Robert Lanham (The Hipster Handbook), with his 2006 publication The Sinner’s Guide to the Evangelical Right, has created a humorous and pretty smart beacon to shepherd those outside the know into some comprehension of what the “The Base” of the Republican Party is all about. And what the Religious Right is all about, more than anything else, seems to be free market capitalism with a second and third being ushering in the Second Coming of Christ and antigay agendas. The book focuses on a number of the televangelists we can see on many cable channels and internet podcasts in depth and unapologetically. Like most satirical literature, within the tongue-and-cheek jestings there is a great deal of truth and insight making this a more valuable and intelligent book than its title would imply and much of the assessment made on the more famous of the bunch tends to be pretty spot on.
First there is James Dobson. What can you say about this bigoted “Focus on the Family” founder who got his start as a psychologist focusing on, well, the family, other than this man is ridiculous? This nut job, according to Lanham, speaks to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove on a regular basis and has had access to privileged government info since Bush came into office. James Dobson seriously hates gays. I mean hates them with such a passion that one would have to think something a bit suspicious is going on there in the old Dobson brain since the thing that which you most hate… as the saying goes. In the film For the Bible Tells Me So, Dobson is spreading his message of antigayness all over the place at a rate that would appear more or less constant and homosexuals an “A-BOMB-A-NATION” which apparently is calling for the government to nuke places like San Francisco where gayery and sympathy is rampant. With his base camp set in Colorado Springs just a stone’s throw away from the Air Force Academy, Dobson runs his ever hating message and eschatological BS to folks that are fighting a crusade against Islamist powers reminiscent of all the other crusades people generally thought were behind us. Now that we have the power to totally anialate ourselves through our WMDs, it seems insane to want to usher in the Second Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ. But this maniac has political pull and is known to distribute voting guides to churches and members of evangelical Christianity.
But not all of them get involved politically, or so they claim. Joel Osteen, who pastors the absurdly large Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, says he is beyond all that bullshit since he is all about Jesus and what-have-you. Yeah, I can’t really agree with Lanham on this one, I don’t really think Osteen has some anterior motive have to do with the whole destruction of church and state separation. I don’t think that his ultimate goal is really one of political power; no, his seems to be more financially based. Nor do I really seem him as evil since I really do think that he is furthering the Gospel in a way that is not quite as controversial as people make it out to be. As a Div School student at a supposed liberal Div School, I hear my classmates[1] bash a worldview that most of them are participating in everyday with mommy and daddy paying to fulfill any desire they may have making it pretty easy for them to denounce this shit or that since they don’t make the money that feeds off the human misery which their spending causes.[2]
But, I do think that Osteen is sort of missing the boat here with the core Christian message. What Osteen tells us is that his listeners or viewers or whatever should pull themselves up by their boot straps and make shit happen on their own. While this is pretty accurate as far as it goes, what one should really take from the message of JC is that we should all abolish this money and greed BS in favor of something that is beyond what we are born with which as a megachurch PK, Osteen was. This prosperity crap just confirms my longtime suspicion that richer and more powerful people are happy, better, and more interesting than I am, which, of course, is not something I want from my religion.
While Osteen doesn’t all out ask for money, televangelist and churchwatch.org investigatee Creflo Dollar has no shame and Lanham rips him a new one. He doesn’t run a church so much as a pyramid scheme saying that when you give “God will provide” making things like welfare sort of unnecessary and thus social issues irrelevant. As Lanham makes clear, it is apt that Creflo’s last name is Dollar since that is the only thing that he seems to really care about.
Next on Lanham’s evangelical hit list, is the wildly popular author of The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren. I read the purpose driven life a while back and sort of found it helpful but had a few major critiques with the book—namely that Warren’s use of scripture which was almost entirely taken out of context[3] and never cited in text but instead in end notes. This sort of makes the work suspect in my opinion since many times passages are used in the same section that have nothing to do with one an other which together add up to support a given claim that they do not make on their own or in their biblical context. But this work is the best selling work of nonfiction ever.[4] As such, Warren has some political pull since that sort of thing illustrates his influence on what people think and believe and has ministered to people such as George W. Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Rupert Murdoch. He stress happiness in this life, as Lanham points out, but does not agree with Osteen and Creflo Dollar’s prosperity gospelling, which Lanham does not make clear.
Warren, as reported in Mark Pinsky’s January 2008 Miami Times article “The Gospel of Money”, “is vociferous in his opposition to prominent Pentecostals' embrace of the prosperity gospel,” in which he is quoted as saying “Success in any area often creates a spirit of entitlement – ‘I deserve this’ - that is the exact opposite of servant leadership,” Warren says. “It is evidence of insecurity and low-self esteem. Insecure people show off. Secure people serve.”
Like Osteen, Warren takes no salary from his church because he can afford not to but he has also returned every penny he earned before his success. Not only that but he also refuses to speak for money and one important fact that goes unreported by Lanham is that 90% of the book royalties from TPDL has been given away to charities in what he has termed “reverse tithes,” as reported in the Pinsky article. In that piece, he also says that “the opulent lifestyles of televangelists make [him] sick” as they do Lanham.
What Warren emphasizes instead are the social issues which I agree are at the top of the list of things Christians should be striving to improve. Quite noble, however, he does seem to have a conservative agenda despite claiming to be apolitical-- he has been known to motivate church members to register as voters and sent out 150,000 letters to pastors saying to encourage votes for W in 2004 (56). Plus, Lanham points out, he has some pretty freaky apocalyptic beliefs about actually ushering in the Second Coming of Christ making it a little unsettling that his programs receive more federal funds than any other non-government organizations (58).
Turning back to the megachurches, Lanham makes some of his most articulate and insightful claims. As a corporation that more resembles Wal-Mart than the small town corner congregation, megachurches desire more than anything else to keep growing. Lanham reports that in the 1970s, one megachurch pastor named Bill Hybels became the first pastor to employ market research to figure out how to grow more effectively by “knowing” their demographic. Since Hybels’s success, distinguishing their demographic has been priority #1 for the pastor-preneur and preachers like Osteen have been getting degrees in marketing or broadcasting rather than theology ever since. And as a result of all this research, the megachurch has cultivated a theology that gives their demographic what it wants most.
As social critic and communications theorist Neil Postman makes this all too clear in his extremely popular study Amusing Ourselves to Death, “There is no great religious leader… who offered people what they want. Only what they need. But television is not well suited to offering people what they need. It is ‘user friendly.’ It is too easy to turn off.” In other words, the megachurch pastor/televangelist ends up walking on eggshells so as to shatter their large congregational numbers and continue to grow. They must then avoid “scary religious symbols” like the Cross and refrain from “fire and brimstone” language and remain nondenominational.
Like most televangelists, Warren supposedly has a seeker sensitive style of preaching designed to be general enough not to offend. Thus many stay clear of things like hell fire and eternal damnation and even social problems (as explained above) since anything difficult could alienate the audience; Warren does not, however, ignore such problems and often talks about hell. They use ads and gimmicks to fill up the seats while often times ignoring social issues posing the greatest problems to the global since existence. Such televangelists then pull the old “bait-and-switch” forcing things like antigay and antiabortion agendas that Lanham implies Warren does with the lot of them, something little evidence is given to support.
Evangelicals, to support their antigay stuff as well as anything else they claim, partake in what is commonly referred to as “picking-and-choosing” which Bible passages suite their needs and use that as evidence to denounce this or empower that. Skillfully employing this practice, in the late 1970s, pro-business republican became synonymous with evangelical because of this. For example, many evangelicals will say “The Bible says ‘an eye for an eye’” while ignoring “Thou shall not kill” which they use to support the death penalty but then they will quickly quote that particular commandment in protest of abortion rights.
To the sinner, Lanham then introduces the most powerful evangelicals in what is and evangelical role call that identifies them, says what they believe, and what kind of influence they have politically. Some of those discussed: Philip Anschutz (the multibillionaire owner of Walden Media that is responsible for the “Narnia movies”, primary share holder of Regal Entertainment, named the nations “greediest executive” by Fortune magazine), Michael Gerson (nicknamed the scribe by W, became a Bush policy advisor in 2005, convinced Bush it was a good idea to call the war on terror a crusade, coined the phrase “axis of evil”, and said “Just because some don’t get it doesn’t mean it’s a plot or a secret” when responding to allegations of Bush using religious code words in his speeches which is so stupid it practically drools), Jim Bakker (exposed as a phony and did time for fraud and conspiracy, opened a Christian theme park called Heritage USA, married Tammy Faye), the infamous Pat Robertson (good God where to begin, the 700Club host, ran for president, is totally insane, will be remembered as the most important evangelical leader of our time, said that homosexuals “want to come into our churches and disrupt church services and throw blood all around and try to give people AIDS and spit in the faces of ministers”, God help us), Billy Graham (most popular evangelical preacher ever who has advised every president since Eisenhower, pretty inclusive as far as he goes, thought Hillary would make a good president) and son Franklin Graham (his inept piss and vinegar son who is also a minister), Jerry Falwell (the famous fucking fat bastard who started Liberty University and pretty much hated everybody, God smote him down a year ago so we wouldn’t have to hear anymore shit about gay kids’ shows or stuff like after 9/11 when he said “ I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'”[5]), Luis Cortez (idiot Hispanic televangelist who said “this is what I tell politicians… you want an endorsement? Give us a check, and you can take a picture of us accepting it”), Paul Crouch (a gay bashing evangelical who turns out to be, you guessed it, gay), Benny Hinn (exclusively in ministry for the money), T.D. Jakes (supposedly apolitical minister of the largest black megachurch in the U.S. who was the keynote speaker at Bush’s National Day of Prayer), Joyce Meyer (Tammy Faye wannabe televangelist who actually said—I shit you not—“make your checks payable to Joyce Meyer Ministries/Life in the Word. And million is spelled M-I-L-L-I-O-N”), Jay Sekulow (Jew for Jesus who heads the conservative answer to the ACLU—the American Center for Law and Justice), Ralph Reed (oh this asshole is going to hell), and Jimmy Swaggart (televangelist who had the infamous breakdown on television after getting his rocks off with a prostitute and said “if one [a gay man] ever looks at me like that, I’m gonna kill him and tell God he died”).
5. Ted Haggard/Evangelical Vatican City
Oh my Lord. Unfortunately, the Sinner’s Guide was published a couple of years before the incredible downfall of Ted “the Duke of” Haggard; but still, Lanham manages to make the Duke look like the absurdity that we now know he has been all along as he turns to this evangelical and what has been termed “the Evangelical Vatican City” of Colorado Springs, CO. The facts about Haggard, which one would have to hope are outdated since he has proved to be a hypocrite in his antigay ramblings after getting forcibly tossed out of the closet by his long time male escort for his deep (and I do mean deep) affinity for purchasing hot man-on-man-meth-enhanced-pillow-biting action breaking at least two federal laws as well as numerous unwritten evangelical ones, is that he talks to W every Monday giving him an unknown amount of influence on legislation and that he really, really hates gays. Jimmy Kimmel (of ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live) seems to have hit the nail on the head when said “This is a good rule for life: Look for whoever is the most against anything and you can almost guarantee they are that something they are against. The guy who devotes his life to fighting gay rights is gay. The guy working to pass the laws against child pornography is sending sex messages to teenage interns.” The point of this is pretty clear and often tends to be true: guys like Haggard who appear way too opposed to any issue or lifestyle to be human possible must be treated suspiciously and often have those overtly overcompensation type reasons for being so anti anything.
It is difficult here not to relate any Haggard self hating gay jokes since he is such an asshole and has been so vocal about the sinfulness of homosexuality. I mean, what kind of a person hates what he is so much that he would make the number one group that he puts all his energy into depriving of supposedly God given rights is actually the group he secretly identifies with and finds himself a part of. People really thought he hated gays, and following his bigoted rants, the people who listened to him and had misguided trust in what he was saying as being true, he brought others into his hateful nook and cranny. He put true meaning into a fight that is all about flagrant injury to fellow human beings. The message he spread is toxic and hurtful and noxious. And for all his maniacal moralizing, he couldn’t live up to his own code of heterosexual conduct. Oh fuck it. The Sunday after Haggard was caught paying a gay male prostitute for sex, his congregation, clearly shocked, wanted an explanation because he had always been such an outspoken critic of gay matrimony. In defense, Haggard exclaimed “Hey! It’s not like I married the guy!”[6] With stuff like this, Haggard has no doubt learned that when you claim moral high ground and you fuck up by exposing yourself for what you truly are, you are going to be portrayed as idiotic, your supporters irrational, your denials comical, your apologies ludicrous, as you are mocked and humiliated and parodied seemingly without end with your entire outraged oration unmasked as the sanctimonious bullshit that it has always been. Such was the case with “the Horrible Haggard” and so it will always be; as Jimmy Swaggart and Jim Bakker can verify, once that holy-than-thou persona is invalidated, there is no relegitimating that fragile trust that their transgressions have shattered. Mass media giveth, mass media taketh away.
