes are not considered violent. Perhaps, an appropriate illustration of this sort of thinking would be to consider a scenario wherein a man is raping a woman and telling her not to fight back because more people should be committed to peace and the cessation of hostilities! Essentially, the IOC wishes to rape us and our resources, while imposing an ideology upon the public that preempts and counters those who wish to fight back.
Not only this, but the IOC, via the Olympic Truce Centre, is rooted in a position of power and influence so that it can impose its narrow definition of violence upon others. This is why the Olympic Truce Centre and the IOC can speak the language of peace and nonviolence and call for an end to hostilities during the Games… while simultaneously spending around $900 million on its security budget, bringing in 4500 soldiers, over 5000 private security guards, and masses of police and RCMP from all across Canada (the total number of people on the force is something like 16000+). Not only this, but the Olympic Security forces are also authorized to use a number of weapons upon civilians — teargas, pepperspray, fists and boots being fairly standard, but the recently developed ‘Long Range Acoustic Device’ has also been cleared for use on protesters. One might be inclined to take the Olympic Truce Centre more seriously if they were simultaneously disarming the cops — who have a proven track record of employing force in anything but moderation at protests of the sort that are expected to occur in the next week. But, of course, the rhetorical power play is that these forces and weapons are necessary to maintain our safety and security. Nobody stops to consider that the protesters themselves are acting out of their concern for the safety and security of the environment, the marginalized, and the general public. To further the illustration used above, the Olympic Truce Centre is like the man who threatens a woman and tells her she’ll “get it twice as bad” if she fights back while being raped, so best just roll over and take it.
But, thank God, there are many people who will not roll over and take it. The truth is that there can be no truce while the people are being raped — the precursor to peace is the cessation of the Olympics in their current manifestation (if not altogether). That is to say, we will stop fighting back when we are no longer being raped. It’s that simple. So, this is why I will be participating in some of the mass actions that are taking place by those who wish to disrupt these Games, reveal their true Spirit and, as much as possible, shut them down (see this schedule for more on those). I encourage anybody in the Vancouver area to come out and show their solidarity with the people — and come not so that you can say you ‘were there’, and not to be more hip than your roommate, and not to engage in some simulacrum of action or some counter-cultural spectacle that eases your conscience; no, come to succeed and be prepared to take some risks and pay a price to get there (although this information might help). I hope to see you there.
January Books
Just a few:
1. Occidental Eschatology by Jacob Taubes.
If you’re ever feeling a little cocky and starting to pride yourself on your intellectual abilities, I suggest you read this book and recall that Jacob Taubes wrote it when he was 23 years old. Holy shit. That’s a good reality check.
Anyway, in this book (the only one Taubes published during his lifetime… although he did publish a number of articles), Taubes demonstrates the impact that (an inherently revolutionary) apocalyptic eschatology has had upon Western philosophy, politics and spirituality. In order to do this, he traces the ways in which the apocalyptic eschatology of early Judaism is caught up by early Christianity, revived by medieval theologians, and secularized by Lessing, Kant, Hegel, Marx and Kierkegaard.
I quite enjoyed this book, given that I’m currently writing my chapter on Paul’s (revolutionary) apocalyptic eschatology and contrasting to the consummated eschatologies of imperial Rome and contemporary Capitalism. It appears that Taubes is always fun to read, and I look forward to continuing on with him.
2. Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies by David Bentley Hart.
I have almost entirely avoided the conversation that has circled around the so-called ‘new atheists’. I have done this, to be honest, because I find most of that conversation to be dull and overwhelmingly stupid. This is not to say that I think that atheists are stupid — all of the atheists (and agnostics) I know are quite bright and, in fact, far more intelligent than Dawkins et al. (and, to be fair, far more intelligent than a good many who waste their time responding to Dawkins et al.). Thus, while I have poked around a very little bit in books by Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris, watched a few online lectures by Dennett, and read a couple great articles in response to these fellows (see here and here), I have mostly thought that this conversation was so obviously missing the point and so full of inaccuracies that any person with a minimal level of intelligence — regardless of their own a/religious views — would write off the whole thing.
