Why You Should Still Read Reinhold Niebuhr

You’d probably be safe in dismissing his younger brother, H. Richard, whose work was learned and heartfelt, but is by now mostly either outdated or discredited.  But any Christian with interest in the issues of ethics and politics will still learn a great deal form Reinhold.  If nothing else, his work is full of aphorisms and zingers that will be useful to have in your Moleskine.  Since I first read him, I have always maintained that Reinhold Niebuhr is absolutely brilliant.  In spite of the fact that I am in fundamental disagreement with him about the possibilities of Christian faithfulness in the world, he is, for my money, better than anyone in describing the world in which that faithfulness must take place.  He is a genius in the peculiarly American sort, of the same sort as Mark Twain: a man who never earned more than a bachelor’s degree, notorious for not citing sources, and who was as popular with the American reading public as he was fiercely critical of it.

For all those who have learned at the feet of John Yoder, Niebur’s lack of any real ecclessiology will disqualify him from being a credible source for a constructive social ethic.  Yet like Hauerwas, those who disagree with him should not fail to do so through thorough engagement with him.  He is absolutely essential for understanding anything about American ethical thought in the 20th century.  The sources of M.L.K. Jr.’s strategies for engaging injustice in American society, for instance, stem directly from Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society.  His call for a leader after the fashion of Ghandi to rise up from among the Black American community is downright prophetic, and pretty accurately predicts the tone and trajectory of the civil-rights movement.  Read:

Non-violence is a particularly strategic instrument for an oppressed group which is hopelessly in the minority and has no possibility of developing sufficient power to set against its oppressors.

The emancipation of the Negro race in america probably waits upon the adequate development of this kind of social and political strategy.  It is hopeless for the Negro to expect complete emancipation from the menial social and economic position into which the white man has forced him, merely by trusting in the moral sense of the white race.  It is equally hopeless to attempt emancipation through violent rebellion.

…[Liberals] have the usuall faith in the power of education and moral suasion to soften the heart of the white man.  This faith is filled with as many illusions as such expectations always are….The white race in America will not admit the Negro to equal rights if it is not forced to do so. Upon that point one may speak with a dodmatism which all history justifies. (Moral Man and Immoral Society, 252-3)

One of the greatest strengths of Niebuhr is his ability to cut through the optimimistic anthropology of liberalism.  What Hauerwas calls his “no bullshit style” comes through in the way that he cuts through classical liberal pacifist sentiments, pointing out that non-violent social strategies are no less coercive just for their not involving what we might call subjective violence. With our ears still ringing with chants of “Yes, we can,” I can’t think of a better check on the present wave  of idealism sweeping over the country than the following passage, which, every bit as cogently as Zizek in his recent book, identifies the coercion and violence that are inherent in every system:

[The moralist] believes…that nothing but an extension of social intelligence and an increase in moral goodwill can offer society a permanent solution for its social problems.  Yet the moralist may be as dangerous a guide as the political realist.  He usually fails to recognize the elements of injustice and coercion which are present in any contemporary social peace.  The coercive elements are covert, because dominant groups are able to avail themselves of the use of economic power, propaganda, the traditional processes of government, and other types of non-violent power.  By failing to recognise the real character of these forms of coercion, the moralit places an unjustified moral onus upon advancing groups which use violent methods to disturb a peace maintaned by subtler types of coercion….A too uncritical glorification of co-operation and mutuality therefore results in the acceptance of traditional injustices and the preference of the subtler types of coercion to the more overt types. (Moral Man and Immoral Society, 233)

In short, you are not exempt from implication in the violence that upholds the position of America in the world simply because you have an Endthisless War sticker on your Volvo.

Worship and Doctrine

I’m taking a great class from Jon Robertson this semester on Patristic and Medieval theology.  Our text for the class is the first three volumes of Jaroslav Pelikan’s The Christian Tradition. One of the greatest things about this series, aside from its dizzyingly deft marshalling of source material, is the way it takes account of the liturgical influence on the development of doctrine.

