Well, since this seems to be a bit of a craze amongst certain bloggers, and since I love books so damn much, I thought I’d get in on this.
Number Of Books That You Own
Just under 500 — I told you I love books.
Last Book Bought
Performing the Faith: Bonhoeffer and the Practice of Nonviolence by Stanley Hauerwas. $9 and brand new… how could I say no?
Last Book Read
God, Medicine, And Suffering by Stanley Hauerwas. An intriguing look at the way our contemporary approach to medicine reveals how dominant societal narratives (or the lack thereof) are unable to address the question of suffering adequately. Hauerwas’ emphasis on the role that a community living a shared narrative plays in giving suffering meaning is, well, brilliant (but I wouldn’t expect anything less from him).
On My To-Read List
Oh boy…
Jesus Remembered by James D.G. Dunn.
Not Ashamed of the Gospel: New Testament Interpretations of the Death of Christ by Morna Hooker.
The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation by Jurgen Moltmann.
The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevski.
On Job by Gustavo Gutierrez.
The commentaries on First and Second Corinthians in The New Interpreter’s Bible Series.
Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman.
I could go on…
“Five” Books that Mean A Lot To Me
Well, I’ll pick five fiction books and five non-fiction ones, in no particular order.
Fiction
1. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. Easily Lewis’ greatest (and most under-rated) book.
2. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I want to be Jean Valjean.
3. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. Unfortunately, I am Jude Fawley.
4. The Brothers K by David James Duncan. I laughed, I cried. This narrative is more “god-haunted” than pretty much any other book I’ve read.
5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevski. This book really needs no introduction. Read it.
Shit… is that five already? Honourable mentions go to The Plague by Albert Camus, David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
Non-Fiction
1. Jesus and the Victory of God by N.T. Wright. There’s been a lot of books written about Jesus. This is easily the best one. You cannot read this book and be the same kind of Christian that you were before.
2. The Crucified God: The Cross of Christ as the Foundation and Criticism of Christian Theology by Jurgen Moltmann. The book changed my life more than anything else I’ve ever read (oh wait, except for the bible). You cannot read this book and believe in the same god that you did before.
3. A Theology of Liberation: History Politics and Salvation by Gustavo Gutierrez. This was my introduction to liberation theology and the first time I heard about “the preferential option for the poor.” It also put me onto other authors such as Sobrino, Boff, Segundo, Ellacuria…
4. Liberation Theology After The End Of History: the refusal to cease suffering by Daniel M. Bell Jr. A brilliant commentary on liberation theology, on capitalism, and on the ways in which the church needs to embody forgiveness by suffering redemptively/salvifically.
5. Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies by Noam Chomsky. This was the book the drew me into counter-cultural politics. For that reason Chomsky beats out other authors like Neil Postman or Naomi Klein.
Damn, so many others… Embodying Forgiveness: A Theological Analysis by L. Gregory Jones comes to mind, as does Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross by Michael Gorman, The Shape of the Church to Come by Karl Rahner, and pretty much anything by Hauerwas. Hope in Time of Abandonment by Jacques Ellul should really be on there as well. That book shook me pretty much as deeply as The Crucified God. It was that book that put me onto the whole idea of godforsakenness. I suspect that Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy, by Walter Brueggemann might make that list when I finish reading it.
The Symbol Gap
Psychic numbness is possible, says Lifton, because of a “gap of symbols,” meaning that a community lacks adequate symbols to mediate and communicate the horror and brutality of its own life. Thus where symbolic life in a community is thin, lean, or one-dimensional, violence can be implemented, accepted, and denied with numbed indifference.
~ Walter Brueggemann, commenting on the writings of Robert Jay Lifton [Jude, have you read anything by this guy?] in Theology of the Old Testament.
Tom Wright argues that Jesus, following the prophetic tradition, was a master of reworking symbols in meaningful ways (cf. Jesus and the Victory of God). Jesus was capable of taking the dominant symbols of the religion of his time and manipulating them in ways that made them come alive in urgent and often radically new ways.