So, when I noticed that David Bentley Hart — who is probably up there amongst the most well-learned and intelligent people in the Academy today (which means that Dawkins et al. probably couldn’t even understand the words that he uses, let alone follow the argument he makes in a book like The Beauty of the Infinite) — had written a book engaging this conversation, I got curious as to why he bothered and so I finally picked up a copy last month.
Basically, Hart is a little bit offended and a little bit puzzled by the ways in which the new atheists reconstruct the history of Christianity and its impact upon the Western world. Basically, according to this reconstruction, Christianity has been an entirely violent, negative, destructive, and oppressive force (religion spoils everything, according to Hitchens). Now while this may be true in some ways, and within some places in the West, to paint the entire history of Western Christianity in this way is blatantly false. Thus, what Hart does, is demonstrate to the reader that Christianity has done more good than harm to the development of our culture, ethics, and sense of personhood. Along the way, he also demonstrates that the Classical Greco-Roman culture wasn’t nearly so great as a good many of the new atheists imagine, that the new atheists themselves are depending upon a Christian heritage for the ethics they expound, and that the history of irreligious modernity has actually been much more violent than Christianity has been.
Of course, none of this is to say whether or not atheists or theists are correct to posit the non/existence of God. Hart’s point is not to convert anybody to Christianity. Rather, leaving such questions to the side, Hart is simply engaging in an historical exercise and reminding the reader of what actually has and has not gone on since Christianity began. His conclusions, I think, are no surprise to anybody with a basic knowledge of history but they are, perhaps, are useful reminder to a good many who are drawn to the new atheists and who lack any awareness of history.
Oh, and after finishing the book I thought I would see if anybody amongst the new atheists had responded to Hart’s argument. All I could find was one posting on Richard Dawkin’s webpage, regarding a radio interview Hart did about the book. This is what Dawkin’s said:
Did ANYONE manage to listen to this all through without nodding off? Surely theology must be the ONLY academic subject in which such a stupefying bore, with such yawning chasms of intelligence-deficit, could rise to the top (see here for the whole thread).
Yep. That’s all. As far as I can tell, the new atheists haven’t responded to the substance of Hart’s argument because it is about as irrefutable as arguments from history can get.
3. The Recognitions by William Gaddis.
One of the reading goals I set for myself about a year ago was to not worry about reading so many books and instead focus on books that I have been putting-off due to their length. Consequently, when the folks over at AUFS started a reading group about The Recognitions, I decided to join in.
I’m glad that I did — this is one helluva good book. Of course, this doesn’t mean that it’s an easy book to read — Gaddis is fairly demanding of his readers, so don’t expect to open it up and skim through it while watching repeat episodes of ‘Jersey Shore‘ (trust me, I tried… and, yes, I don’t care what you have to say about ‘The Wire’, ‘Jersey Shore’ is probably the best show to ever air on television). But it is worth the effort. Gaddis’ prose is fantastic both in sustained sections — like the conversations that occur at a certain Christmas party — but also in some really brilliant short lines — as when one character says to another: “Sincerity becomes the honesty of people who cannot be honest with themselves” (any experienced liar — i.e. most of us — should be able to immediately identify with that!).
Basically, in this novel, I understand Gaddis to be exploring the various ways in which identity is both constructed and masked — by ourselves and by others, but also by our participation in things like art, religion, and business. Very quickly, it becomes difficult to discern between the ‘true’ identity of a character and between a mask that is worn or any identity that others (including the reader) project onto that character. Just as significantly, it becomes difficult to determine which is of greater value — the ‘true’ identity, the mask, or the projection (hence, moments of ‘recognition’ produce rather mixed results). Despite what Gaddis may or may not have intended when writing this, reading it certainly made me draw closer to Baudrillard’s variation of nihilism (i.e. all we can engage are simulacra devoid of any originals), or to Zizek’s assertion that the trauma of the Real is that there is no Real (i.e. the Real is a gap or absence). This has got me doing a lot of thinking around truth and lying, constructions of reality, notions of self, and all that fun stuff. Really, this novel is the first I have read in awhile that has really caused me to seriously revisit and attempt to clarify some of my own thoughts on matters extending beyond the text (so props to the guys at AUFS — but I think your next discussion group should be based on ‘Jersey Shore’!).
4. Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut.
I recently lent a couple of Vonnegut books to a brother of mine (who ended up enjoying them quite a lot) and so I thought I would pick something up as well. Armageddon in Retrospect is a series of pieces — some letters, some stories, some speeches — published posthumously. As with most things Vonnegut writes some are better than others, but I was particularly interested in reading the letter he wrote to his family in 1945 (shortly after living through the fire-bombing of Dresden) as well as the speech he was to deliver in 2007 (he died shortly before the event and so his son delivered the speech for him). Those were really the best two sections in the book, and most of the short stories were kind of ho-hum.
I’ve been thinking about what it is in Vonnegut’s writing that appeals to me and I think a lot of it has to do with the manner in which he approaches his subject matter. To begin with, I appreciate what I take to be Vonnegut’s honesty. He doesn’t sugarcoat the nature of the world we live in — it is a monumental clusterfuck, wherein cities like Dresden get fire-bombed for no particular reason, and there isn’t much we can do about it (when commenting on the net effect of the Vietnam war protests, Vonnegut concluded: “We might as well have been throwing cream pies”). However, instead of this leading him to abandon all hope and give into rage or despair, Vonnegut persists in the pursuit of love in the midst of all the craziness. And not just love, but love with a little humour and a twinkle in the eye — even though, while loving and laughing, one never forgets the clusterfuck.
So it goes… and that about sums it all up, eh?
A Link (re: Haiti)
Since a lot of people are talking about Haiti these days, I thought I would highlight an important article.
This describes exactly what I thought would happen as soon as I first heard about the earthquake in Haiti. The United States and Canada have a long history of attempting to overthrow Haitian efforts to achieve democratic self-rule and I knew that the earthquake would be used as an opportunity to stage a military take-over under the guise of providing international aid. While the earthquake was absolutely devastating, I suspect that we will make sure that the Haitians are paying for this for many generations.
Once again, Naomi Klein’s theory in The Shock Doctrine is confirmed.
Typical…
So there is a (semi?) regular event that occurs in Vancouver every year called “Missions Fest” which is hosted by an international Christian corporation that travels around the world hosting these events and trying to connect Christians to various ‘mission’ opportunities around the world. This year’s event happened about a week ago and the keynote speaker was a fellow from International Justice Mission (which is, according to their website, “a human rights agency that secures justice for victims of slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of violent oppression”). Oh, and the event was hosted in a megachurch — it has a multimillion dollar budget, building funds the run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, that sort of thing.
Anyway, a friend of mine who runs a local community-based social justice-oriented group called Streams of Justice was invited to come and do a workshop at this event. Although this sort of thing is a bit outside of their usual sphere, some people from the group decided to go ahead and take a stab at it. So, they did a presentation on some of the factors that create and perpetuate poverty, oppression, violence, and slavery in Vancouver. As a part of their presentation, a homeless fellow who struggles with an addiction was invited to come and share his story. The presentation went well enough, I guess. They received the standard sort of Conservative Christian response (i.e. one fellow stood up and said: “But don’t you think that the real solution to all of these problems is a personal relationship with Jesus?”).
Anyway, my friend ended up taking off shortly after the presentation was finished and he caught up with the homeless fellow a few days later and asked him what he thought of the event. Well, it turns out that the homeless fellow got kicked out. After the event, he began to go around collecting empty pop cans (this is how he makes money). While doing so he was confronted by some sort of staff member (either of the church or of the conference, it’s unclear which), who told him that the cans were the property of the church and who then required him to leave.