Just like with scripture and tradition, the relation between liturgy and doctrine was the opposite of how we often think of it as Protestants.  We like to think of the scripture defining for us what can and cannot be accepted in the tradition, but in the early church it was the deposit of apostolic faith that allowed them to sort out what should and should not be canonized as scripture.

It seems the same switch has occured for us with regards to worship in relation to doctrine.  In the early church, it was what was believed as defined by the liturgy of the church that worked as a norm against the development of doctrine.  In Irenaeus’ polemics against Gnosticism, for instance, or in the christological debates surrounding Chalcedon, the conversation often returned to the liturgy - how can we say that God did not assume flesh when we call Mary theotokos, the “mother of God” in our hymns?

I wonder if today the fact that Evangelicals think of doctrine as a codified, static set of propositions allows us to get away with such shallowness in our worship.  If we actually thought that the very shape of our faith was at stake every time we sang and prayed, I doubt we would lend our voices to the lyrics we do.

Beyond doctrine, there have been times when our existence as a people has depended on the songs we sing.  Our worship songs today, with a few exceptions, are full of inane “Jesus is my boyfriend” lyrics about how happy he makes us.  Think of the black church under slavery in America, though.  They would not have survived (I mean in any vital, coherent sense as a people and a culture) if it weren’t for the fact that they brought up their experience into a liturgy that at once united their situation with the Christ who had borne it all and would carry them through it.  Would our songs have been any help to them?  Would our songs be of any help to the church under persecution throughout the world?  More to the point, are our songs of any help for the American church in its struggle against the temptations of capitalism and militarism?  Are our songs even aware of that struggle?

So here’s a call for songwriters in the church to write songs that matter, to ask themselves, would I sing this song to a church facing persecution?  Would it be of any help to a church threatened with compromise, or is it just empty phrases that can be filled with anything from any direction?

What about the exceptions, though?  Are there any decent songs being written for the church lately?

John Winthrop on Economics

From the founder of American exceptionalism, some timely words on lending:

Question: What rule must we observe in lending?

Answer: Thou must observe whether thy brother hath present or probable or possible means of repaying thee, if there be none of those, thou must give him according to his necessity, rather then lend him as he requires (requests). If he hath present means of repaying thee, thou art to look at him not as an act of mercy, but by way of commerce, wherein thou art to walk by the rule of justice; but if his means of repaying thee be only probable or possible, then he is an object of thy mercy, thou must lend him, though there be danger of losing it. (Deut. 15:7-8): “If any of thy brethren be poor … thou shalt lend him sufficient.” That men might not shift off this duty by the apparent hazard, He tells them that though the year of Jubilee were at hand (when he must remit it, if he were not able to repay it before), yet he must lend him, and that cheerfully. It may not grieve thee to give him, saith He. And because some might object, why so I should soon impoverish myself and my family, he adds, with all thy work, etc., for our Savior said (Matt. 5:42), “From him that would borrow of thee turn not away.”

Andrew Bacevich on Some Recent Uses of “A Shining City on a Hill”

Andrew Bacevich is one of the few voices in the American political scene today that has anything worthwhile to say.  In the words of a friend of mine, “He’s not a moron.”  I can’t wait to begin reading his new book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, which has been on backorder for three weeks.  A self-proclaimed conservative, Bacevich feels that a consistent conservatism calls for honest reflection on the limitations of our capacity to change the world through military intervention.  An interview with Bill Moyers is a great introduction to his calls for humility in foreign policy, and a radical recovery of what freedom actually means here in America before we consider exporting it elsewhere.  One way or another, the American empire in its present state will come to an end.

Matthew 21:44 is a helpful way of illustrating Bacevich’s paradigm:

“Whoever falls upon this stone shall be broken,

but the one upon whom the stone falls shall be pulverised.”

In this sense, Bacevich is calling America to fall upon the rock, to be broken.  If we would revise our notion of ourselves as guardians of history; if we would learn ourselves to be free with a freedom that is not license to buy, fornicate, and not sacrifice; simply if we would be humble, perhaps then we would be allowed to continue on as a nation.