Haggard, who implores his evangelical listeners to not do anything “weird”, sure as hell shot that to shit. Forgetting all the stuff I just mentioned which honestly doesn’t really have much to do with this review, pretty much all we have seen of Haggard is him doing something weird. For example, Lanham, illustrating a Haggard oddity, sites the reverend’s appearance on Dateline when he Barbara Walters she was going to Hell on national television, bitched about some fictitious liberal tyranny while being obvious about his goal to influence political legislation, and also swore that “God is not a peaceful God” numerous times evidently confusing Jesus with Kali from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom or something (plus stuff I am not even going to get into about his outdated fanatical support of Trickle Down Economics which makes me think “What?”).
In this chapter detailing Haggard’s antics, Lanham also recounts his journey to the city Colorado Springs nicknamed “the Evangelical Vatican” where Haggard and Dobson call home base. In your reviewer’s opinion, at no time is Lanham more on point or more hilarious as he is when relating this pilgrimage to the evangelical headquarters which sounds just awful, I mean just awful, as a place to live. The pamphlets passed out by one Christian organization asks it’s barer to ponder the question “If you were to die today, do you know where you’d spend eternity?” and Lanham pleads to God that it won’t be Colorado Springs. Their itinerary here should clue you in (128-132):
Evil Shenanigans in Colorado Springs: Lanham and his group of godless pagans walk the mean streets of CS where they are advised by evangelical well-wishers to avoid downtown CS and the neighboring town Manitou like the plague since both are apparently filled with “sex fiends, drunks, and drug addicts,” which they took as an endorsement after too much megachurch hours logged. This promising news, however, was ill-advised as their “vodka-paved tour” of downtown was met be more evangelizing. After leaving a dance club with a frat-boy-and-date-rape theme, Lanham and crew dump into “Jesus fiends” instead of the elusive sex ones that no one can ever seem to find. Bummer. They then reluctantly accepted some church literature which they might as well have been saying “here, you throw this away” but the lack of sex starved chicks with drugs were no where to be seen.
Tour of Focus on the Family: Visiting the home of the Pope, Dobson’s Focus on the Family, Lanham describes the building’s contemporary architecture as a hybrid with the theme being a blend of an “elegant Citibank Corporate office” that meets Six Flags in one unholy marriage of indecent tastes; evidently, the place feels more like a mall than anything else—it has its own bookstore with a book titled (no kidding) Really Bad Girls of the Bible, a movie theater playing continuous loops of W’s greatest moments (?), and a three-story children’s slide strategically positioned (this is not bullshit as it turns out) next to the buildings antiabortion and antigay initiatives. The art that hangs from the walls throughout is really just kitsch by this guy G. Harvey described by some as “Norman Rockwell meets Hallmark” and looks to me like that repellent hotel-art-type that is just so bad and stupid it actually makes your head hurt you think about how shitty it is so much it is so bad and stupid. An example of one titled Early Boston Market that reminds me of something from the work of Pam in The Office that only Michael would love is incredibly bad. Other Harvey paintings have names like Genteel Nation and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that are just as bad and insipid as this one. They are just bad. Anyway, the tour’s apex comes after giving the FF history stuff, is visit to the recording studio found right there on the compound. We are told that plenty of shitty little name approriations are deployed for names of different areas of the compound like the “Chapelteria,” where visitors socialize, pray, and feast on the stuff evangelicals eat. In this auspicious room, there is a hole that is visible for all to see that eventually leads to a bullet that stands a reminder of the time a guy came in to the FF Center and went postal: taking hostages and what have you.
Debriefing: Apparently, Dobson’s people run a paranoid ship as the group was stopped before they were able to slither away by his PR manager, one Gwen Stein (sounds awfully Jewish to me Pope Dobson), when she was notified, presumably by the Holy Spirit, that there were reports in their midst. After being questioned about the “perspective” of his research, he ballsidly asks for an interview with good old JD. Piss-and-vinegar not withstanding, the PR lady tells him that Dobson “chooses to do the press that best promotes the beliefs of his ministry.” So, unfortunately, until he gets caught with his dick in some guys ass or does something otherwise detrimental to his image, he is going to come out looking like he doesn’t have a direct pipeline to Hell.
Getting the Fuck Out of Dodge: On their way out the door, after receiving the standard “God bless you”—which, like “aloha,” means hello and good-bye in Christianese—the group was approached by some old broad on their tour who was probably like every crazy old lady you saw talking about their screwed up theology of retribution and God’s Will taking one of her kid’s life because it was his plan to make her stronger and they should elect Benny Hinn President and only God knows what else that you ever saw. Turns out, she too wanted to know what perspective their book was going to take. They responded with vagary, telling her it was going to be “comprehensive.” This wasn’t the correct answer.
Flailing about wildly, she barks that “There is only one perspective. Christian and not Christian,” and then she probably, I don’t know, ascending into heaven or something. Or more likely, as indicated by the flailing, she was possessed.
6. Tim LaHaye/2nd Coming of Christ
Turning his sinning stare to the incredibly shitty evangelical writer Tim LaHaye, who has crapped on our literary tastes with the apocalyptic Left Behind series which in the little I have viddied, am able to surmise that the man has constructed a large body of work that proves little more than an encyclopedic example on how not to write an English sentence. In this blasphemy, LaHaye tells of the rise of the Antichrist and the resulting Rapture where fundamentalist Christians are magically taken up to Heaven via Tinkerbelle Jesus who sprinkles pixy dust on those who buy, read, and believe this absurd reading of the opinions of some guy.
Despite his incessant literary output that is equivalent to me putting shit to paper just after defecation and insanity, he unfortunately found the time to architect the Moral Majority with other notable shit-for-brains and founded the political group Council for National Policy attempting to abolish the separation of church and state. He doesn’t think that women should work but rather should be a good Christian wife and cook him dinner or whatever. However, LaHaye doesn’t really have his wife in check like he should since she heads a Christian antifeminist movement that is working to set women back to the dark ages. Maybe he should take her to the back porch overlooking the plantation, fetch a good switch for spanking, and teach her a lesson. But I am sure that she assures him that once her mission is complete and woman are once again property without any of those pesky civil liberties, she will gladly go back to the kitchen and shut her fucking mouth once and for all. While I would normally whole-heartedly support anything that would get LaHaye’s cum dumpster to just shut the fuck up, I believe that women are more than just subhuman. The scariest and hardest book to get out of your head written by LaHaye, so terrifying that once read (so I am told) is like there haunting you for all time, happens to be coauthored by this bitch-from-hell wife of his Beverly. The book, (Why Lord?) is titled The Act of Marriage and is a self-help guide (The horror! The horror!) of the couple’s formula to sexual (GOD NO!!! NO!!!) satisfaction which is more than enough to make anyone throw up. I can think of no better advise given by JC in light of this than “tear out [your eye] and throw it away” (Matthew 5:29).
Plus, LaHaye has got to be clinically paranoid; he pretty much hates everybody and says enough hateful things to offend us all. Don’t fool yourself just because you believe in this mythical, non-biblically Rapture; he hates you too. Some of the groups LaHaye’s tirades alienate include homosexuals (no shocker there), Jews, Muslims (surprise surprise), the wicked (code for liberals), women who work, Catholics, and non-fundamentalist evangelicals. Fuck it, the man is insane. Yet some believe his work to be gospel (It is unclear to me how literally you should take this last statement of mine [that people take this as gospel—a.k.a. good news—truth, not to be confused with I-don’t-know-how-factual-you-should-consider-the-Left-Behind-books-to-be since it is antireal and antichristian and wrong] which itself scares the hell out of me [again not the Rapture because I see no evidence to suggest that Jesus ever even remotely referred to this event] to even think about).
So where does he (or anyone for that matter) come up with all this Rapture shit? Uh… the Scofield Reference Bible, maybe, fun fact/reality check LaHaye, no King James Version or New Revised Standard Version ever once mentions the Rapture. That’s right, it’s not even in the Bible, this Rapture thing. So by fundamentalist logic, wouldn’t that mean if you believe in Rapture you are going to Hell to burn with Gandhi and Mohammed? And by the way, Calvin and Luther would be appalled.
7. Paul Weyirch
LaHaye’s homey is up next for Lanham to take down a peg or two. But with the wheelchair bound Paul Weyirch, that is damn near impossible to do since this man’s machine half is pretty solid. Like most evangelicals who support W and those conservative fuckers in power, Weyirch believes there is a vast liberal conspiracy out to get him headed by Hillary Rodham Clinton who is trying desperately to run shit (coming up is what I think is the real reason Hillary want just fucking concede already like everyone wants her to) so she can push Weyirch down the stairs of Capital Hill to watch him tumble comically on his face a la Walter style in The Big Lebowski, which after learning about this evangelical Dr. Strangelove, actually sounds pretty sweet. But instead of this happen, fulfilling what has become my number one desire since making it up twenty seconds ago, Weyirch counters by creating a rightwing conspiracy which is sort of factually discussed by Lanham.
Facts about Weyirch are he is Catholic but still has love for the Protestants who dissed his beloved RCC beginning with Luther and continuing to this day, he was integral (along with LaHaye) in founding the CNP, created the Religious Right, and believes that God is a republican. Fuck this guy. I can’t even talk about this asshole without getting all worked up and pissed off so just take my word for it that Lanham lays it on thick with his Weyirch critique that was more than deserved (the guy has ties to the Nazi Party for fuck’s sake).
8. Rob Bell/Emerging Church
This quasi-liberal sure as hell gets one thing right on the money—Christian rock is an abomination. He wants to make the church relevant again and he wants to do it with crappy gimmicks or messages of hate. He goes so far as to say that Focus on the Family is toxic to the Christian message and that is tragic; he is batting two-for-two here. The church should be countercultural not an extension of the mainstream. There shouldn’t be distinction, in Bell’s theology, between the religious and the secular in ways that label one and the other bad—salvation means universal harmony. I believe, however, above all else, Bell wants to be “hip” which is probably the reason why he went on record for a guy who wrote a book called The Hipster Handbook. Bell isn’t alone out there, there are others who are doing the Christian Left thing like Jim Wallis and apparently BioDome star Billy Baldwin—Good Lord. But doesn’t Baldwin’s skateboard ministry seem pretty gimmicky? And for that matter, doesn’t all of Bell’s hey-look-at-me-being-cool stuff seem pretty gimmicky? Lahan doesn’t go into the irony about this, which is legion, instead focusing on Bell’s conservative stance regarding homosexuals since he isn’t as forward thinking enough to think gay-marriage is an acceptable institution. Too bad, until this stuff is brought to light, Bell is batting a thousand. I guess he is just better than the alternative.
Speaking of which, did you know there are such things as evangelical videogames, comic books with the hero (I shit you not) Bibleman, and Bible-zines with questions on their covers reminiscent of Cosmo with a Jesus flair like “Top 10 Ways to Please Your God!” which makes me just want to throw up. That is just awful. I mean awful. Well now you know I guess.
Postscript/Mark Driscoll/Evangelical Quiz and Dictionary
But the craziness doesn’t stop there, there is now a newer rightwing church bringing youths over to the dark side in a sort of back lashing answer to the Emerging Movement. This guy Mark Driscoll, who is universally hated among my div school friends, is at the forefront of this shit. He claims to hate the term fundamentalist and thinks fundamentalists of any sort are dangerous but ends up being one when you come down to it since he believes in the inerrancy of the Bible. FYI, another guy in this camp is the guy who brought you the Dominos Oreo Dessert Pizza Mustache, owner of Dominos, and founder of Ava Maria University Tom Monaghan. Yeah, what a guy.