Yep, so here we have a bunch of rich Christians dropping thousands of dollars on a conference about missions and justice, and the one homeless guy who is invited to attend gets kicked out because, dammit, the church is going to get the money for recycling those cans. Sadly, while this is atrocious, I don’t find it altogether surprising.
Something Different (Movies)
Well, I’ve written about books and about music, so I thought I’d write a post about the top five movies I watched last year.
The movie that jumped out at me the most is a documentary that first aired in 2003 called “The Origin of AIDS“. This documentary tells the story of how the AIDS pandemic was quite likely created by a Polish-American doctor who was experimenting on African populations in the 1950s in order to try and win the race to create the best Polio vaccine. This doctor, Hilary Koprowski, did in fact create the vaccine that was used to eradicate polio and he has been treated as a hero in the medical community. Naturally, then, there has been a lot of controversy around this documentary, but I find it’s thesis — and the evidence is presents — compelling. It’s all quite devastating. Not only did Western colonialism create deep poverty in Africa but it quite possibly created the AIDS pandemic (the same pandemic it refuses to address seriously, given the way Western pharmaceutical companies continue to hold on to the copyrights of medication that can be used to properly treat HIV/AIDS).
The second film that jumped out at me was “Hunger” (2008), which tells the story of Bobby Sands, a member of the IRA who led a prison-based hunger strike in 1981, in an effort to have the IRA become recognized as a political (and not criminal) faction. There is some really fascinating dialogue in this film, including one long uncut conversation that occurs between Sands and a Catholic priest. I almost never watch movies multiple times, but I watched this one three times last year. It’s a very moving portrayal of a person whose commitment to life — and life for all — leads him to embrace death (Sands starves to death along with several others). Further, the portrayals of others involved — like one prison guard who appears to be the guy designated to beat the prisoners — is one that refuses to take sides, but portrays the humanity of everybody involved.
Another documentary that I found interesting was “Born Rich“. It also aired in 2003 and was created by Jamie Johnson, the heir to the Johnson & Johnson Inc. empire. Jamie is friends with other young people who grew up amongst the super-rich — heirs of giant media, sports, or real estate empires, members of European royal families, and so on. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the brokenness, loneliness, opulence and even guilt experienced by those who grow up in this rather limited social circle. In fact, I even found myself feeling some sympathy towards a number of the young people who appear in this film. It would be very interesting for a discussion group to watch this film in conjunction with the more famous documentary, “Born Into Brothels“.
Finally, my fourth and fifth picks are “Darkon” (2007) and “Guys and Dolls” (2007). Both of these films look at groups of people who, in one way or another, have created a ‘fictional’ world full of alternate relationships, and wherein they find their deepest sense of meaning and identity. So, in “Darkon” we follow group of “Live Action Role Players” (i.e. LARPers) — everyday people who go off questing in the woods on the weekend dressed like wizards, warriors, and amazons (I know, right? It doesnt get much better than this!). It is as these characters, the the members of Darkon are able to truly live life. Similarly, in “Guys and Dolls” we encounter some men who have developed relationships with “Real Girl” sex dolls (which sell for around $10,000). It is these relationships that these men experience as the most fulfilling aspect of their lives. I found both of these documentaries to be entertaining and fascinating and they led me to ask questions about the ways in which all of us structure the world in which we live. I mean, are these people really doing anything different than Christians who go to church and undestand themselves to be ‘beloved children of God’? Or, to pick another example, are they different than corporate business people who go to yoga classes in order to affirm their internal goodness and transcendence (despite the brutal material actions they take in their day-to-day jobs)? Maybe, maybe not. A conversation worth exploring.
