Gadfly's Muse

Symbols: Reflections On The Movie "Flags of Our Fathers"

My friend Joel is far more qualified to review and analyze movies than I but  a few things really hit me when I watched it last night.  ( I know, I am a cheapskate ... I wait for the DVD release before I watch these things.)

The central idea of the movie, to me, is the power of symbols.  You cannot divorce the impact of the photograph of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima from the culture of that time.  It might not have even made the front page in today's culture, but it was exactly right for that time and place.  It communicated a message that the American nation needed to hear if the will to prosecute the war was to be reinforced and perpetuated.

Toward A Distinct Christian Community

Gerhard von Rad would never qualify as one of my favorite theologians, but he has a very good appendix to the second volume of Old Testament Theology titled "The Law".  His essential argument is that what God was teaching ancient Israel in the OT, and that which they could not seem to grasp, was that "law keeping" was not to be understood as the basis of their salvation but was rather to be the product of it.  His arguments are very good, perhaps even persuasive, in this section and go a long way toward helping us modern Evangelicals keep from looking down our enlightened noses at our ancient brothers.

Von Rad makes one particular statement that moves me to this writing.  Speaking of the various "series" statements of the law in the OT he says

Moreover, these commandments do not outline anything like an ethos; rather, they only mention, in their negative formulation, possible courses of action which lie at the edges of the sphere of human life, namely practices absolutely displeasing to Jahweh -he who belongs to Jahweh does not commit adultery, remove boundary stones, and murder. Still, this is very important-the saving event whereby Israel became Jahweh's is indissolubly bound up with the obligation to obey certain norms which clearly mark out the chosen people's sphere, particularly at its circumference. The same thing, however, occurs in the early Christian community.

"Pious Fraud" & The Echo Chamber Effect

(click on the photo)

My son Bill alerted me to the term "echo chamber" which describes an interesting sociological phenomenon on the internet.  It refers to something I have noticed before but not been able to articulate. The "echo chamber" effect is present when, in an internet forum, the only voices that are treated with respect are those with whom the majority of the participants agree.  There is no real attempt at dialog.  Differing views are ridiculed and shouted down rather than argued against in a coherent terms.  Sooner or later the opposing voices simply disappear and all that remains in the forum is the "echo" of voices who say the same things to each other over and over again.

The problem with this is that it leads to a situation where people believe something to be true simply because "everyone else" is saying it.  The "everyone else" of course being the same folks who are inclined to believe in the same way. An interesting case in point is the prevalence of the charge of "pious fraud" advanced as an explanation for the origin and content of the Scriptures of the New Testament.

Challenge: "There is no evidence that Jesus lived....."

BeepBeepItsMe wrote: The reality is that there is no proof that jesus either existed as a man or as a god-man. And the supposed evidence for either, is shakey at best.

Dear Beep:

The reality is that you cannot account for the documentation of Jesus' life dating back to within 100 years of his death without resorting to the implausible notion of a massive conspiracy which fooled thousands of people who then perpetuated the lie.

To say that there is no "proof" is to argue that there is no evidence that makes it reasonable to believe that he did live and did do the things that are said of him.  To say that it is dishonest to believe the records we have of Jesus' life (as you have said), then you must prove why it is unreasonable for a person to believe that Jesus existed and after that prove why it is unreasonable to accept the documents we have as accurately reflecting his life.

The question is not whether we have incontrovertible "proof" but whether or not the evidence provides sufficient warrant such that a person may reasonably believe in his historical life and actions, whether they accept the faith claims required of his life and actions or not.

Regarding your heavy dependence upon a conspiracy theory, you have provided no proof or evidence that such a conspiracy existed other than to quote a statement about "pious fraud" which may or may not have any real deceitful actions associated with it.  Christians have never denied that in the history of Christianity that many egregious things have been done or said by Christians.  For one person to say that "pious frauds" were committed is not to say that those "pious frauds" were committed in the process of the NT scriptural tradition.  A quick survey of the phrase "pious frauds" used in ancient writings indicates that it was spoken of negatively, as being the domain of heretics, and the standard for gauging when such a "pious fraud" was present was by comparing it to the Scriptures. ( as for instance, one example, Vincent of Lerins, "Commontory").  To state that such "frauds" were prevalent  may be true only to the extent that it reflected a situation the church was trying to correct.