My Assessment
Although Lanham does seem to know his Bible thumping shit specks and is for the most part pretty funny, there are two and a half complaints I have with the book none of which are theologically or politically based. The first of these complaints is the one that only gets a half complaint status and it has to do with jokes that never take off the ground or explode midway through their run in a way that makes the reader cringe. While many of the book’s jokes are life-out-loud funny, the ratio of side splitters to totally bombs are just about 1:1. (At first I tried to keep track of duds like “Pass the sweet-‘n’-sour sauce. These McOsteen Nuggets is Yum-Mee,” when Lanham satirizes the franchising of megachurches, but they eventually became so frequent that it seemed like a huge waste of time to even bother.) But, as we all know, they can’t all be winners. The second complaint is the artwork that literally liters pages and looks something like a cross between Mad Magazine and shopping mall airbrushed tee-shirts. One of the only things I find creepier than rightwing evangelicals would be caricatures that resemble the ones people try to sell of Tupac holding hands with Christ and Scarface people always try to sell you on the street of any big city. Needless to say, I could have done without the visuals. But the most annoying thing about the book were the two cents thrown in by the “Cast” consisting of everyday evangelicals and one “Devil Rocker” named Ronnie James Dio who was apparently in Black Sabbath with Ozzy, and like the five “true to God” evangelicals, offers little insight that supports any of the claims Lanham makes in Sinner’s Guide. These “so whats” as I call them were basically the equivalent to popups that are one of the few things pretty much universally agreed upon as a serious pain in the ass.
Those things aside, I did find the book pretty helpful in teaching the laymen about this fringe group that has hijacked national policy and station airtime. As a divinity student writing a research paper on rightwing televangelists discussed in great detail in the book, I found most of the facts presented in it to be accurate if only a bit out of context. His sources are surprisingly good and he at times is extremely entertaining. If you can stomach the cheesiness of it, there is a great deal to learn from this book and from the website that furthers the study of this radically bizarre theocracy advocating religious minority.
[1] All of whom are extremely rich and accustomed to that lifestyle I want to point out.
[2] Don’t get me started.
[3] Which it should have been grammatically and referentially and makes the most since one would sort of think.
[4] Unless you are a fundamentalist Christian in which case that would be the Bible.
[5] For the entire Falwell and Robertson post 9/11 insanity, visit http://www.commondreams.org/news2001/0917-03.htm
[6] As a public figure made to look ridiculous by his own doing, the late night talk shows are true to form in exploiting Haggard’s ridiculous. If you are interested, here are some of the better shots taken by late night pundits.
Jon Stewart of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show jests “Haggard, president of the 30 million member National Association of Evangelicals, resigned his post this weekend after a three-year relationship with a gay hooker. And he also used and purchased crystal meth. Because if you're the head of a gay-hating organization and you're having a gay affair, why not go nuts?” and “Haggard was exposed by a male escort named Mike Jones, who said he was troubled by the hypocrisy of Haggard's public support for a Colorado initiative to ban same-sex marriage. And you know you're in trouble when you've ceded the moral high ground to a drug-dealing prostitute.”
The unfairly (in my opinion anyway) treated network television martyr and notorious liberal host of HBO’s Real Time, Bill Maher tells his audience that Haggard “resigned because a gay male prostitute said that he and the reverend had been having lots of meth amphetamine-fueled sex. Now the reverend did the Christian thing earlier this week and denied it. Now he says, ‘Okay, I did hire a gay male prostitute, but only for a massage.’ To which Mark Foley* said, ‘I’m even calling this one bullshit.”
A slew of quips from NBC’s Tonight Show host Jay Leno: “Haggard released a statement saying he's a deceiver and a liar. See to me, I think it's way too soon to announce you're going into politics”, “Haggard ... has compared his gay sex scandal to John Kerry's botching of a joke last week. You think they're the same? To be fair, they both involved a slip of the tongue”, “Haggard, who has close ties to the Bush administration, has resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after a gay male hooker said he had a three-year paid relationship with him. In fact, this is such a huge crisis for Republicans they are now offering John Kerry $1 million to tell another joke,” and “They say (Haggard) used church funds to pay for the male prostitute. That's like robbing Paul to pay for Peter.”
But, as has been the case circa October 2005, the most damning and critical comments came from Stephen Colbert as a satirical “defense” saying “Do you know how stressful running a megachurch is? It is mega-stressful. And he is supposed to get a massage from a woman? Any kinesiologist will tell you big muscular men get deep into your tissues, women don’t have the strength, getting a massage from a guy doesn’t make him gay, it makes him an educated consumer. Men know what men like. And as for the meth, I buy that stuff all the time and toss it out. To get it off the street and protect the kids.” I could literally go on days.
* This reference and the one made by Jimmy Kimmel has to do with the former U.S. Republican Congressman from Florida Mark Foley, who was one of the foremost opponents of child pornography serving as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. An all-round, world-class fuckhead, in 2006, Foley was accused of sending email and text messages to a former underage male Congressional page asking his for his age and photos. Freaking the hell out of the kid, he forwarded the emails to congressional staffers. The staffers proved useless as congressional staffers are wont to be and claimed they were innocent and Foley’s only crime was being “too friendly and too engaging” with the boy. Way to blame the victim there. The page remained unconvinced of Foley’s seraphicism forwarding yet another email during Hurricane Katrina asking “how are you weathering the hurricane…are you safe?” Innocent, sure, but then the email immediately takes the creepy turn telling him to “send [him] an email pic of you [sic] as well.” Responding as many an angsty teen would, the page replied by typing the word “sick” five or six times to get the old pederast off his youthful back. When the allegations went public, Foley claimed that his office has a practice keeping a photograph on file of pages who desire recommendations, which what the hell is that, but when another page came forward with more sexually explicit Foley requests, he was thoroughly fucked and in that sort rock-and-a-hard-place situation, it is either admitting to perversion/resignation or swallowing a bullet (if not both). So Foley is both an idiot and a terrible liar among other things.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
You Might Wanna Just Stay Away from the Zohan
Oh this movie is RIDICULOUS. The worst movie I’ve seen in years, this “film” is an affront to all that is descent and holy (literally) in a way that is an achievement in its ability to embarrass its audience and make Adam Sadler look desperate for our laughs and our money. Having paid $9.50 for this waste of film, there is no way to explain the actual shitiness that is You Don’t Mess with the Zohan. All I can say is You Just Don’t. You Just Don’t.
This movie represents an absolute first for me. I have walked out on a number of movies—The Fifth Element, Superstar, FeardotCom—and I demanded my money back after finishing a few films—Boys and Girls for piss poor quality (unsuccessful), The Cable Guy for a kid, apparently, breaking in to the projection booth and messing with the projection system for part of the movie (successful), and Ocean’s Eleven for a screaming kid and getting hit with a pickle I am told was unrelated to the kid (unsuccessful), but I have never both walked out on a film and then demanded my duckets back until Sandler’s new film.
Not only was the film so painfully asinine and its plot ludicrous, it manages to be extremely culturally insensitive—making light of the Israeli/Palestine conflict, akin, in this reviewer’s opinion, to turning The Diary of Anne Frank into a comedy or apartheid into a Broadway musical—, sexist (as my female-movie-going companion complained), and, umm, racist, not only is it anti-Arab, it also manages to be anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic to boot. The film feeds off stereotypes on both sides implying that all Palestinians (at least in the case of all the ones depicted in this film) are terrorists and that that all Israelis are basically Euro-trash. Holy shit.
While I won’t even go into my female companion’s tirade on the way the Zohan treated women (his way of showing any sort of gratitude was with sexual favors in the fashion made famous by dogs world over) suffice it to say, was involved and correct in its viciousness. Just take my word for it, it was one of outrage.
I understand that Sandler made the conflict absurd because he feels the conflict is inherently absurd to begin with. While I do agree that both sides are pretty much insane and the U.S.’s blind support of Israel equally crazy, Sandler’s use of self-reflexive irony and sarcasm are symptoms of that disease furthering what makes them absurd from the get go. It takes a very serious issue that this reviewer would argue is beyond parody (who thinks, for instance, riding a bus in Israel could ever be a funny thing?) and treats it the same way comedies would the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry.
Upon leaving this show (which cannot with a straight face likened to anything remotely cinematic—lets call it what it is, it's a waste of film). For the first time ever, I left the theater and got my money back. It was that bad. This reviewer could not financially support such a disgrace. Shame on Adam Sandler and shame on Happy Madison Productions. This was beyond unentertaining. It was anti-entertaining. Don’t even encourage the bastards.
This movie represents an absolute first for me. I have walked out on a number of movies—The Fifth Element, Superstar, FeardotCom—and I demanded my money back after finishing a few films—Boys and Girls for piss poor quality (unsuccessful), The Cable Guy for a kid, apparently, breaking in to the projection booth and messing with the projection system for part of the movie (successful), and Ocean’s Eleven for a screaming kid and getting hit with a pickle I am told was unrelated to the kid (unsuccessful), but I have never both walked out on a film and then demanded my duckets back until Sandler’s new film.
Not only was the film so painfully asinine and its plot ludicrous, it manages to be extremely culturally insensitive—making light of the Israeli/Palestine conflict, akin, in this reviewer’s opinion, to turning The Diary of Anne Frank into a comedy or apartheid into a Broadway musical—, sexist (as my female-movie-going companion complained), and, umm, racist, not only is it anti-Arab, it also manages to be anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic to boot. The film feeds off stereotypes on both sides implying that all Palestinians (at least in the case of all the ones depicted in this film) are terrorists and that that all Israelis are basically Euro-trash. Holy shit.
While I won’t even go into my female companion’s tirade on the way the Zohan treated women (his way of showing any sort of gratitude was with sexual favors in the fashion made famous by dogs world over) suffice it to say, was involved and correct in its viciousness. Just take my word for it, it was one of outrage.
I understand that Sandler made the conflict absurd because he feels the conflict is inherently absurd to begin with. While I do agree that both sides are pretty much insane and the U.S.’s blind support of Israel equally crazy, Sandler’s use of self-reflexive irony and sarcasm are symptoms of that disease furthering what makes them absurd from the get go. It takes a very serious issue that this reviewer would argue is beyond parody (who thinks, for instance, riding a bus in Israel could ever be a funny thing?) and treats it the same way comedies would the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry.
Upon leaving this show (which cannot with a straight face likened to anything remotely cinematic—lets call it what it is, it's a waste of film). For the first time ever, I left the theater and got my money back. It was that bad. This reviewer could not financially support such a disgrace. Shame on Adam Sandler and shame on Happy Madison Productions. This was beyond unentertaining. It was anti-entertaining. Don’t even encourage the bastards.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
McShakespeare: Something’s Rotten in the State of Pennsylvania
Billy Morrissette’s Scotland, PA transforms Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth, into a dark comedy set in the 1970s yet maintains many important Shakespearean themes at the film’s core. Unlike film versions which convert social structures from the original Shakespearian settings into more recent times, Scotland, PA is set in a working class town in Pennsylvania. As the film makes clear, greed and lust can transcend any class. Duncan, the blue-collar king of the town, owning a lucrative donut shop humorously titled Duncan’s Donuts which has become the towns most popular diner. Underappreciated Joe Macbeth, who goes by Mac alongside his wife Pat, work for the donut mogul in a dead end job that pays little and gets no respect. Mac remains behind the grill, making suggestions to Duncan like serving little chunks of chicken with dipping sauces that go unheard. However after informing his boss that the manager has been stealing from the establishment and breaking up a fight between two groups of customers, Mac becomes a hero. Three hippies then tell Mac he is unhappy and can do better for his wife which sets into motion the acts that turn Scotland upside down. Mac and Pat become driven by greed and decide to seize the restaurant and sit atop the burger thrown. Their plan, however, does not go down as smoothly as a Mcshake and their lust for power and guilt bring about their fall from the top.