Hostipitality
I was chatting with a good friend the other night and he made an interesting statement. Having spent the last 20 or more years seeking to practice hospitality by sharing his home with others (i.e. he was living in a ‘new monastic’ community, long before that term was coined), he has become increasingly dissillusioned with the efficacy and value of this model. Instead, he and his wife will be selling their home and will begin living below the poverty line (perhaps in a squat, or in a van, or somewhere else). When reflecting upon this, he stated that he has come to the conclusion that hospitality can only be practiced within the context of justice. Living as we do within the context of deeply rooted injustices, he concluded that hospitality is not possible. Therefore, we agreed that talk of hospitality needs to be reframed around the concrete practice of mutuality, just as talk about charity needs to be reframed around the concrete practice of solidarity. I think such a reframing has potential. Any other thoughts?
Something Different (Music)
Well, a lot of people and places were busy posting lists of top songs and albums of 2009 over the last few weeks. For the most part, I found 2009 to be a slow year in music but there were a few albums that really grabbed me — “Hospice” by The Antlers (which now ranks amongst my top albums of all time) and “Dragonslayer” by Sunset Rubdown. However, instead of posting album reviews, I think I’ll just put up some links to my five favourite songs from last year (limit of one per band). As is usual for me, the way I connect with the lyrics of songs plays a very large role in how much I enjoy those songs. I think that the lyrics to all of these songs are fantastic (the first two were literally breath-taking for me) so you may want to look them up.
1. “Epilogue” by The Antlers.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQwkbRVqqxU]
2. “Nightingale/December Song” by Sunset Rubdown.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eh6jWLmKcc]
3. “Daniel” by Bat For Lashes (she’s singing this song for me, ya know?)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfWzmSelCis]
4. “Rocking Horse” by The Dead Weather (I’m not usually a fan of Jack White and his many projects, but this song is fantastic).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtoL7y9jEyQ]
5. “1 John 4:16” by The Mountain Goats.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KocfvqK_4yM]
And one honourable mention — “The Economy is Suffering… Let It Die” by Anti-Flag!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-NqzIRmQjc]
Have you lost faith?
About a week or so ago, my wife asked me: “Have you lost your faith in humanity?” The question caught me off guard but what really surprised me was the realization that I have gone through a major paradigm shift in this regard.
You see, I used to believe that people were fundamentally good and, more importantly, loving. I used to think that many of us were wounded or deceived or ignorant… but I believed that these were all things that love, patience, and truth-telling could fix. Therefore, as I woke up to the deep injustices in our society — and to the absolutely unecessary sufferings of many — I wanted to do something to address those things and I assumed that others would want to do this as well. In particular, I assumed that others with similar worldviews to my own (Christians) would be keen to be better lovers of others once they realized what was going on in the world and right under their noses. Thus, as I began to journey alongside of those in exile, I also began to speak and write a great deal about these things.
However, as I have done this over the years, I have realized that most people (and most Christians) aren’t actually particularly interested in loving others or doing much of anything about the injustices that define our lives. Despite my various efforts to appeal to their intellects, to their emotions, and to their values — despite all my arguing, cajoling, begging, and provoking — most everybody remains untouched and keeps on doing what they’re doing without much concern for their neighbours.
This used to frustrate and anger me quite a lot… but I’ve realized that it frustrated and angered me because of the expectation I had for others — I had assumed that people were generally good and generally desiring to love others. I have since had to let go of this expectation. And it is this ‘letting go’ that could be described as my loss of faith in humanity.
Now I have come to believe that most people won’t change all that much over their lives and most people won’t ever give much of a damn about most others or about what goes on in our world. For now, I have learned to accept this. I don’t hold it against anybody. It is what it is. Instead of anger and frustration, I have learned resignation. I no longer expect much of anything of anybody. And maybe that’s what it means to practice grace.
(Oh, and I’ve also learned not to expect much of myself either. That might be what it means to practice humility.)
Books of 2009
Well, in 2009 it appears that I read 54 books, which is quite a bit less than each of the last three or four years, but is not surprising given everything that happened last year. Also, given that most of my ‘academic’ reading time has been designated for the thesis/book I am writing on Paul, it’s not surprising that the fiction category dominates. In each category I’ve placed a (+) next to the book I considered the best in that category and a (-) next to the book I considered the worst. In some categories, this was harder to determine than in others. My ‘book of the year’ award would be a tie between Rilke’s Duino Elegies and Dunn’s second volume of Christianity in the Making.
