June 19, 2013

Individuality And Personhood

Girl-Before-A-Mirror-THA friend of mine, a cinephile, a lover of the cinema in the very best sense of that phrase, commented to me once about what he saw as a difference between the films of the 40s and the 50s and those made ‘Oh, after about 1978′. The characters in the earlier films had neuroses, whereas the characters in the later films had ‘lifestyles’. I believe the catalyst for this conversation was the broadcast of a TV movie that caused a minor stir during the early 1980s called The Day After. It was a dramatization about a surprise nuclear attack on the United States by the Soviet Union, and the aftermath of that attack. About one third of the first episode was dedicated to the pre-apocalyptic lives of some ordinary Americans in order to build audience empathy for them in preparation for the horror that was to follow. What this meant was that we, the audience, had to suffer through about twenty minutes of watching self-absorbed people shopping, having sex, and quarreling about what they should buy or who they should have sex with. My friend commented that it was no wonder the Russians nuked us. They probably thought it was a mercy killing. ‘They didn’t kill a single person,’ he said. ‘Just a lot of individuals.’

That off-hand remark has stuck with me all these years. Most of the criticisms I have heard of American society and even of American church life congregate around two foci; first, that it is too individualistic, and second, that it is too impersonal. At first glance, these two remarks appear to be contradictory, somewhat like the great Chalcedonian adverbs, until you meditate on the difference between an individual and a person. We are all of us born into this world as individuals, but it is a struggle to become a person in the image of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity. There is a lot of deep anthropology here, and some of the most interesting recent Orthodox theology deals with the concept of the human Person, what does it mean to have a hypostasis, and to participate in communion with other hypostases? Now, I know know know know know that IM is to some degree an Asperger sufferer’s theology board and any theological statement an amateur like me will make is subject to endless qualification and amendment, but here goes. The names of Met. John Zizoulas and Fr. John S. Romanides are the two names most often associated with this current of theology, which goes by the name of Neo-Chalcedonian both among the Orthodox and those outside of Orthodoxy who are aware of it, even though Neo-Chalcedonian is properly a label of a pair of sixth century Fathers who defended the council of Chalcedon against the Justinian Monothelite compromise.

Only in Orthodoxy could someone from the sixth century be considered Neo-anything.

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Demons Under The Bed

exorcistYou may have read something in your local or national newspaper about “Pope Francis performs an exorcism”.  Even the more sober types over at “First Things” have got in on the act.

“On Pentecost Sunday all hell broke loose in Rome. Following Mass that day, the unpredictable Pope Francis laid hands on a demon-possessed man from Mexico and prayed for him. The YouTube video of this encounter was flashed around the world, and the story caught fire: Is Pope Francis an exorcist? The Holy Father’s Vatican handlers were quick to deny such.”

For various reasons, this article (and others like it) has me tearing out my hair.  Never mind the phrase “Vatican handlers” (believe me, if you’ve been following what Pope Francis is doing, the very last thing the Vatican bureaucracy has managed has been to “handle” him), never mind the repeated denials that this was an exorcism, the attitudes in this and the secular press are annoying the hell out of me (and not in a “Begone, demon of bad attitude!” fashion either).  Naturally, the media allowed no chance for sensationalism to go a-begging.

The trouble is that, while the papers may have splashed headlines about demons and exorcism around, they all basically cut-and-pasted the same Associated Press article in their coverage.  They also gleefully quoted Fr. Gabriele Amorth who has, to be charitable, an overriding interest in exorcisms that he sees as his particular ministry.  This does not mean that he is an infallible expert on the topic, or that he is to be believed over the official statement by the Vatican that this was not an exorcism.  It doesn’t help that some of the media took the opportunity to interpret the sentence in the statement that Pope Francis “didn’t intend to perform any exorcism” to mean “Pope accidentally performs exorcism.”

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Eugene Peterson: “Nothing disembodied, nothing impersonal, nothing in general”

Neighborhood church

Theology is about God, and God is Spirit — so why the adjective ["spiritual" theology]? Maybe because we have accumulated a lot of experience in the Christian community of persons treating theology as a subject in which God is studied in the ways we are taught to study in our schools—acquiring information that we can use, or satisfying our curiosity, or obtaining qualifications for a job or profession. There are, in fact, a lot of people within and outside formal religious settings who talk and write a lot about spirituality, things of the spirit or the soul or “higher things,” but are not interested in God. There is a wonderful line in T. H. White’s novel of King Arthur (The Once and Future King), in which Guinevere in her old age becomes the abbess of a convent: “she was a wonderful theologian but she wasn’t interested in God.” It happens.

So—spiritual theology, lived theology—not just studied, or discussed, or written about; not “God” as an abstraction but God in a participating relationship; not God as a truth to be argued; not God as a weapon to be wielded in the culture wars. Rather, the conviction that everything of God that is revealed to us is to be lived relationally in the dailiness of our human lives on this local ground on which we have been placed. Nothing disembodied, nothing impersonal, nothing in general.

- Eugene Peterson

Pastoral Joy

So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us. ...For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our … [Continue reading...]

The Homily

 He was despised and rejected by others;     a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces     he was despised, and we held him of no account. (Isaiah 53:3, … [Continue reading...]

Saturday Ramblings 6.15.13

Hot enough for you, iMonks? Summer arrived here at the iMonastery this week. Mule Chewing Briars, being the new boy here, had to bum some sun screen from Chaplain Mike, while Adam Palmer protected his delicate skin by borrowing … [Continue reading...]

Mingling With Monks

A couple of decades ago I read The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton by Michael Mott. You may be familiar with this biography of a rascally and brilliant monk who spent his days at the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky. That literary … [Continue reading...]

Pastor Piper Scares the Kids

UPDATE: In order to assist my "impulse control," I will be going on a fast for the foreseen future. I will not presume to pick apart the popular Pastor Piper's pronouncements any longer. Whate'er rants there be They will not be … [Continue reading...]

Pastoral Suffering

Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. - 2 Corinthians 11:28 NASB * * * When I read about the Apostle Paul's sufferings, I find it hard to relate. 2 … [Continue reading...]

The Wages Of Art

Almost as soon as you open your computer you sense that something is wrong.  It takes too long to load your background screen, or there is a lot of unexpected disk activity causing your hard drive to sound like a pack of dwarves … [Continue reading...]