One of the themes from Macbeth which resonates the strongest in the film is Lady Macbeth and Pat’s ambition for success which will stop at nothing until their husbands reign supreme without any potential threats to take away their power. In the play, Lady Macbeth is aware of her husband’s desire for power but knows he is not prompted to commit heinous acts. Unlike her husband, Lady Macbeth pursues her aspirations with no regard for the consequences but is less able to deal with the effects of their evil deeds. Pat sees her husband in a similar way: she views him as a man who longs for power but is “not man enough” to obtain them, yet, to her, he is someone she can manipulate to get the things that she wants. She advises Mac to be strong but she is incapable of handling her husband’s growing body count. From the beginning of the film Pat criticizes Mac for not showing more ambition and not standing up for her. Being unhappy with the way life is going, she is bored with Mac and their low paying jobs. When Duncan shows them the blueprint for the world’s first drive through, Pat seizes her opportunity to gain wealth and power. Upon leaving Duncan’s, she decides Mac must murder Duncan in order to get ahead, telling her husband, “We have to aim higher… I am the fucking assistant manager’s wife… We aren’t bad people, just underachievers making up for lost time. Don’t you think you deserve it?” In this scene, Pat skillfully exhibits her disdain for their current lifestyle saying they need better goals, while belittling Mac and justifying to him the act she wants him to commit. She believes that they are simply coming to their senses, taking what she believes to be up for grabs, and begins devising a plan. Suggesting they make it look like a robbery and pin it on a homeless man, she gets Mac to agree to her plan since neither believes they will get caught. Ultimately, however, the burden becomes too great and she loses her once guilt-free mind.
Before she commits suicide the roles in the Macbeths relationship are reversed with Mac taking the initiative while Pat is scared of taking further action. Mac tries to console her, saying “everything will be ok” because the hippies have told him that he has nothing to fear. Now Mac will stop at nothing to keep his power while Pat just wants the bloodshed to stop. She sees their reign coming to an end. The murder and mayhem no longer seem worth the wealth and status that is quickly coming to an end. Mac, on the other hand, feels immortal, he believes nothing can harm him and he can easily extinguish all the threats to power that come his way. This is only a false sense of security, however, because there is nothing Mac can do to “get to the source of the problem”. In other words, he cannot undue what has been done, but Mac interprets the warning differently believing the source to be Macduff. In a comical moment, the film plays on the course of action Macbeth takes in the play when a male hippy suggests he should kill Macduff’s entire family. Responding to this thought, the other male hippy states “yeah, that would have only worked like a thousand years ago”. This seems to be in response to when the play is set, which illustrates the time gap between the film and the play. Killing a detective’s family does not seem to be a good idea to the modern viewer and gets a laugh at how inappropriate it seems in this context.
In an attempt to make the film more humorous and appeal to the indie genre, the three witches who inspire Macbeth to murder Duncan and to order the death of Banquo are replaced by three hippies. Like the witches, the hippies place in the cosmos remains a mystery. Further more, both hippies and witches have been marginalized, never totally accepted into their respected societies. Instead of the storms that accompany the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, symbolizing the lack of order that rules the day, the carnival atmosphere in Scotland, PA does a good job illustrating the same concept. When Mac comes across this trio, he is usually drunk giving the viewer the impression that he could be imagining the whole scenario. Unlike the play, only Mac sees these figures; Banquo does not accompany him in the telling of his fortune, accomplished with the help of a magic eight ball. The Carnivalesque setting, where the three hippies speak to Mac is speckled with star like lights and a merry-go-round spins in the center of a room. In this framework, from the first time one sees Mac speaking with the counter culture prophets, it is apparent that they do not exist in the world. These characters are not bound by the rules of science or social norms; instead they appear and disappear when they please, make themselves visible only to Mac, predict the future, and speak in riddles. In these ways the hippies parallel the witches in Macbeth who come as quickly as they go and take delight in using their premonitions to destroy the lives of others.
Pat’s hand is not covered in the blood of Duncan, but giving the film a modern twist, her hand catches a grease splatter when Duncan goes head first into the fryer, giving her a visible burn, in arguably Morrissette’s most ingenious move. Rather than washing the brand, as Lady Macbeth tries to clean her blood-soaked hands in the play, Pat constantly applies burn ointment to her sore even after it heals. Three scenes in the film show Pat’s progression from slight paranoia to full-blown madness as her conscience proves overwhelming. The first indication that Pat is losing it comes when Pat runs out of skin cream and is asked who the tubes are for by the pharmacist and his assistant. Pat tells them they are sweet for pretending not to notice the mark she describes as “disgusting”. Having seen a quarter sized burn just after the murder of Duncan, the audience begins to question the mental state of Pat. Obviously fixated on the burn, thinking it draws attention to her, Pat is being consumed by her paranoia. Later, when she again attempts to buy more salve, insisting on “the bigger tubes,” the audience sees her hand without any bandages for the first time since Duncan’s funeral and there is not even a scar where her hand had once been scalded. Losing the strength and confidence she once possessed, Pat now finds herself terrified of the future and gives up on the idea of getting away scot-free, so to speak. She eventually becomes so overtaken by guilt and the painful reminder only she can see on her hand, she decides to remove the sore by chopping her own hand off. By letting her extreme paranoia dictate her actions, Pat goes to drastic measures in order to alleviate her conscience, an act that kills her similar to Lady Macbeth’s suicide due to her guilt.
Mac, like Shakespeare’s character Macbeth, sees many threats to his status, including his best friend and confidant, Banquo; the son of Duncan, Malcolm; and the homicide detective on the case, Macduff. All three of these characters develop growing suspicions about Macbeth’s quick rise to power. Initially, Macduff believes Malcolm to be behind his father’s death because he has fled the state and had never wanted to work in his father’s restaurant. This is similar to the people suspecting Malcolm in the play when he traveled to England and when he led on that he was not interested in being king saying he would be a worse ruler than Macbeth. Banquo, however, suspects Mac and Pat from almost the beginning, questioning the two about things he felt were “strange.” Mac recognizes Banquo as a potential hazard, indicating to the audience that Banquo will soon meet his demise since the couple cannot afford to leave any loose ends.
Another scene that corresponds to the Shakespeare tragedy comes from this problem after Mac kills Banquo. After the murder, Mac has a press conference to promote his restaurant which is doing very well. At this meeting, Mac begins to deliver a speech to the cameras and awaiting crowd, which includes Macduff and Malcolm among others. In this scene Mac sees Banquo’s ghost and begins speaking to it as Macbeth spoke to the spirit at a banquet. Everyone in the town now sees that Mac is beginning to go mad so Pat, quick to react, makes excuses for her husband’s odd behavior. Illustrating the effects of Mac’s guilty conscious weighing down on him, the scene shows that things are only getting worse for the couple as the death toll escalates. It soon becomes apparent that to stay in power the couple can never cease their murderous ways. This point is driven home at the end of the film when Mac is trying to kill Macduff and the threat forces Mac to realize the truth of his situation: there will always be challenges to his power and he will never be able to rest easy. After Macduff, Mac will have to kill Duncan’s two sons, Malcolm and Donald, then there will be more dangers to his prosperity and the murdering will never stop until Mac is dead, which comes at the hands of Macduff.
At no point in the film does Morrissette play with Shakespeare’s dialogue. The film could have been much stronger if he had, for example, used phrases like “there is something rotten in the state of Pennsylvania.” While this is a corny attempt, there are times when the movie begs for some of the original Shakespearian dialogue with a modern twist. In an interview Morrissette confesses that the film appeals more to those that have worked in a fast-food drive thru than a Shakespearian looking for the drama of the Globe Theater. In that way Scotland, PA and Macbeth work analogously to other films that are based on books from a different time period like Ten Things I Hate About You being based on The Taming of the Shrew, Oh Brother Where Art Thou based on the Odyssey, and Clueless finding its basis in Jane Austen’s Emma. The dialogue and setting are different but the plot remains more or less the same. For Scotland, PA, the foundation still remains murder, unchecked desire, and guilt that are so fundamental to Macbeth, but the modern twists and language are simply added for comedy.
One of the themes from Macbeth which resonates the strongest in the film is Lady Macbeth and Pat’s ambition for success which will stop at nothing until their husbands reign supreme without any potential threats to take away their power. In the play, Lady Macbeth is aware of her husband’s desire for power but knows he is not prompted to commit heinous acts. Unlike her husband, Lady Macbeth pursues her aspirations with no regard for the consequences but is less able to deal with the effects of their evil deeds. Pat sees her husband in a similar way: she views him as a man who longs for power but is “not man enough” to obtain them, yet, to her, he is someone she can manipulate to get the things that she wants. She advises Mac to be strong but she is incapable of handling her husband’s growing body count. From the beginning of the film Pat criticizes Mac for not showing more ambition and not standing up for her. Being unhappy with the way life is going, she is bored with Mac and their low paying jobs. When Duncan shows them the blueprint for the world’s first drive through, Pat seizes her opportunity to gain wealth and power. Upon leaving Duncan’s, she decides Mac must murder Duncan in order to get ahead, telling her husband, “We have to aim higher… I am the fucking assistant manager’s wife… We aren’t bad people, just underachievers making up for lost time. Don’t you think you deserve it?” In this scene, Pat skillfully exhibits her disdain for their current lifestyle saying they need better goals, while belittling Mac and justifying to him the act she wants him to commit. She believes that they are simply coming to their senses, taking what she believes to be up for grabs, and begins devising a plan. Suggesting they make it look like a robbery and pin it on a homeless man, she gets Mac to agree to her plan since neither believes they will get caught. Ultimately, however, the burden becomes too great and she loses her once guilt-free mind.
Before she commits suicide the roles in the Macbeths relationship are reversed with Mac taking the initiative while Pat is scared of taking further action. Mac tries to console her, saying “everything will be ok” because the hippies have told him that he has nothing to fear. Now Mac will stop at nothing to keep his power while Pat just wants the bloodshed to stop. She sees their reign coming to an end. The murder and mayhem no longer seem worth the wealth and status that is quickly coming to an end. Mac, on the other hand, feels immortal, he believes nothing can harm him and he can easily extinguish all the threats to power that come his way. This is only a false sense of security, however, because there is nothing Mac can do to “get to the source of the problem”. In other words, he cannot undue what has been done, but Mac interprets the warning differently believing the source to be Macduff. In a comical moment, the film plays on the course of action Macbeth takes in the play when a male hippy suggests he should kill Macduff’s entire family. Responding to this thought, the other male hippy states “yeah, that would have only worked like a thousand years ago”. This seems to be in response to when the play is set, which illustrates the time gap between the film and the play. Killing a detective’s family does not seem to be a good idea to the modern viewer and gets a laugh at how inappropriate it seems in this context.
In an attempt to make the film more humorous and appeal to the indie genre, the three witches who inspire Macbeth to murder Duncan and to order the death of Banquo are replaced by three hippies. Like the witches, the hippies place in the cosmos remains a mystery. Further more, both hippies and witches have been marginalized, never totally accepted into their respected societies. Instead of the storms that accompany the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, symbolizing the lack of order that rules the day, the carnival atmosphere in Scotland, PA does a good job illustrating the same concept. When Mac comes across this trio, he is usually drunk giving the viewer the impression that he could be imagining the whole scenario. Unlike the play, only Mac sees these figures; Banquo does not accompany him in the telling of his fortune, accomplished with the help of a magic eight ball. The Carnivalesque setting, where the three hippies speak to Mac is speckled with star like lights and a merry-go-round spins in the center of a room. In this framework, from the first time one sees Mac speaking with the counter culture prophets, it is apparent that they do not exist in the world. These characters are not bound by the rules of science or social norms; instead they appear and disappear when they please, make themselves visible only to Mac, predict the future, and speak in riddles. In these ways the hippies parallel the witches in Macbeth who come as quickly as they go and take delight in using their premonitions to destroy the lives of others.
Pat’s hand is not covered in the blood of Duncan, but giving the film a modern twist, her hand catches a grease splatter when Duncan goes head first into the fryer, giving her a visible burn, in arguably Morrissette’s most ingenious move. Rather than washing the brand, as Lady Macbeth tries to clean her blood-soaked hands in the play, Pat constantly applies burn ointment to her sore even after it heals. Three scenes in the film show Pat’s progression from slight paranoia to full-blown madness as her conscience proves overwhelming. The first indication that Pat is losing it comes when Pat runs out of skin cream and is asked who the tubes are for by the pharmacist and his assistant. Pat tells them they are sweet for pretending not to notice the mark she describes as “disgusting”. Having seen a quarter sized burn just after the murder of Duncan, the audience begins to question the mental state of Pat. Obviously fixated on the burn, thinking it draws attention to her, Pat is being consumed by her paranoia. Later, when she again attempts to buy more salve, insisting on “the bigger tubes,” the audience sees her hand without any bandages for the first time since Duncan’s funeral and there is not even a scar where her hand had once been scalded. Losing the strength and confidence she once possessed, Pat now finds herself terrified of the future and gives up on the idea of getting away scot-free, so to speak. She eventually becomes so overtaken by guilt and the painful reminder only she can see on her hand, she decides to remove the sore by chopping her own hand off. By letting her extreme paranoia dictate her actions, Pat goes to drastic measures in order to alleviate her conscience, an act that kills her similar to Lady Macbeth’s suicide due to her guilt.