Biblical Studies (9)
- Badiou, Alain. Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism.
- Carter, Warren. John and Empire: Initial Explorations.
- Dunn, James D. G. Beginning from Jerusalem: Christianity in the Making, Volume 2. (+)
- Ehrman, Bart D. Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (and Why We Don’t Know About Them).
- Hardin, Justin K. Galatians and the Imperial Cult: A Critical Analysis of the First-Century Social Context of Paul’s Letter.
- Jennings, Jr., Theodore W. Reading Derrida/Thinking Paul: On Justice.
- Kim, Seyoon. Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luke. (-)
- Meggitt, Justin J. Paul, Poverty and Survival.
- Taubes, Jacob. The Political Theology of Paul.
Theology and Christian Life (6)
- Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics II.2: The Doctrine of God. (+)
- Benson, Bruce Ellis and Peter Goodwin Heltzel (eds). Evangelicals and Empire. Christian Alternatives to the Political Status Quo.
- Gutierrez, Gustavo. The Power of the Poor in History.
- McLaren, Brian D. The Last Word and the Word After That: A Tale of Faith, Doubt, and a New Kind of Christian.
- Nouwen, Henri J. M. The Inner Voice of Love.
- Woodley Matt. The Folly of Prayer: Practicing the Presence and Absence of God. (-)
Philosophy and Social Theory/Commentary (11)
- Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. (-)
- Churchill, Ward. Pacifism as Pathology.
- Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization.
- Gelderloos, Peter. How Nonviolence Supports the State.
- INCITE! (ed). The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex.
- Kropotkin, Peter. Fugitive Writings.
- Lenskyj, Helen Jefferson. Olympic Industry Resistance: Challenging Olympic Power and Propaganda.
- Malia, Martin. Alexander Herzen and the Rise of Russian Socialism.
- Rancière, Jacques. Hatred of Democracy.
- Žižek, Slavoj. Violence. (+)
- ________. First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.
Literature, Poetry, Plays, Art (28)
- Baldaev, Danzig (ed). Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia, Vols. 1 & 3.
- Burns, Charles. Black Hole.
- Camus, Albert. The Just.
- Egil’s Saga (Penguin Classics Edition).
- Goncharov, Ivan. Oblomov.
- Goya, Francisco. The Disasters of War.
- Hesse, Hermann. Demian. (-)
- ________. Gertrude.
- McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian Or the Evening Redness in the West.
- ________. Child of God.
- ________. No Country for Old Men.
- ________. The Road.
- Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman.
- Rilke, Rainer Maria. Duino Elegies & The Sonnets to Orpheus. (+)
- ________. Uncollected Poems.
- Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead.
- Salinger, J. D. Franny and Zooey.
- Saramago, José. Blindness.
- Stegner, Wallace. The Big Rock Candy Mountain.
- Toews, Miriam. A Complicated Kindnes.
- Undset, Sigrid. The Wreath.
- ________. The Wife.
- ________. The Cross.
- ________. Gunnar’s Daughter.
- Updike, John. Rabbit is Rich.
- ________. Rabbit at Rest.
- Zigrosser, Carl (ed). Prints and Drawings of Käthe Kollwitz.
December Books
Well, a couple of really good books to end the year:
1. Beginning from Jerusalem: Christianity in the Making, Volume 2 by James D. G. Dunn.
I have an ever increasing amount of respect for James Dunn as a scholar. In fact, I am beginning to think that he is the quintessential scholar. He is extraordinarily thorough in his research and appropriately cautious in his conclusions. He is aware of the various angles taken on the matters at hand, and he is also aware of the limits confronted by those who study material that is a couple thousand years old. Further, of all the biblical scholars I have read (and I have read a good many of them), Dunn seems to be the person who is most genuinely trying to confront the biblical con/texts on their own terms, instead of pushing his own agenda.