In a recent article, Bacevich gives a revision of Sarah Palin’s account of the history of the phrase “a shining city on a hill.”  You may recall during the vice-presidential debates that Palin, as she was advocating for America’s exceptional role as God’s chosen instrument among the nations committed two great travesties: one, she attributed Jesus’ saying to Ronald Reagan, and two, she switched the referent from the Church to America.  Bacevich doesn’t bring Jesus into it either, but he does trace the quote to its original American usage, in John Winthrop’s speech to the Massachussettes Bay Colony, “A Model of Christian Charity.”   For Winthrop, the exceptionalism of America is an application of the covenant theology of the Old Testament to this new colony.  For him, they were singled out by the Lord for a mission, to be attended by blessing if faithful, but punishment if they were to break covenant.  Bacevich’s reflections on the (hypothetical, for him) possibility that America actually is such a covenanted and exceptional nation are golden:

The third possibility is that God exists and has indeed singled out America as his New Israel. In that event, John Winthrop’s charge of 1630 demands urgent attention - not least of all his warning of what will befall America should it be seduced by earthly concerns and carnal desires and tend too much to superfluities.

Today no doubt, the eyes of all people are indeed on the United States - what happens here affects the world. Yet many of those who observe us don’t like what they see. The question for Governor Palin and for other believers committed to the concept of American exceptionalism is this: have we kept the Lord’s covenant? If not, perhaps the time has come to mend our ways before it’s too late.

Who knows? The sound you hear even now on Wall Street may be God’s wrath breaking out against us.

The Seamless Garment: A Consistent Ethic of Human Life

I was appalled to notice an old friends status update on Facebook that read “Obama: pro-death, McCain: Pro-Life.  The moral issues are clear.”  Right away, I dropped the smarmy response, “Yeah dude, Capital Punishment and the Bush Doctrine - that’s my kind of Pro-Life!”  I didn’t want to leave it at that, so  I went ahead and left a more developed comment on his wall, to which he responded.  After going back and forth, I consolidated my comments as a note, which generated a great deal of debate, and finally ended with my friend revealing his true cards: Obama is not an American citizen, and he was once a Muslim, therefore the Christian cannot vote for him.

This, then, is my attempt to present to my friend the moral reasoning of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, who came up with the metaphor of the “Seamless Garment.”

Just because Republicans happen to have the right stance on abortion doesn’t mean they deserve our allegiance as Christians. We need to advocate a consistent ethic of life, “a seamless garment” in which we stand for the gift of life across the board, and prophetically denounce all of its violations, whether it be abortion, or born children living in destitution and poverty; whether it be abortion or the death penalty; whether it be abortion or the children killed by land mines or bomb shrapnel as “unintended consequences” of our wars to make the world safe for democracy - come to look at it, Republicans seem to support life in only this one particular instance. Abortion isn’t the only moral issue. Torture, poverty, war, health care - are these not moral issues?

We are right to be outraged at the horror of abortion in America - the perverse under belley of our idolization of choice and freedom and lack of constraints. But we must be careful in attributing to people what their actual moral stance is on something based on their political stance. Obama himself (just like Hillary before him) has said clearly that Abortion is not “fine with him,” that it is a moral issue, and so forth, but that from his perspective the government is not to be the instrument for combatting it. I think this is wrong, but as Christians, where should we be directing our energy? In the political system, trying to force people to live in a way that doesn’t jive with their ideology, or should we spend all of this time and money on trying to change the scenarios that give rise to unwanted children. I mean, what if the church took a mother Teresa stance on it, and just said that we will adopt any unwanted child in america. If you don’t want your baby, we the church will take care of it - there will be no such thing as an unwanted child in America. Wouldn’t things look different? Wouldn’t our witness be more credible?

Why do we assume that the only legitimate outworking of our moral stance should be through power politics? What happened to the Kingdom, the reign of God on earth with Christ as our King? Do we honestly think that’s the same thing as the United States? We have to get beyond the way that democracy constrains our imagination, the way it lies to us in telling us that we have a voice, that we are free to vote for anyone we want, blah, blah. We are always constrained by democracy to advocate for relative goods (such as anti-abortionism) at the expense of other things we have to stand up for as Christians (loving our enemies, forgiveness of sinners, justice for the oppressed).