If the contemporary Western church is to be transformed it must encounter people who, like Jesus and the prophets, are capable of rediscovering the power, and significance, of rich religious symbols that have now been reduced to trite and kitschy icons.
Similarly, if the church hopes to be a community that lives peaceably, if it hopes to live in the midst of all the darkness, blood and violence of reality, it must — as Lifton implies, and Brueggemann affirms — rediscover the symbols that it has to deal with the horror and brutality of real life. As Christianity has become a religion of a class of people who are committed to faking life, a people committed to maintaining an image that says everything is alright, all the time, symbols that speak of things not being okay have lost their meaning (as many people have pointed out before me, the cross was an instrument of torture, not a piece of costume jewelry [cf. esp. Martin Hengel's work on crucifixion]). Until the church regains the power of its symbols, until the church lives honestly in the midst of reality (cf. Jon Sobrino's Where is God?) violence will continue to be “implemented, accepted, and denied with numbed indifference.”
Mendacity
The problem with trying to be honest with others is that I first need to learn to be honest with myself. And that… well, that usually takes a lot of time.
But I think I'm finally there. I'm finally ready to speak honestly with others because I have finally spoken honestly with myself.
Bearing Witness
In his monolithic work, Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy, Walter Brueggemann continually argues that the Old Testament resembles a law court. Within the metaphor of a trial Brueggemann picks up on the role of a witness and says this:
The witness allegedly had access to [the] actual event, was there, saw it and experienced it, and so is qualified to give testimony.
Now if Christians seek to be witnesses [Gk: martyrion] to Jesus Christ they should have access to Jesus, they should have experience of (and with) Jesus. It is intimacy that qualifies Christians to give testimony about Jesus.
The contemporary lack of witnesses (exhibited especially in the lack of martyrs — martyrs understood in the more radical sense) suggests that there are relatively few who have actually encountered Jesus. The testimony of Christians today garners little credibility because it is generally a false testimony — it is people speaking of something they have not experienced and, therefore, something they know nothing about (for knowing God as a mental construct is quite different than knowing God as a person). Perhaps the largest way that this is exhibited is the fact that, as Brueggemann points out elsewhere in Theology of the Old Testament, the God in the Old Testament is primarily known for acting with transformative power in the midst of history. This God was known for his mighty deeds (cf. Gerhard von Rad). Yet most contemporary Western Christians live with little reliance upon God breaking into history. We have become much too engrossed in God's Being as opposed to God's doing. Which is why I am increasingly echoing the words that Karl Rahner used to say to his theology students: I do not know the God that you are speaking of.
All this brings me back, once again, to another Rahner quote: future Christians will either be mystics or they will cease to exist as Christians. By this he meant that Christians will have a genuine experience of (and with) God or they will (post-Christendom) have no reason to be Christians.
And, of course, the first step to knowing God is admitting how little we know God.
May Books
Well, no school + no television + no girlfriend = hella lotta books.
1. Cruciformity: Paul’s Narrative Spirituality of the Cross, Michael Gorman.
This is one of the best books I have read. Comparable (in caliber) to The Moral Vision of the New Testament by Richard Hays, I think that anybody who wants to accept or reject Christianity should read this book — here a genuine Christian spirituality is revealed. Those who have developed an affinity for the likes of Piper or McLaren should really read this book so that they can get a better understanding of what Christianity is all about. A much needed voice.
2. Where is God? Earthquake, Terrorism, Barbarity, and Hope, Jon Sobrino.
A poignant reflection upon the 2001 earthquakes in El Salvador, the bombing of the WTC, the bombing of Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. Sobrino is one of the best liberation theologians out there.