All of this is put into practice in Beginning From Jerusalem, Dunn’s 1300+pp volume on the development of Christianity from approximately 30-70CE. Understandably, the bulk of the work is focused on Paul’s life and letters, and it was interesting to see how Dunn’s thinking on Paul has progressed since he wrote his (also impressive) The Theology of Paul the Apostle. I was particularly interested in Dunn’s understanding of the social status of Paul and the members of the ekklesiai he helped to develop, as well as Dunn’s understanding of the importance of the imperial cult and Paul’s relation to it. I was glad to see Dunn paying more attention to these matters and highlighting their significance to a greater degree than he has done in the past (he admits, in conversation with N. T. Wright, that these matters weren’t on his radar when he wrote his book on Pauline theology and since that conversation — in that conversation he seems more hesitant to ascribe significance to political affairs, but in Beginning from Jerusalem, it seems that he now sees more of a tense relationship between Pauline theology and the imperial ideology [see here for that conversation]). However, Dunn doesn’t come to many conclusions about these things in this volume, which was a bit disappointing to me. He simply makes some observations, states some of his hesitations (for example, he thinks that Justin Meggitt overstates his case in Paul, Poverty, and Survival but he doesn’t say why he has come to this conclusion), and does not draw any comprehensive conclusion about Paul’s relationship to the dominant politics of his day (of course, given that such an endeavour would have probably added another 100pp to this already massive volume, it’s understandable that Dunn draws the line where he does).
That said, let me repeat that this is really an extraordinary book and one that I think should be required reading for anybody studying the New Testament or the origins of Christianity. I look forward to reading Volume 3.
2. Church Dogmatics II.2: The Doctrine of God by Karl Barth.
I have discovered something surprising as I have been (very slowly) working my way through Barth’s dogmatics. The surprising thing is this: Barth is pretty much the only author I read who consistently stirs up ‘devotional’ feelings in me. That is to say, when I was younger I used to do a lot more ‘devotional’ reading that would somehow make me feel as though I was closer to God or communing with God or whatever. In the last half dozen years, that feeling has mostly disappeared from my reading (although those like Nouwen and von Balthasar can still sometimes stir it in me). However, for whatever reason, I find that reading Barth leads me to feel that way fairly consistently. This is pleasantly surprising (to me, anyway) given that the Church Dogmatics are often considered to be an daunting and heavy theological enterprise.
Anyway, I greatly enjoyed the first half of this volume, which was focused upon the concept of election. Much of what Barth had to say in that section was very beautiful and I loved the way he reworked the traditional Calvinist notion of double predestination — according to Barth, it is Jesus Christ who is predestined to face the damning wrath of God so that all humanity is predestined to be saved in Christ. Indeed, after reading through the dogmatics up to this point, I am having trouble in seeing how Barth can be anything but a (hopeful) universalist.
The second half of the volume, focused upon theological ethics, was a little more dry and disappointing. I was hoping for a little more direct ethical engagement but the section focused more upon the foundation of ethics (which is appropriate, I guess, given that this section falls within Barth’s doctrine of God).
All in all, a good read, and I’m looking forward to moving on to CD III.1 (and I’m also relieved to have finished this before the end of the year, as I’ve been intending to read at least one volume per year, until I finish the CD, and I didn’t think I was going to make it this year).
3. The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence.
This is a really fantastic collection of essays, written by scholarly activists, personally invested in a range of local community organizations. It should be required reading for most people involved in social work, non-profits, or the ‘helping professions’ more generally (especially those in positions of management).