Mac, like Shakespeare’s character Macbeth, sees many threats to his status, including his best friend and confidant, Banquo; the son of Duncan, Malcolm; and the homicide detective on the case, Macduff. All three of these characters develop growing suspicions about Macbeth’s quick rise to power. Initially, Macduff believes Malcolm to be behind his father’s death because he has fled the state and had never wanted to work in his father’s restaurant. This is similar to the people suspecting Malcolm in the play when he traveled to England and when he led on that he was not interested in being king saying he would be a worse ruler than Macbeth. Banquo, however, suspects Mac and Pat from almost the beginning, questioning the two about things he felt were “strange.” Mac recognizes Banquo as a potential hazard, indicating to the audience that Banquo will soon meet his demise since the couple cannot afford to leave any loose ends.
Another scene that corresponds to the Shakespeare tragedy comes from this problem after Mac kills Banquo. After the murder, Mac has a press conference to promote his restaurant which is doing very well. At this meeting, Mac begins to deliver a speech to the cameras and awaiting crowd, which includes Macduff and Malcolm among others. In this scene Mac sees Banquo’s ghost and begins speaking to it as Macbeth spoke to the spirit at a banquet. Everyone in the town now sees that Mac is beginning to go mad so Pat, quick to react, makes excuses for her husband’s odd behavior. Illustrating the effects of Mac’s guilty conscious weighing down on him, the scene shows that things are only getting worse for the couple as the death toll escalates. It soon becomes apparent that to stay in power the couple can never cease their murderous ways. This point is driven home at the end of the film when Mac is trying to kill Macduff and the threat forces Mac to realize the truth of his situation: there will always be challenges to his power and he will never be able to rest easy. After Macduff, Mac will have to kill Duncan’s two sons, Malcolm and Donald, then there will be more dangers to his prosperity and the murdering will never stop until Mac is dead, which comes at the hands of Macduff.
At no point in the film does Morrissette play with Shakespeare’s dialogue. The film could have been much stronger if he had, for example, used phrases like “there is something rotten in the state of Pennsylvania.” While this is a corny attempt, there are times when the movie begs for some of the original Shakespearian dialogue with a modern twist. In an interview Morrissette confesses that the film appeals more to those that have worked in a fast-food drive thru than a Shakespearian looking for the drama of the Globe Theater. In that way Scotland, PA and Macbeth work analogously to other films that are based on books from a different time period like Ten Things I Hate About You being based on The Taming of the Shrew, Oh Brother Where Art Thou based on the Odyssey, and Clueless finding its basis in Jane Austen’s Emma. The dialogue and setting are different but the plot remains more or less the same. For Scotland, PA, the foundation still remains murder, unchecked desire, and guilt that are so fundamental to Macbeth, but the modern twists and language are simply added for comedy.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Sor Juana's Poetry and Prose
When studying Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz—her poems, letters, autobiographical stuff, biographies written about her, the Penguin edition’s introduction to her body of work, etc.—it becomes pretty clear that while spiritual in nature, her real identity is that of a scholar.
Sor Juana’s “Response to the Most Illustrious Poetess Sor Filotea de la Cruz,” which appears in letter form, is apparently written with the intention that Sor Filotea would not be the only person to read the work but instead is written with an awareness that it would circulate throughout the Catholic community, at least in New Spain (present day Mexico) in any case. In this regard SJ seems to be Keats-esque in that when she pens a letter to an acquaintance, here being an acquaintance whom she never meets for interesting reasons (see below), its contents become well known indeed. The entire work is predicated on an important point that cannot be overlooked which she makes clear by mentioning it numerous times throughout the text. The fact is, SJ never really intends for the original letter that prompts Sor Filotea’s letter that “Response” depends on to circulate as widely as it does since she (1) did not herself have it published and (2) not intended for a wide circulation it lacks the necessary arguments and support for those arguments and fact checking that her exposé the “Response” has in plenty.
Throughout these little revelations of fact, she reflects on the question of who would do such a thing as publish a letter without the author’s permission. This is where things get pretty interesting in a behind-the-scenes sort of way. “Response” is a letter that is a response to the Athenagoric Letter which is a response to another letter that she had written earlier. SJ’s original letter had been mysteriously published by one Don Manuel Fernandez de Santa Cruz y Sahagun, the Bishop of Puebla, who, as the introduction suggests, probably penned the AL himself under the Sor Filotea pseudonym.
Arguably, SJ’ s knowledge of the letter’s true author is clear in that she goes way beyond what would normally seem excessive in terms of flattery into a kind of meta-flattery which comes off as ironic if not patronizing. Opening her letter with overemphasis on the “loving letter” and her “appreciation” of that letter in which its author openly tells her that her poet pursuits are frivolous and that her time should be spent studying theology seems a bit over the top. Even in its body the constant humility (at times) descends into a holy-than-thou-turn-the-other-cheekiness yet these instances, which do admittedly develop into an effective form of deceptive mockery, point to self-protection. After awhile, the apologies and the unworthinesses start to look like hidden contempt.
At times in “Response”, SJ basically all but screams she does not want to write anymore like a John Barth Lost in the Funhouse character who would just as soon give up the task of writing down the events that transpire as, well, weave through the obstacles that impede them.[1] However, though she would like to discontinue the writing of letters, specifically this letter, the impulse to go on does not relinquish itself because it has been, she claims, placed there by God.[2]
A student at the age of three, SJ begins to experience the inequalities and inferior status that her sex requires her in New Spain and by the Catholic Church. SJ’ s status as a woman (as opposed to a man) and later as a nun (as opposed to a priest) means that obstacles and societal expectations persist throughout her lifetime. The two inequalities which most affect SJ are her inability to study at the university level which only men are privileged and the authority that the male clergy have over her as a nun. She becomes so despondent due to the former that she attempts (unsuccessfully) to convince her mother to dress her as a man with fake mustache and all and send her to Mexico City to study. Despite the inability to earn some sort of an advanced degree, this unfairness actually (in some ways) ends up being a sort of blessing in disguise depending on how one looks at it.
While denying anyone the right to attend school is pretty high up on the scale of evil and/or manipulative control units that are degrading and corrupt in every sense; surprisingly, SJ finds that the impotent situation actually has some advantages. This becomes apparent when she writes “as I was not directed by preferences, nor, forced by the need to fulfill certain scholarly requirements, constrained by time in the pursuit of any subject, I found myself free to study numerous topics at the same time.”[3] When one thinks about what everybody says about contemporary universities and liberal arts colleges, that they “teach you how to think”, her little statement here in an odd way forces you to really think about what on earth this really means. It is clear that SJ, like most of us, already knew how to think, but the thing is, what they really do is teach you what to think about. They show one what has meaning and what does not and that you can choose to place it where or on what. The fact that she does not follow a set curriculum then means she can study anything she has a passionate interest in and leave the things she does not to others. However, having not attended university, she has to find what is important by trial and error which it appears she does very well. In other words, hers really is an education of a lifetime; hers is one that no amount of diplomas can illustrate and no amount of words can express.
One of the more interesting episodes described by SJ is the time limit with specific consequences she sets for learning rules of Latin grammar which relate to gender and societal expectations. The reason this is gender related is because she cuts off her hair, of which women’s are typically longer than men’s, and if she doesn't learn such and such a rule by the time it grows back, well, it gets cut off again. Thus she writes “there seemed to me no cause for a head to be adorned with hair and naked of learning.”[4] Hair today, gone tomorrow, as it were, but this statement makes an interesting point. While teaching herself Latin, she enters into the male world of scholarship because despite the fact that she makes later on in the text that she had no teacher to guide her nor can she ever become a teacher because of her female status, what she does in fact do is become a teacher: she does, after all, teach herself. In cutting off her hair she symbolically enters into the male dominated academic world while at the same time taking up a scholastic path which marks a literal entry into that world.
Another way SJ basically gives the middle finger to the way the RCC perceives the world comes as she writes about context in literature within the play “Loa for El Divino Narciso.” In said play she raises the question of whether things change when a work of fiction changes when taken from one culture to another. Taken literally, her words say that culture has little or no relevance in interpreting the text as a whole. In the examply she uses, when a piece of fiction is taken from New Mexico to Madrid; the text does not become something else but retains the same value even though the world is vastly different for the two groups. In contemporary understanding, this way of looking at literature is totally insane. Context is everything and I suppose that SJ knew this to be unquestionably true. To say otherwise would be equivalent to one saying that on 9/11/2001, the terrorists who commandeered planes and then crashed them into the World Trade Centers were bombing the same America that my grandmother with her innocent, sixth grade education, whose only method of birth control was the rhythm/pull out method is the same America as my angsty, graduate program, Generation Y with our vaginal ring BC which makes the female’s menstrual cycle optional. In other words, in the age of the meme machine, the only thing that divides our issues is that our medias have gotten more complex.
The fact that everyone in the play “[worships] the all-powerful God of Seeds!”[5] makes the point that everyone within the play has the same God when you come down to it. The Gods, great in number, worshipped by Occident, are not without their theological problems—i.e. with the “cruelest sacrifice:/ two thousand gods are satisfied,/but human blood must be the price”—but the whole practice of Zeal and Religion of forcing their beliefs upon Occident and America is imposition of the rankest sort and reminds the contemporary reading of African colonialism (AC). Like the twentieth century phenomenon of AC, when colonization came to the Americas it started out as a force to be ignored. After all, the people who lived in these lands were many and the colonizers were few. But they came in in greater numbers and their technologies had their advantages.
Because this is an allegory, the fact that Religion actually antagonizes Zeal, asking how he can “tolerate [the]… Idolatry”[6] of the people they happen upon, it is difficult to see the Church here in a positive way. Yet at the end of the drama everyone sings and is happy in way that is pretty creepy since the manipulative practices of both Religion and Zeal destroy the culture that it imposed itself on in the first place. While constantly professing peaceful resolution and mercy, Religion lets Zeal first break these people after reason fails and then after they have been conquered, Religion goes about reasoning again. After being forced to bow down to “boom-sticks” and men on horseback that are referred to as “Centaurs”[7], I suppose Religion’s original offer doesn’t seem too bad considering the alternative: death. So when Religion says to Zeal “allowing her to live/ is witness to my clemency,”[8] she is really taking part in the same kind of systematized control that Christianity has a long enduring reputation for. However, SJ is a nun and is a part of that system, which in part explains the happy ending. The fact that she is both a colonizer and among the colonized makes her both critical of Christianity and a part of it: thus she writes about the way Christianity came to the Americas negatively but stresses that its results of it have been positive.
When reading SJ in 2008, it is almost impossible not to think of the African fiction stuff—that has been so articulate and eye opening and interesting and depressing and cool since Things Fall Apart and so many more that it is probably better to just take my word for it—since many of the same issues facing the African continent since at least British imperialism have come about , are the same things that SJ writes about several hundred years before anyone even heard the phrase “blood diamonds” or anything like that. When you think about it, isn’t it the same? When cultures clash, the results are often conformity at the price of both blood and the loss of identity. SJ knows this, the Church knows this, indigenous people figure this out, and the modern reader knows this. With such a dark history it has become increasingly harder for people to rally around the Roman Catholic Church if not the entire Christian faith which has serious complications for postmodernity.
[1] If this comparison survives the final cut, considering the issue of length here, the less said the better, maybe, except it should be known that the two writers make so many references to the process of writing as a craft and are so eerily similar in the way they say it that it is hard to decipher who specifically writes what. To be frank, while reading both at the same time it’s almost impossible for me to separate the two, which maybe you have to be studying them simultaneously to see. Ok, the heck with it, here is a particularly relevant example from SJ to illustrate the similarity from page 11 when she talks about how she, being called to write in order to defend herself, has not the desire to triumph: “If, then, I err, I suffer neither blame nor discredit: I suffer no blame, as I have no obligation; no discredit, as I have no possibility of triumphing—and no one is obliged to do the impossible.” And just one random example here from Barth on page 39 of LF in his story “Autobiography” when the narrator contemplates giving up the story (thus life) and says “May the end come quietly, then, without my knowing it. In the course of any breath. In the heart of any word. This one. This one.” The point here is that in that same tone/voice, both narrators are pushed to write not by their own hands but those of other people.