What if we placed our hope in what the Lord is doing on earth through the church, and not a political candidate who has no vital allegiance to Jesus?

“It’s the Californians, man, the Californians are the worst.”

Tonight will be my fifth night in a row staying at my new house on 43rd and Division, my longest stretch by far outside of Montavilla - within Portland that is.  I’m realizing that much of my affection for my city has been coddled by a neighborhood that flew under the radar of Vera Katz and the Get Gentrifieds (wow, that’s a good band name).

Moaning about California money is a favorite pastime for locals (probably the chief conversation topics between my dad and I), and fodder for moaning is at an all time high right now.  I relay the following from Night Cabbie, a great column in the Willamette Week.

“It’s the Californians, man, the Californians are the worst.” The man is in his early 30s and we have been talking about Portland as I drive him to his home off Rosa Parks Way.

“You think so?” I ask, “because as annoying as they are, it’s the hipsters I can’t stand. Most of them seem to be from California, too, but they’re even more self-righteous than the middle-aged couples.”

He laughs. “I’m guessing you don’t have kids,” he says, and I concede the point. “I have to drop my kid off to play with theirs, and they’re some smug motherfuckers,” he continues. “And the thing about them is that they’re the ones who’re really changing things, the ones who realized they could sell their place in Cali and get a much nicer one here, back before the market died down there. You’ve got to follow the money.”

“But if the hipsters hadn’t moved in first to make these neighborhoods ‘safer,’ the Californians wouldn’t have ever thought that they were hip or arty or whatever, and wouldn’t have moved there.”

“True enough.”

“I mean, it’s like Portland’s victim to Burning Man imperialism—all these kids heard some good things and were like, ‘Let’s build a community,’ never mind that there already was one.”

“Nice city, we’ll take it,” he mutters. “I guess they’re leaving us Gresham.”

“Have you seen what’s going on on Foster? They’re moving east pretty quickly.”

“Portland—where capitalist evil wears American Apparel,” he says, “and sends its kids to yoga.”

I laugh.

Music MEME

Tagged by David in a music meme, the masked marauder of montavilla mayhem is sighted in a rare blog post. Perhaps the nemesis knows the secret weakness of Loretta’s Basement - a kryptonitic aversion to rejecting requests. Cautiously, he proceeds…

1985 - The Vision Quest Soundtrack (The best wrestling movie ever made, starring Matthew Modine as Lowden Swain, wrestler on a weight-cutting, champion-toppling mission, wouldn’t be anything without the musical accompaniment of Journey’s “Only the Young” in the running montage, Madonna’s “Crazy for You” serenading the course of his interactions with an inexplicably hot and willing 20-something female boarder at his house, and of course, Red Rider’s “Lunatic Fringe” as the intro to Lowden’s final iron-deficient, nose-bleeding showdown with Shute.)

1986 - Paul Simon Graceland

1987 - U2 The Joshua Tree (even though I wouldn’t be likely to notice if I didn’t hear it again, I have to face the fact that this was once my favorite album)

1988 - Sonic Youth Daydream Nation (somehow I manage to be completely ambivalent about everything else they’ve done)

1989 - Neil Young Freedom (1989 was a rough year, and I had to get Neil on the list, though this is hardly my favorite album of his)

1990 - The Sundays Reading, Writing and Arithmetic (This might be my favorite album ever - I need to sit down and figure that out)

1991 - Pearl Jam Ten

1992 - Tom Waits Bone Machine

1993 - Nas Illmatic (this is technically a ‘94, but whatever, a bunch of the songs were written in ‘93, and as nice as the offerings by Mariah, Adam Sandler, Wu-Tang Clan, Pearl Jam, and Counting Crows were, this year still absolutely pales in comparison with ‘94, so I annexed it - ha!)

1994 - Weezer Weezer (so much else happened this year, with several bands (Jonny Cash, Toad the Wet Sprocket, The Cranberries, Jeff Buckley, Boyz II Men, The Magnetic Fields, Sunny Day Real Estate, Biggy, and Nas) the best albums they ever came up with, but my teenage years maybe weren’t defined, but were definitely articulated better than anything else by this album, and that’s nothing to shake a stick at.)