3. The Disappearance of Childhood, Neil Postman.
Picking up themes that are further developed in Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly, Postman argues that, with the decline of a typographic culture and the ascendancy of a visual culture, childhood is bound to disappear. He argues we have once again returned to the Dark Ages, where children are simply miniature adults (and adults are large children). I love Postman, he’s witty, intelligent, and is often bang-on with his socio-cultural critiques. Postman has said that, of his writings, this book is his favourite.
4. Dorothy Day: A Radical Devotion, Robert Coles.
Dorothy Day — one of those people that makes me want to become a Roman Catholic.
5. Prison Journals of a Priest Revolutionary, Philip Berrigan (edited).
Although one can’t help but wonder about a certain egoism in Berrigan’s writings, reading his journals is humbling for any who aspire to making sweeping (revolutionary) changes in our society. An interesting perspective on Vietnam from an American priest who was willing to be jailed for his religious convictions.
6. Dead Man Walking, Sister Helen Prejean.
Staying with the theme of American Catholic social activists… Prejean is quite an interesting voice. The things that struck me the most about this book were (a) the way in which she was unable to journey alongside of both the victims and the perpetrators of violent crimes (b) the way in which she gradually moves towards a more restorative approach to justice by the end of the book.
7. The Gulag Archipelago (I-II), Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn.
I think I stayed away from Solzhenitsyn for a long time because I was sick of people trashing the U.S.S.R. in order to make the West look righteous. A grievous and horrifying read — especially in light of Guantanamo Bay and other places where the U.S. is creating it’s own Archipelago.
8. Bread and Wine, Ignazio Silone.
Self-described as “a socialist without a party, and a Christian without a Church” this is Silone’s most autobiographical work. The ending completely shocked me. Completely. I think I actually gasped.
9. Poor Folk, Fyodor Dostoevski.
Dostoevski’s first book and the one that launched him into the circles of Russia’s literary elite. It’s interesting that, at the time, this book was considered radically empathetic.
10. The Double, Fyodor Dostoevski.
Dostoevski’s second work. It did not receive nearly as much acclaim as his first, due largely to the fact that is was misunderstood by a lot of critics. Quite an interesting look into mental illness — especially considering Dostoevski’s own struggle.
11. The Eternal Husband, Fyodor Dostoevski.
The best of these three short novels, Dostoevski writes a very compact, well put together story that picks up on themes that are more fully developed in The Idiot and The Possessed.
12. The Sorrows of Young Werther, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
It’s always interesting to go back and read something that totally took Europe by storm at the time it was published (and actually made Goethe a renowned author). But, being quite removed from that romantic period, I can’t say I really loved this work.
13. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, the Brothers Grimm.
Some people read encyclopedias in the washroom, others read magazines… I decided to read Fairy Tales.
14. Kissing Chaos, Arthur Dela Cruz.
Still looking for other graphic novel’s comparable to Craig Thompson’s. And still coming up empty.
Christian Relevance And Other Square Circles
“We have gotten used to regarding as valor only valor in war (or the kind that's needed for flying in outer space), the kind which jingle-jangles with medals. We have forgotten another concept of valor — civil valor. And that's all our society needs, just that, just that, just that! That's all we need and that's exactly what we haven't got.”
“When, in 1960, Gennady Smelov, a nonpolitical offender, declared a lengthy hunger strike in the Leningrad prison, the prosecutor went to his cell for some reason (perhaps he was making his regular rounds) and asked him: 'Why are you torturing yourself?'
And Smelov replied: 'Justice is more precious to me than life.'
This phrase so astonished the prosecutor with its irrelevance that the very next day Smelov was taken to the Leningrad Special Hospital (i.e. the insane asylum) for prisoners. And the doctor there told him:
'We suspect you may be a schizophrenic.'”