[2] “Response to the Most Illustrious Poetess Sor Filotea de la Cruz,” p. 11.
[3] “Response…,” p. 23.
[4] “Response…, p. 15.
[5] Loa for the Auto Sacramental, p. 197.
[6] Loa…, p. 201.
[7] Loa…, p. 213.
[8] Loa…, p. 215.
Sor Juana’s “Response to the Most Illustrious Poetess Sor Filotea de la Cruz,” which appears in letter form, is apparently written with the intention that Sor Filotea would not be the only person to read the work but instead is written with an awareness that it would circulate throughout the Catholic community, at least in New Spain (present day Mexico) in any case. In this regard SJ seems to be Keats-esque in that when she pens a letter to an acquaintance, here being an acquaintance whom she never meets for interesting reasons (see below), its contents become well known indeed. The entire work is predicated on an important point that cannot be overlooked which she makes clear by mentioning it numerous times throughout the text. The fact is, SJ never really intends for the original letter that prompts Sor Filotea’s letter that “Response” depends on to circulate as widely as it does since she (1) did not herself have it published and (2) not intended for a wide circulation it lacks the necessary arguments and support for those arguments and fact checking that her exposé the “Response” has in plenty.
Throughout these little revelations of fact, she reflects on the question of who would do such a thing as publish a letter without the author’s permission. This is where things get pretty interesting in a behind-the-scenes sort of way. “Response” is a letter that is a response to the Athenagoric Letter which is a response to another letter that she had written earlier. SJ’s original letter had been mysteriously published by one Don Manuel Fernandez de Santa Cruz y Sahagun, the Bishop of Puebla, who, as the introduction suggests, probably penned the AL himself under the Sor Filotea pseudonym.
Arguably, SJ’ s knowledge of the letter’s true author is clear in that she goes way beyond what would normally seem excessive in terms of flattery into a kind of meta-flattery which comes off as ironic if not patronizing. Opening her letter with overemphasis on the “loving letter” and her “appreciation” of that letter in which its author openly tells her that her poet pursuits are frivolous and that her time should be spent studying theology seems a bit over the top. Even in its body the constant humility (at times) descends into a holy-than-thou-turn-the-other-cheekiness yet these instances, which do admittedly develop into an effective form of deceptive mockery, point to self-protection. After awhile, the apologies and the unworthinesses start to look like hidden contempt.
At times in “Response”, SJ basically all but screams she does not want to write anymore like a John Barth Lost in the Funhouse character who would just as soon give up the task of writing down the events that transpire as, well, weave through the obstacles that impede them.[1] However, though she would like to discontinue the writing of letters, specifically this letter, the impulse to go on does not relinquish itself because it has been, she claims, placed there by God.[2]
A student at the age of three, SJ begins to experience the inequalities and inferior status that her sex requires her in New Spain and by the Catholic Church. SJ’ s status as a woman (as opposed to a man) and later as a nun (as opposed to a priest) means that obstacles and societal expectations persist throughout her lifetime. The two inequalities which most affect SJ are her inability to study at the university level which only men are privileged and the authority that the male clergy have over her as a nun. She becomes so despondent due to the former that she attempts (unsuccessfully) to convince her mother to dress her as a man with fake mustache and all and send her to Mexico City to study. Despite the inability to earn some sort of an advanced degree, this unfairness actually (in some ways) ends up being a sort of blessing in disguise depending on how one looks at it.
While denying anyone the right to attend school is pretty high up on the scale of evil and/or manipulative control units that are degrading and corrupt in every sense; surprisingly, SJ finds that the impotent situation actually has some advantages. This becomes apparent when she writes “as I was not directed by preferences, nor, forced by the need to fulfill certain scholarly requirements, constrained by time in the pursuit of any subject, I found myself free to study numerous topics at the same time.”[3] When one thinks about what everybody says about contemporary universities and liberal arts colleges, that they “teach you how to think”, her little statement here in an odd way forces you to really think about what on earth this really means. It is clear that SJ, like most of us, already knew how to think, but the thing is, what they really do is teach you what to think about. They show one what has meaning and what does not and that you can choose to place it where or on what. The fact that she does not follow a set curriculum then means she can study anything she has a passionate interest in and leave the things she does not to others. However, having not attended university, she has to find what is important by trial and error which it appears she does very well. In other words, hers really is an education of a lifetime; hers is one that no amount of diplomas can illustrate and no amount of words can express.
One of the more interesting episodes described by SJ is the time limit with specific consequences she sets for learning rules of Latin grammar which relate to gender and societal expectations. The reason this is gender related is because she cuts off her hair, of which women’s are typically longer than men’s, and if she doesn't learn such and such a rule by the time it grows back, well, it gets cut off again. Thus she writes “there seemed to me no cause for a head to be adorned with hair and naked of learning.”[4] Hair today, gone tomorrow, as it were, but this statement makes an interesting point. While teaching herself Latin, she enters into the male world of scholarship because despite the fact that she makes later on in the text that she had no teacher to guide her nor can she ever become a teacher because of her female status, what she does in fact do is become a teacher: she does, after all, teach herself. In cutting off her hair she symbolically enters into the male dominated academic world while at the same time taking up a scholastic path which marks a literal entry into that world.
Another way SJ basically gives the middle finger to the way the RCC perceives the world comes as she writes about context in literature within the play “Loa for El Divino Narciso.” In said play she raises the question of whether things change when a work of fiction changes when taken from one culture to another. Taken literally, her words say that culture has little or no relevance in interpreting the text as a whole. In the examply she uses, when a piece of fiction is taken from New Mexico to Madrid; the text does not become something else but retains the same value even though the world is vastly different for the two groups. In contemporary understanding, this way of looking at literature is totally insane. Context is everything and I suppose that SJ knew this to be unquestionably true. To say otherwise would be equivalent to one saying that on 9/11/2001, the terrorists who commandeered planes and then crashed them into the World Trade Centers were bombing the same America that my grandmother with her innocent, sixth grade education, whose only method of birth control was the rhythm/pull out method is the same America as my angsty, graduate program, Generation Y with our vaginal ring BC which makes the female’s menstrual cycle optional. In other words, in the age of the meme machine, the only thing that divides our issues is that our medias have gotten more complex.
The fact that everyone in the play “[worships] the all-powerful God of Seeds!”[5] makes the point that everyone within the play has the same God when you come down to it. The Gods, great in number, worshipped by Occident, are not without their theological problems—i.e. with the “cruelest sacrifice:/ two thousand gods are satisfied,/but human blood must be the price”—but the whole practice of Zeal and Religion of forcing their beliefs upon Occident and America is imposition of the rankest sort and reminds the contemporary reading of African colonialism (AC). Like the twentieth century phenomenon of AC, when colonization came to the Americas it started out as a force to be ignored. After all, the people who lived in these lands were many and the colonizers were few. But they came in in greater numbers and their technologies had their advantages.
Because this is an allegory, the fact that Religion actually antagonizes Zeal, asking how he can “tolerate [the]… Idolatry”[6] of the people they happen upon, it is difficult to see the Church here in a positive way. Yet at the end of the drama everyone sings and is happy in way that is pretty creepy since the manipulative practices of both Religion and Zeal destroy the culture that it imposed itself on in the first place. While constantly professing peaceful resolution and mercy, Religion lets Zeal first break these people after reason fails and then after they have been conquered, Religion goes about reasoning again. After being forced to bow down to “boom-sticks” and men on horseback that are referred to as “Centaurs”[7], I suppose Religion’s original offer doesn’t seem too bad considering the alternative: death. So when Religion says to Zeal “allowing her to live/ is witness to my clemency,”[8] she is really taking part in the same kind of systematized control that Christianity has a long enduring reputation for. However, SJ is a nun and is a part of that system, which in part explains the happy ending. The fact that she is both a colonizer and among the colonized makes her both critical of Christianity and a part of it: thus she writes about the way Christianity came to the Americas negatively but stresses that its results of it have been positive.
When reading SJ in 2008, it is almost impossible not to think of the African fiction stuff—that has been so articulate and eye opening and interesting and depressing and cool since Things Fall Apart and so many more that it is probably better to just take my word for it—since many of the same issues facing the African continent since at least British imperialism have come about , are the same things that SJ writes about several hundred years before anyone even heard the phrase “blood diamonds” or anything like that. When you think about it, isn’t it the same? When cultures clash, the results are often conformity at the price of both blood and the loss of identity. SJ knows this, the Church knows this, indigenous people figure this out, and the modern reader knows this. With such a dark history it has become increasingly harder for people to rally around the Roman Catholic Church if not the entire Christian faith which has serious complications for postmodernity.
[1] If this comparison survives the final cut, considering the issue of length here, the less said the better, maybe, except it should be known that the two writers make so many references to the process of writing as a craft and are so eerily similar in the way they say it that it is hard to decipher who specifically writes what. To be frank, while reading both at the same time it’s almost impossible for me to separate the two, which maybe you have to be studying them simultaneously to see. Ok, the heck with it, here is a particularly relevant example from SJ to illustrate the similarity from page 11 when she talks about how she, being called to write in order to defend herself, has not the desire to triumph: “If, then, I err, I suffer neither blame nor discredit: I suffer no blame, as I have no obligation; no discredit, as I have no possibility of triumphing—and no one is obliged to do the impossible.” And just one random example here from Barth on page 39 of LF in his story “Autobiography” when the narrator contemplates giving up the story (thus life) and says “May the end come quietly, then, without my knowing it. In the course of any breath. In the heart of any word. This one. This one.” The point here is that in that same tone/voice, both narrators are pushed to write not by their own hands but those of other people.
[2] “Response to the Most Illustrious Poetess Sor Filotea de la Cruz,” p. 11.
[3] “Response…,” p. 23.
[4] “Response…, p. 15.
[5] Loa for the Auto Sacramental, p. 197.
[6] Loa…, p. 201.
[7] Loa…, p. 213.
[8] Loa…, p. 215.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
One Can Certainly Smell Something: Concha Romero's "A Saintly Scent of Amber"
Concha Romero’s allegorical “A Saintly Scent of Amber” (ASSA) presents a, to some extent, well known archetype and not only chronicles a period of church history rife with political/religious turmoil, she also modernizes the account serving to illustrate issues of relevance in the present day. Romero’s play, which at times borders on laugh-at-loud-hilarity, is arguably genius in the way it achieves the effect of humor by meshing the ridiculous with the seriousness of the subject matter. As a playwright constructing her work in the late days of postmodernism’s reign as the literary school fiction authors subscribe to make cultural sense of what exactly is going on in the world; her work follows some of the period’s conventions. More often times than not, postmodernists (in general) have dealt with the “postmodern condition” with heavy doses of irony.
Irony, by no means a new literary concept, enjoys its most liberal usage (with a few exceptions, Chaucer being the most significant as well as the current model of fiction under the various titles of Image-Fiction, Hyperrealism, and the awkward/clunky post-postmodernism) in this era of fiction which oftentimes presents its self verbally in a setting that is situationally ironic that is part of an overarching irony in a book/story/poem/play with a title that is itself ironic. Thus ASSA is extremely ironic which for the most part explains why the sobriety comes off as funny. For example, when the group of nuns stand arm-linked in the well known environmentalist technique of you-can’t-cut-down-this-jungle-because-we-are-holding-hands-in-your-way at the door of the habit which pretty much never works and desists after those wanting to break the chain start making threats like “I have this piece of paper here that says you need to move” or “we have chainsaws and are going to use them to cut something down” or in Gregorio’s case “EXCOMMUNICATION! EXCOMMUNICATION!” (46). To the contemporary audience, the nuns’ responding with an emphatic “No, excommunication, nooooooo!” is totally absurd making it, well, laughable. This is, of course, because most people have little notion of what exactly excommunication involves, on the one hand, or do not take the threat as seriously as those from the time before religious plurality spread to Spain when being Spanish meant being Catholic thus subject to the pope.