What this book does is explore the various ways in which non-profits have been co-opted and used to divert social movements from their intended goals of engaging in the radical transformation of society. Thus non-profits, despite the good intentions of those invested in them, become a way of maintaining the (oppressive) status quo, rather then being agents of significant socio-political and economic change (hence, the ‘non-profit industrial complex’ (NPIC) is defined as ‘a set of symbiotic relationships that link political and financial technologies of state and owning class control with surveillance over public political ideology, including and especially emergent progressive and leftist social movments’; thus, the NPIC is a natural corrolary to more famous remarks that have been made about the ‘prison industrial complex’ and the ‘military industrial complex). This is then demonstrated in relation to multiple movements that occured in America in the last sixty years — the black civil rights movement, the American Indian Movement, women’s movements, and urban movements to build community and overcome poverty. Some areas that face particularly heavy criticisms are those related to funding and philanthropy, those related to the professionalization of social workers and of management (and the gap that grows between the two), and the ways in which non-profits become removed from intimate connections to the community of people whom they claim to serve.
I very highly recommend this book.
4. Madness and Civilization by Michel Foucault.
In this book, Foucault explores the various ways in which ‘madness’ was understood in Europe (and especially in France and England) during the period spanning from the late middle ages to the modern period. By studying madness in this way, Foucault comes to the conclusion that madness is, in fact, a cultural moral construct — i.e. what madness is understood to be, and how one is to relate to it, is determined by one’s historico-cultural location and one’s moral paradigms and presuppositions. This, then, challenges psychiatric and medical views which rose to hegemonic positions during the modern period, for these views (attempt but fail to, according to Foucault) remove madness from the realm of culture and of morality, and locate it as an independent ontological entity within the realm of medical science and psychiatry.
Like Foucault’s other histories — particularly those related to criminality and sexuality — I find this to be largely convincing. I think that Foucault is continually offering important correctives to the ways in which we have been culturally conditioned to think of these things and his conclusions certainly align well with my own experiences as I have journeyed alongside of a good many who have been called ‘mad’, ‘criminal’ or ‘perverse’. A good read.
5. Egil’s Saga (Penguin Classics Edition).
After reading and enjoying some books by Sigrid Undset (the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy and Gunnar’s Daughter), all of which were inspired by the old Norse and Icelandic sagas, I thought I would go back and begin to read some of those actual sagas. So, Egil’s Saga was my first foray into that territory. It focuses upon the life and family of Egil Skallagrimsson and covers the period of time from c.850-1000CE (although one should note that the earliest written fragment of this saga dates to 1240CE). It was a fun read, full of adventure, betrayal, murder, battles, and all the good stuff that one imagines when one thinks of vikings. Furthermore, although the nature of this sort of literature is quite different than the modern novel, it is interesting to note the complexity of character that is created — Egil is both vicious and petty but he is also intelligent, poetic, and fiercely loyal.
Also, as a bit of an aside, this book made me glad that I wasn’t born in the age of vikings. I never would have survived. From here, I’m hoping to track down either Njal’s Saga or the Laxdaela Saga. Good fun.
6. Demian by Hermann Hesse.
This book was something of a let down. Hesse can be a really good writer and can certainly string together some beautiful and insightful sentences — take this example from the Prologue (pardon the androcentric language and some of the German Romanticism):
What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men — each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature — are shot down wholesale. If, however, we were not something more than unique human beings and each man jack of us could really be dismissed from this world with a bullet, there would be no more point in relating stoires at all. But every man is not only himself; he is also the unique, particular, always significant and remarkable point where the phenomena of the world intersect once and for all and never again. That is why every man’s story is important, eternal, sacred; and why every man while he lives and fulfils the will of nature is a wonderful creature, deserving the utmost attention. In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Saviour is crucified.
Unfortunately, apart from a few stand-alone passages, I found this book to be rather dull. Basically, Hesse’s book is an exploration of the creation of a synthesis between Eastern mysticism and Western romantic individualism under the supervision of Nietzche’s reflections upon the revaluation of values and the Übermensch. So, while this may have been new and/or exciting at the time that Hesse wrote this book, it’s the sort of thing that has been done a thousand times since then and, to be honest, the sort of thing I find a little wearisome. Not recommended reading.