In Your Face: The Polemics of Gen. 1:1 - 2:4

Sistine Chapel Ceiling and Lunettes, 1508-12

For the Egyptians it was (among others) Osiris and Isis, whose origins were dimly understood to be from Geb, the god of the earth, and Nut, the goddess of the sky.  The drama of their story was the conspiracy against them led by Isis’ brother Set which resulted in Osiris’ death, ultimate dismemberment, and distribution of body parts throughout the land of Egypt.  Closely tied to the agricultural circumstances of the Nile ecosystem the resulting world and life view that accumulated over the centuries in Egypt saw life in this world as paralleling and ultimately participating in the story of the Gods.

For the ancient Sumerians and their Mesopotamian descendants it was the epic tales connected with their 4000 or so god beings of various strengths and locations.  Among these, the greatest that we know of, culminated in the ascendency of Ishtar (the goddess of fertility) in her time and Marduk of Babylonia in his.  There were stories told, some of which have Biblical counterparts, but consistent among these stories is the explanation of earthly origins as a by-product of some spiritual drama.  Ishtar gave children to women and life to vegetation through her attachment to Tammuz the god of the Spring sun and its awakenings.  Marduk , after his battles with Apsu and Tiamat (chaos) formed the heavens from half of Tiamat’s corpse and separated the waters above from the waters below.  Marduk created man as slaves to do the burdensome work of maintaining creation so that the various gods who the victorious Marduk delegated various responsibilities, would be free to carry on in their life of sensual pleasure.  History, and man within it, stood in relation to the gods as the absolute monarch reigning in Babylon stood in relation to the subjects who supported him.  Life in this world was a participation in the spiritual drama going on around them.

Calvin Vs. Coulter

I am preaching on Gen. 1:26-30 this week and therefore the idea of dominion has been much on my mind.  With Al Gore showing up at the Oscars and the current rage about global warming, it appears that there is plenty to talk about with regard to the subject, especially as it concerns Christian views toward the environment.

I won't rehearse all of the things already in print about Anne Coulter's egregious misuse of scripture published in the JewishWorldReview (of all places).  I will just simply quote it here and then comment on how far this is from a biblical perspective

The ethic of conservation is the explicit abnegation of man's dominion over the Earth. The lower species are here for our use. God said so: Go forth, be fruitful, multiply, and rape the planet -- it's yours. That's our job: drilling, mining and stripping. Sweaters are the anti-Biblical view. Big gas-guzzling cars with phones and CD players and wet bars -- that's the Biblical view. (Oil Good: Dems Bad, 13 Oct 2000)

Prigs & Priggishness

One more excellent essay in Marilynne Robinson's book The Death of Adam is entitled Puritans and Prigs.  Robinson does a very nice job of demonstrating that it is mostly a strawman caricature of Puritans that modern Prigs denigrate with such vehemence.  Taking the simple axiom that most criticism of the Puritans comes from people who have never read them, she proceeds to dismantle most of the usual comments and sneering dismissals that the so called intellectual elites put forth on the subject.

In doing this she advanced the idea of Modern Priggishness along these lines: it is the manifestation of "our collective eagerness to disparage without knowledge or information about the thing disparaged, when the reward is the pleasure of sharing an attitude one knows is socially approved.

I have seen something of this in another area than the critique of Puritanism.  I have seen it in the sneering dismisal of Christian sensibilities by those who considered themselves the enlightened elite.  Two immediately come to mind: Sam Harris & Richard Dawkins.

REVEILLE

                 

Salute to Veterans

This is my first try at this kind of thing.  Take a look and leave a comment.

Acquiring Rather Than Achieving

From: The Death of Adam, Marilynne Robinson, pg. 85

It is because we hope to acquire rather than to achieve.... that the good we imagine can truly be taken from our hands.

There is a superb commentary on the present cultural situation.  As I reflect on the change of emphases in the world around me during the short (or long, depending on your perspective) span of my own thinking life, I cannot help but agree that such is the case.

"Woo Woo" Language and The Infinite

In a discussion on the BeepBeepItsMe blog concerning the explanation for why Man exhibits a propensity to explain the world in terms of the supernatural or of gods or a God, I made the following statement:

It is when (man's perceived or desired) autonomy, at whatever level, is challenged, that our common human lot is to wonder about the supernatural.

I still maintain that man's essential being tends toward the infinite, especially during periods when the great questions of life, purpose and eternity come into focus. When these things mean something in the immediate, man still experiences the urge to cry out to the Being Who Is There.

This, coupled with an intuitive sense of the moral, not of its specific nature but that there is such a thing, points man toward something beyond himself against which he is or should be measured.

These statements were viewed as a resort to "woo woo" language and I was challenged to explain myself more fully.  It's a reasonable request even if I think "woo woo language" is a bit  over-descriptive.