While difficult to see certain parts of the play (for instance scenes depicting the dismemberment of St. Teresa’s corpse) as exactly being a laugh riot, some scenes boarder on being slapstick. Mariana, as one example, scurrying about crying and babbling about death and corpses and excommunication has a sort of Three Stooges quality about her when at her most distressed. It is difficult, for the most part, to view her as anything but a grotesque parody of comic relief due to the fact that she seems to be the only character at all concerned about cutting off rotting chunks of cold, human meat until close to the very end when Gregorio nearly spills the groceries from the look and smell of the festering flesh. One of the creepy things about Mariana’s character and her reactions is that the audience/reader thinks that these things are funny at all. Having the ability to suspend belief, the viewer sees the body not as most of us would (i.e. in the way that makes Mariana physically unable) but as the more hardened hackers of limbs, which is it self ironic but when you think about it, not at all funny.
Regardless of how silly she may appear, Mariana is not stupid or ignorant, what she is, or seems to be, is innocent. Her inability to deal with death becomes an endearing quality and she ends up being one of the more sympathetic characters because of it. The same inability to behave toward a dead body in a rational way, which happens a lot, is also the same reason other characters come off as antipathetic. Take Father Gracian’s saw off of St. Teresa’s hand during the concluding segment of Act One. At this point, Gracian loses not only the respect of the audience; he transcends eccentric becoming a madman with a gruesome fetish. To be fair, the audience realizes a particular strangeness in Gracian’s affection toward the corpse before this incident but it is not until this moment that we behold him with scorn instead of as an oddity.
To see why this is so, one need look no further than the way he speaks about the flesh of his former friend. With sexualized language, Gracian eroticizes the corpse when he repeatedly states that he “would like a few moments alone with her” (21) which pretty much sweats with sexual tension. To make this all the more disturbing, upon examining the body, he touches it and says “her skin gives as if she were alive” (20) making the reader cringe and later question what exactly he intends to do with the hand. While verbally he speaks of the corpse in a way that you can’t help but think of necrophilia as a possible outcome, removing the hand becomes the first obvious instance of dehumanizing that the former St. Teresa undergoes.
Before the body’s desecration by dismemberment, the body is talked about as though it still contains the person of St. Teresa. One witnesses the care the nuns exhibit while removing her veil and when washing and moving the corpse about which resembles the way someone would care for any delicate human being that he or she CARES ABOUT. With his knife, Gracian ultimately begins a dehumanizing process eclipsing in the body separation into sections, fought over like a bone among hungry dogs, and tossed in a sack to be shipped off to God knows where. The major conflict at the end of the play occurs in part because this dehumanizing of St. Teresa’s flesh is not fully recognized, it would seem anyway, by the Prioress.
In the play’s first act, the Prioress does not appear to be one the audience is supposed to sympathize with, this is not so as the play progresses. What makes this dubious are her blurred convictions about what should be done with the body; after all, she does give the townspeople St. Teresa relics and all they have to do is come down to the habit and ask.
Upon first glance, the dynamic between the male clergy and female nuns in the two acts seem quite different; however, interpreting as such would be surface-level thus ignoring one of the major overarching critics of the church the play provides. For example, in Act One, while the Prioress and the nuns affect a more cordial standing with the male clergy than in Act Two, the same problem permeates the entire encounter. What is apparent—though perhaps not obvious—throughout the play is the fact that there is a sense of inequality between the two groups with the men occupying a type of entitlement and the women a kind subservience. In the second act, the lopsided power dynamic touches-the-nerve again and again with phrases like “this convent has more than once offered a partridge or two to an illustrious visitor” (39); “you reason well for a woman, but it doesn’t appear at all respectful to me that a nun, regardless of her position as prioress, dare refer to a monk as incidental” (41); “Careful. Widows are the most dangerous. They come in already corrupted by the world” (42); etc.
The two male/female relationships of Act One and Two bridge most noticeably when Gregorio and Antonio stop by for the old surprise visit to which the Prioress frantically tells the doorkeeper to “distract him for a few moments while we tidy up” while barking orders at anyone within proximity. Her excited expressions impart a very real aura of danger, telling because it is understood that if their habit appears disorderly then there could be serious repercussions. A couple of points to keep in mind here are that (1) this line directly follows the performance of a play by the nuns—an occupation unlawful for woman mind you—in celebration of the Prioress’s birthday and (2) the group has had no contact with the newly appointed Provincial so they know nothing of particular attitudes of this specific man insinuating that in a general (if not universal) way, the clergy does not regard them egalitarianly; instead, view them as subjects.
Overall, the play is worth viewing or reading mainly for a contemporary feminist interpretation of church history and also how the body fits in with both tradition and current Eucharistic practices. I can’t resist pointing out that the play gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “chicks with body issues.” Romero shows how the body is exploited as well as the patriarchal system that defines the female role as one of submission and compliance. “A Saintly Scent of Amber” is a goldmine for bad jokes about necrophilia and masturbation but to make them is either to miss the point entirely or to really get it. In the end, it is hard to tell which.
Irony, by no means a new literary concept, enjoys its most liberal usage (with a few exceptions, Chaucer being the most significant as well as the current model of fiction under the various titles of Image-Fiction, Hyperrealism, and the awkward/clunky post-postmodernism) in this era of fiction which oftentimes presents its self verbally in a setting that is situationally ironic that is part of an overarching irony in a book/story/poem/play with a title that is itself ironic. Thus ASSA is extremely ironic which for the most part explains why the sobriety comes off as funny. For example, when the group of nuns stand arm-linked in the well known environmentalist technique of you-can’t-cut-down-this-jungle-because-we-are-holding-hands-in-your-way at the door of the habit which pretty much never works and desists after those wanting to break the chain start making threats like “I have this piece of paper here that says you need to move” or “we have chainsaws and are going to use them to cut something down” or in Gregorio’s case “EXCOMMUNICATION! EXCOMMUNICATION!” (46). To the contemporary audience, the nuns’ responding with an emphatic “No, excommunication, nooooooo!” is totally absurd making it, well, laughable. This is, of course, because most people have little notion of what exactly excommunication involves, on the one hand, or do not take the threat as seriously as those from the time before religious plurality spread to Spain when being Spanish meant being Catholic thus subject to the pope.
While difficult to see certain parts of the play (for instance scenes depicting the dismemberment of St. Teresa’s corpse) as exactly being a laugh riot, some scenes boarder on being slapstick. Mariana, as one example, scurrying about crying and babbling about death and corpses and excommunication has a sort of Three Stooges quality about her when at her most distressed. It is difficult, for the most part, to view her as anything but a grotesque parody of comic relief due to the fact that she seems to be the only character at all concerned about cutting off rotting chunks of cold, human meat until close to the very end when Gregorio nearly spills the groceries from the look and smell of the festering flesh. One of the creepy things about Mariana’s character and her reactions is that the audience/reader thinks that these things are funny at all. Having the ability to suspend belief, the viewer sees the body not as most of us would (i.e. in the way that makes Mariana physically unable) but as the more hardened hackers of limbs, which is it self ironic but when you think about it, not at all funny.
Regardless of how silly she may appear, Mariana is not stupid or ignorant, what she is, or seems to be, is innocent. Her inability to deal with death becomes an endearing quality and she ends up being one of the more sympathetic characters because of it. The same inability to behave toward a dead body in a rational way, which happens a lot, is also the same reason other characters come off as antipathetic. Take Father Gracian’s saw off of St. Teresa’s hand during the concluding segment of Act One. At this point, Gracian loses not only the respect of the audience; he transcends eccentric becoming a madman with a gruesome fetish. To be fair, the audience realizes a particular strangeness in Gracian’s affection toward the corpse before this incident but it is not until this moment that we behold him with scorn instead of as an oddity.
To see why this is so, one need look no further than the way he speaks about the flesh of his former friend. With sexualized language, Gracian eroticizes the corpse when he repeatedly states that he “would like a few moments alone with her” (21) which pretty much sweats with sexual tension. To make this all the more disturbing, upon examining the body, he touches it and says “her skin gives as if she were alive” (20) making the reader cringe and later question what exactly he intends to do with the hand. While verbally he speaks of the corpse in a way that you can’t help but think of necrophilia as a possible outcome, removing the hand becomes the first obvious instance of dehumanizing that the former St. Teresa undergoes.
Before the body’s desecration by dismemberment, the body is talked about as though it still contains the person of St. Teresa. One witnesses the care the nuns exhibit while removing her veil and when washing and moving the corpse about which resembles the way someone would care for any delicate human being that he or she CARES ABOUT. With his knife, Gracian ultimately begins a dehumanizing process eclipsing in the body separation into sections, fought over like a bone among hungry dogs, and tossed in a sack to be shipped off to God knows where. The major conflict at the end of the play occurs in part because this dehumanizing of St. Teresa’s flesh is not fully recognized, it would seem anyway, by the Prioress.
In the play’s first act, the Prioress does not appear to be one the audience is supposed to sympathize with, this is not so as the play progresses. What makes this dubious are her blurred convictions about what should be done with the body; after all, she does give the townspeople St. Teresa relics and all they have to do is come down to the habit and ask.
Upon first glance, the dynamic between the male clergy and female nuns in the two acts seem quite different; however, interpreting as such would be surface-level thus ignoring one of the major overarching critics of the church the play provides. For example, in Act One, while the Prioress and the nuns affect a more cordial standing with the male clergy than in Act Two, the same problem permeates the entire encounter. What is apparent—though perhaps not obvious—throughout the play is the fact that there is a sense of inequality between the two groups with the men occupying a type of entitlement and the women a kind subservience. In the second act, the lopsided power dynamic touches-the-nerve again and again with phrases like “this convent has more than once offered a partridge or two to an illustrious visitor” (39); “you reason well for a woman, but it doesn’t appear at all respectful to me that a nun, regardless of her position as prioress, dare refer to a monk as incidental” (41); “Careful. Widows are the most dangerous. They come in already corrupted by the world” (42); etc.
The two male/female relationships of Act One and Two bridge most noticeably when Gregorio and Antonio stop by for the old surprise visit to which the Prioress frantically tells the doorkeeper to “distract him for a few moments while we tidy up” while barking orders at anyone within proximity. Her excited expressions impart a very real aura of danger, telling because it is understood that if their habit appears disorderly then there could be serious repercussions. A couple of points to keep in mind here are that (1) this line directly follows the performance of a play by the nuns—an occupation unlawful for woman mind you—in celebration of the Prioress’s birthday and (2) the group has had no contact with the newly appointed Provincial so they know nothing of particular attitudes of this specific man insinuating that in a general (if not universal) way, the clergy does not regard them egalitarianly; instead, view them as subjects.
Overall, the play is worth viewing or reading mainly for a contemporary feminist interpretation of church history and also how the body fits in with both tradition and current Eucharistic practices. I can’t resist pointing out that the play gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “chicks with body issues.” Romero shows how the body is exploited as well as the patriarchal system that defines the female role as one of submission and compliance. “A Saintly Scent of Amber” is a goldmine for bad jokes about necrophilia and masturbation but to make them is either to miss the point entirely or to really get it. In the end, it is hard to tell which.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Yeah We Can Interprt the Bible Our Own Damned Selves
Martin Luther, German monk/theologian, effectively argues for church reform and against the supremacy of the pope which he bases on the Scripture. Constantly using the Scriptures to support his claims, Luther systematically shatters everything he considers unjust and argues with such zeal that his works present themselves in a way that is most impressive. In his Three Treatises Luther writes for laity and clergy alike to reveal the abuses of the church in Rome and calls his audience to force Rome’s hand at major reconstruction. With his very organized style, the breadth of his articles, and the soundness of most of his proposals it is clear that Luther laid the groundwork for true change.