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
Although Solzhenitsyn does not explicitly link these two passages (they are ten pages apart) it is necessary to note that civil valor will be accompanied by a movement that others will perceive to be a movement into irrelevance. It is a desperate grasping for relevance that continually compromises the church [insert rant about Relevant Magazine here]. Such a movement is antithetical to following in the footsteps of Jesus. Looking at Paul's “master narrative” (Michael Gorman's term) in Philippians 2.6-11 this becomes clear. Because Jesus existed in the form of God he did not regard equality with God thing to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a slave and becoming humble to the point of death on a cross. No, living Christianly means that the disciples of Jesus will be labeled irrelevant.
Paul has a few words for those who have pursued such relevance in Corinth. He says:
For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles last of all, as men condemned to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are prudent in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; your are distinguished, but we are without honor. To this present hour we are both hungry and thirsty, and are poorly clothed, and are roughly treated, and are homeless; and we toil, working with our own hands; when we are reviled, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure; when we are slandered, we try to conciliate; we have become as the scum of the world, as the dregs of all things, even until now.
Because we are hopeful we will be called utopian.
Because we affirm the new creation of all things we will be called idealists.
Because we believe in one God we will be called exclusive and sectarian.
Because we believe we are the image of that one God we will be called arrogant.
Because we love with the oppressed we will be called romantics.
Because we rejoice in suffering we will be called masochists.
Because we embody forgiveness we will be called unjust.
Because we are committed to peace we will be called unloving and unrealistic.
Because we eagerly anticipate the return of our Lord we will be called fools.
It's a Wonderful Life
It's a wonderful life.
If you can find it.
If you can find it.
If you can find it.
~ Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Pink walls and children laughing in the backyard. Leaning on my desk not thinking anything. Looking at the phone in my hand…
Well, never mind.
Too sad to shift the responsibility off of my shoulders.
Too scared to be angry.
Fighting to stay honest.
Never mind.
Acts of Charity
Cruelty is invariably accompanied by sentimentality. It is the law of complementaries [sic].
~ Arnold Susi (quoted by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn)
And this, my mother, is what I think of most of our acts of charity. Mere sentimentality that offsets (and masks) our inherent violence and cruelty.
The fact that we (as gentle, well-intentioned folk) engage in such acts only highlights our ignorance.
Certainly God is able to brings some good out of these acts but let us not forget that God brought good out of crucifixion. That does not mean we are to continue to crucify others. No, we are to “take the crucified people down from the cross” (as the Liberation Theologians suggest). Or, better yet, we are to join the crucified people on the cross. To allow ourselves to be crucified is the only road that will liberate us from our sentimentality — and from our cruelty.
Ernesto
“We cannot foresee the future, but we should never give in to the defeatist temptation of being the vanguard of a nation which yearns for freedom, but abhors the struggle it entails.”
The whole time I was watching, watching and listening and thinking: we know what they did to him. They killed him. Him. They killed him.
“The solidarity of all progressive forces in the world towards the people of Vietnam today is similar to the bitter irony of the plebeians coaxing on the gladiators in the Roman arena. It is not a matter of wishing success to the victim of aggression, but of sharing his fate; one must accompany him to his death or to victory.”
And that is what he did. And this is the world we live in. A world that kills those who dare to look with compassion upon the oppressed. A world that kills those who speak honestly, those who swim the river at night so that they can be with the untouchables. A world that kills those who refuse to put on gloves to touch and hold the sick and segregated.
A world that takes a man who has loved not too little but too much and forces him to say,
“Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyhond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy.”
After he was killed (and his body displayed before being dumped into a mass grave) they say he looked like Christ.
Self-Esteem
Everybody knows you were trying to be discrete
There were just so many people you had to meet
Without your clothes
Everybody knows
~Leonard Cohen
If I had of known how much I was going to exactly replicate the lyrics of “Self-Esteem” (when I was in Bible college!) I wonder how much I would have liked the song when it first came out…
And maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been up all night and I’m a long way away from Toronto and those memories but I can’t help but smile now as I listen to it.
Damn, I am not the person I thought I would be. Hell, I’m hardly the person I think I am.
I shaved every place where you’ve been boy
I shaved every place where you’ve been
~ Tori Amos