1995 - Jars of Clay Jars of Clay (I’ve probably listened to this album more than any other, and I happen to still love it. It was the third cd I ever owned.)

1996 - The Fugees The Fugees (I hated hip-hop until I heard this album - it changed my world, so it gets the nod, even though I probably appreciate Weezer’s Pinkerton more)

1997 - Radiohead Ok Computer (As much as I’d like to, there’s no fighting this one.)

1998 - Elliott Smith XO

1999 - Joan of Arc Live in Chicago 1999

2000 - Modest Mouse The Moon and Antarctica (closely followed by my favorite albums from the likes of Blonde Redhead, Rage Against the Machine, and Death Cab for Cutie)

2001 - Alison Krauss & Union Station New Favorite

2002 - Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

2003 - Death Cab for Cutie Transatlanticism

2004 - Arcade Fire Funeral (in the best year since 1994 for music Adam likes, I’m still not afraid to call you wrong if this isn’t your favorite thing you heard all year. I can’t believe it was four years ago now!)

2005 - Sujan Stevens Come On Feel the Illinoise (very close were M. Ward, Matt Pond, and Bonnie Prince Billy)

2006 - Cat Power The Greatest

2007 - The National Boxer

2008 - I haven’t been to diligent about finding music this year, perhaps because Ryan “my only source for good music” Kingsmith moved to California, or just because I’ve been broke and can’t afford to buy new stuff, but I just got Girl Talk’s Feed the Animals, and it’s pretty fun.

One Movie

So I was tagged in a meme. I’m fixing to be graduated in a few days, so its probably time to start blogging again.

1. One movie that made you laugh
Big Daddy

2. One movie that made you cry
Million Dollar Baby

3. One movie you loved when you were a child
Back to the Future, Part II

4. One movie you’ve seen more than once
O Brother, Where Art Thou?

5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers

6. One movie you hated
Little Nicky

7. One movie that scared you
The Ring

8. One movie that bored you
The Science of Sleep

9. One movie that made you happy
In America

10. One movie that made you miserable
Mean Creek

11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (I love Adam Sandler so much, and I want to keep it that way, so I’m not going to see this movie. I almost lost it for good with Little Nicky).

12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with
Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly in Rear Window)

13. The last movie you saw
Lake of Fire (a brutal documentary on the culture surrounding abortion in the last 20 or so years, directed by Tony Kane)

14. The next movie you hope to see
Iron Man (it just looks so freaking rad)

15. Now tag five people: Patrick, Sam, Jon, Beau, and Bobby.

Five Myths About Drinking Water

Take this, Eric:

Myth No. 1: Drink Eight Glasses Each Day

Scientists say there’s no clear health benefit to chugging or even sipping water all day. So where does the standard advice of drinking eight glasses each day come from? “Nobody really knows,” says Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a kidney expert at the University of Pennsylvania.

Myth No. 2: Drinking Lots of Water Helps Clear Out Toxins

The kidneys filter toxins from our bloodstreams. Then the toxins clear through the urine. The question is, does drinking extra water each day improve the function of the kidneys?

“No,” says Goldfarb. “In fact, drinking large amounts of water surprisingly tends to reduce the kidney’s ability to function as a filter. It’s a subtle decline, but definite.”

…Goldfarb’s advice: Just drink when you’re thirsty.

[NPR: Five Myths About Drinking Water, by Allison Aubrey]

Philip K. Dick on Sci-Fi

“I want to write about people I love, and put them into a fictional world spun out of my own mind, not the world we actually have, because the world we actually have does not meet my standards. Okay, so I should revise my standards; I’m out of step. I should yield to reality. I have never yielded to reality. That’s what SF is all about. If you wish to yield to reality, go read Philip Roth; read the New York literary establishment mainstream bestselling writers….This is why I love SF. I love to read it; I love to write it. The SF writer sees not just possibilities but wild possibilities. It’s not just ‘What if’ - it’s ‘My God; what if’ - in frenzy and hysteria. The Martians are always coming.”