In his work “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation” Luther not only discloses the “three walls” which the papacy hides behind and the abuses of the pope and Rome but also makes some very well informed proposals for making amends. After briefly stating that the church is basically run by oppressive demons, Luther begins by exposing the three ways that Rome has been able to do this while protecting themselves from reform. With the first wall he explains that the church claims precedence over the state and common people but this cannot be true. To Luther all believers are of the same estate and of the priestly order, therefore, in spiritual matters all true Christians are equal. While one person may be a stonemason and the other a minister, their faith makes both of them priests and they are identical in the eyes of God. One is not preferred to the other, one simply conducts the sacraments and the other does not, this being the only difference between them. The second wall Luther refutes is the Romanist belief that the pope alone has the power to interpret Scripture. Ironically, he first does this by interpreting the Scripture and then by questioning the pope’s ability in this matter! He then returns to the idea that all Christians are priests according to which the pope has no extra spiritual authority than anyone else so has no divine ability in regards to discernment. Under the same logic with which the first two walls fell, the third wall (only the pope has the right to call a council) also crumbles. Luther makes it especially clear that this rule oppresses the Christian people and should not be acknowledge when he writes “if the pope were to use his authority to prevent the calling of a free council, thereby preventing the improvement of the church, we should have regard neither for him nor for his authority,” (24). By giving the pope alone this right, not only do the Romanists go against the idea that all Christians are priests but also the pope has abused his power of infallibility. Luther makes clear that none of these walls can be supported by Scripture and are harmful to the Christian faith so should be regarded as invalid.
Luther then addresses the specific abuses committed by the church against the German people that need his immediate attention. These pressing issues include the abuse of papal authority, the number of cardinals in Germany, and the unjust taking of money and property from his country’s people. With regard to the charge made of papal authority, Luther seethes with anger and contempt yet his argument stays clear and remains solid. He explains that the pope’s humility should serve as an example to all Christians instead doing things like wearing a triple crown which he considers to be ultra vain considering even a monarch wears two less. Where as papal supporters assert that this is acceptable because the pope is a lord on earth Luther calls it a lie and uses Scripture to show the inaccuracy of their claim. Here Luther makes an excellent point when he writes “no vicar’s rule can go beyond that of his lord,” (27). By saying that Christ was the Lord of Heaven on earth when made flesh not a lord of the earth totally destroys the Romanist declaration of temporal authority. Since Christ’s kingdom is a kingdom not of this world but the next and since the pope should act only in place of Christ by sheer definition of the word “vicar” it can be logically deduced that the pope should have no administrative authority because Jesus did not have such authority. The next problem Luther attempts to shoot down is the large number of cardinals in their area who collect large sums of money from the Germans greatly depleting their assets. Luther’s reasoning on this topic is not nearly as strong and uses little Scripture or verifiable data in presenting his evidence. Nevertheless, it is dealt with quickly with harsh words that accuse them of being consumed by greed for money and more or less worthless in serving Christians. His solution is to either abolish their posts altogether or greatly reduce their number. Likewise, papal offices should suffer the same fate thus alleviating the third controversy. On this offence his discussion once again becomes more concrete as he claims these offices suck the Germans of all their wealth for what amounts to protection money and control too many benefices which deprive them of property and income. In the third part of the treatise he then segues into another set of specific reforms that comprise nearly half of the treatise. These 27 reforms hold some of his more interesting ideas some of which include no longer kissing the pope’s feet, the ability to confess sins to anyone, abolishing most pilgrimage places, and some temporal matters but will not be discussed at length here.
In Luther’s next treatise titled “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church” he once again wags a finger at the church in Rome this time focusing his work on the sacraments. To start, it should be observed that the title of this work alludes to the Babylonian forces of the Hebrew Bible who forced the Jewish people out of their promised land and forced them into captivity and servitude. In this instance, however, the title refers not to Babylon of the earlier Scripture but equates the church of his day with that nation because he sees Rome as similarly holding the Christian people captive. After opening with a short rant on indulgences, papal infallibility, and the some clergy members that oppose his views Luther illustrates the major theme of this work: the sacraments.
Throughout this treatise Luther goes into great detail on the seven sacraments of the church of which he ultimately rejects all but two as bonafide. The first sacrament discussed at length and one of the two he holds as true is the Lord’s Supper. Early in this discussion, Luther writes “no eating can give life except that which is by faith,” (133) which is vital to understanding his take on the sacrament. The sacrament itself is not as important to Luther because it requires faith and does not save in and of itself. Luther then explains that there are three major ways in which the church withholds the sacrament from the Christian. The first captivity lies in the fact that laity are deprived of the cup during this sacrament and given the bread alone. This is a grave injustice for Luther because he finds fault with the way the Scripture was interpreted/manipulated for which he explains is totally incorrect and determines that both cup and wine should be given. Second on his list of captivities one finds the doctrine of transubstantiation based on the Aristotelian idea which Luther absolutely loathes because the idea is not based on Scripture and it would seem because the theory was based on Aristotle. He attests that transubstantiation, which states that the essence of the sacrament is the flesh and blood while accidents are the bread and wine, is invalid because it is not supported by Scripture. Instead, Luther adopts his own view of how Christ is present at the sacrament commonly known as “real presence” which holds that Christ is everywhere and especially in the consecrated bread and wine. He attempts to validate this view scripturally which he does to some extent, however, his view is of course not considered definitive in most Christian circles. Luther then identifies the third captivity which deals with the mass which he considers “by far the most wicked of all,” (152). According to Luther, the church has turned the mass into a sacrifice for salvation. This, however, cannot be because faith and trust in God’s Word alone has the power to save not the works of man.
The other sacrament Luther does not reject is baptism, however, he finds fault in the church’s treatment of it. According to Luther, for the true believer “baptism is the divine promise” (180) to be “the foundation of all the others” (181) which can never be altered by sin. On the other hand, the church holds that sin can undo this sacrament so they tie it in with the sacrament of penance in order to resolve this problem of post-baptismal sin. In spite of this Luther asserts that there is no problem because one will ultimately sin but through faith he or she will always return to God’s grace. Another disagreement between his view of baptism and that of normative Christianity arises in the sign itself. For him too much emphasis is placed on the sign rather than the word or to faith and this is where the church errs. By highlighting the works and ceremonies of the church they impede faith because in doing this what is important is that it is done not the mindset of the person being baptized. The baptismal vow, the only vow that is needed, must be cherished because one is “saved through faith alone” (201) as Luther explains with Scripture. Of the other sacrament, originally he does not denounce penance as a sacrament because it does have basis in the Scripture, however, he does determine that it should not be considered as one because it has no physical sign. He reproves the status of the remaining four sacraments of confirmation, marriage, ordination, and extreme unction mostly on the grounds that they are not promised as signs of grace in the Scripture.
Upon reading “The Freedom of a Christian”, one immediately notices a major change of tone in Luther’s writing. In both this text and his letter to the pope that accompanied it, he no longer refers to him as the Antichrist or claims that Leo is in league with Satan; on the contrary, Luther goes to great lengths to explain that it is not the pope’s fault that the state of the church is so bad but the flatterers within the Roman See that are truly evil. However, this text seems to be written more for his supporters than an actual letter and treatise for the pope considering there is no record of Leo X receiving it, Luther’s advice and the way in which he addresses the pope can be regarded as patronizing, and he keeps the same systematic style as in his previous treatises. The only real difference in style is that he drops all the references to the pope being Satan.
Early in this treatise Luther quotes seemingly contradictory passages of Scripture that refer to Christians as both free and in bondage. Although it may seem impossible to be both a prison and free, Luther illustrates that this is not so because of the distinction between spiritual and fleshly natures. With respect to the “inner man” (278) the Christian is free from all wants and desires because this happy soul has all that it needs in abundance through faith in the Word of God. The spirit can desire nothing but trust in God’s Word so by trusting the Word one is liberated from this longing. Unworthy as one may be to receive such plentitude it is nonetheless given to the believer by God. No works offer such a gift, only faith justifies this reward. Faith alone which “justifies, frees, and saves” (282) bringing with it the benefits of possibility, righteousness, and unity with God. According to Luther, even though the laws are impossible to completely uphold this feat becomes possible, not by works but by faith.
While one may sin from time to time, faith alone can save, not obedience the rules. Luther does not mean that one is allowed to go out and commit multiple heinous crimes, on the contrary, Luther believes that if one truly has faith that this person would not intentionally offend God by sinning. In so many words, this is what Luther is anticipating when he writes things like “he who fulfills the First Commandment has no difficulty in fulfilling all the rest,” (288). However, the flesh being made weak and subject to desires of the flesh, the Christian is granted grace by a loving and merciful Christ. Through faith the believer also becomes obedient to God’s will where there resides an inherent level of trust in its acceptance. Faith also then leads to unity with Christ which Luther explains to be like the unity of marriage. Here the Christian inherits all the blessed things that Christ offers and Christ inherits and conquers the things that the soul has to offer (namely death, sin, and damnation). In this union one is infinitely well received. At this point, Luther again impresses upon the reader his firm belief in the priesthood of all Christians resulting from faith alone. As explained above, Luther holds that all those who have faith in Christ’s Word are truly priests in the eyes of God. This brother/sisterhood of priests makes all Christians equal even though not all will “publicly minister and teach,” (292).
While the soul may be free, the flesh remains in bondage to move toward the perfection that Luther believes the true Christian attains upon departing this transitory world. As Luther repeats hundreds of times through out these treatises and have been stated numerous times here as well these works do not save which is the ability of faith alone. In other words, these acts cannot be done in anticipation of future rewards which would actually make them wicked deeds; rather, they must be done freely in love.
Certainly one the most enjoyable Christian documents as a text, it is also the clear and illuminating, at least in my opinion. Luther’s intellect and style of discourse also made this a helpful and interesting read. One of the more surprising things about Luther though is his sense of humor. At times he is truly hilarious especially when he repeatedly calls the pope and other religious figures of his day Satan, the Devil, and the Antichrist. It is understood that many times these were not intentional on his part but it is hard not to laugh at this obsession considering he says someone is carrying out the work Satan on almost every page. At other times his humor almost has to be seen as intended specifically when he writes “as infant boys need beyond all else to be cherished in the bosoms and by the hands of maidens to keep them from perishing, yet when they are grown up their salvation is endangered if they associate with maidens,” (324) which is just silly.
In his work “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation” Luther not only discloses the “three walls” which the papacy hides behind and the abuses of the pope and Rome but also makes some very well informed proposals for making amends. After briefly stating that the church is basically run by oppressive demons, Luther begins by exposing the three ways that Rome has been able to do this while protecting themselves from reform. With the first wall he explains that the church claims precedence over the state and common people but this cannot be true. To Luther all believers are of the same estate and of the priestly order, therefore, in spiritual matters all true Christians are equal. While one person may be a stonemason and the other a minister, their faith makes both of them priests and they are identical in the eyes of God. One is not preferred to the other, one simply conducts the sacraments and the other does not, this being the only difference between them. The second wall Luther refutes is the Romanist belief that the pope alone has the power to interpret Scripture. Ironically, he first does this by interpreting the Scripture and then by questioning the pope’s ability in this matter! He then returns to the idea that all Christians are priests according to which the pope has no extra spiritual authority than anyone else so has no divine ability in regards to discernment. Under the same logic with which the first two walls fell, the third wall (only the pope has the right to call a council) also crumbles. Luther makes it especially clear that this rule oppresses the Christian people and should not be acknowledge when he writes “if the pope were to use his authority to prevent the calling of a free council, thereby preventing the improvement of the church, we should have regard neither for him nor for his authority,” (24). By giving the pope alone this right, not only do the Romanists go against the idea that all Christians are priests but also the pope has abused his power of infallibility. Luther makes clear that none of these walls can be supported by Scripture and are harmful to the Christian faith so should be regarded as invalid.
Luther then addresses the specific abuses committed by the church against the German people that need his immediate attention. These pressing issues include the abuse of papal authority, the number of cardinals in Germany, and the unjust taking of money and property from his country’s people. With regard to the charge made of papal authority, Luther seethes with anger and contempt yet his argument stays clear and remains solid. He explains that the pope’s humility should serve as an example to all Christians instead doing things like wearing a triple crown which he considers to be ultra vain considering even a monarch wears two less. Where as papal supporters assert that this is acceptable because the pope is a lord on earth Luther calls it a lie and uses Scripture to show the inaccuracy of their claim. Here Luther makes an excellent point when he writes “no vicar’s rule can go beyond that of his lord,” (27). By saying that Christ was the Lord of Heaven on earth when made flesh not a lord of the earth totally destroys the Romanist declaration of temporal authority. Since Christ’s kingdom is a kingdom not of this world but the next and since the pope should act only in place of Christ by sheer definition of the word “vicar” it can be logically deduced that the pope should have no administrative authority because Jesus did not have such authority. The next problem Luther attempts to shoot down is the large number of cardinals in their area who collect large sums of money from the Germans greatly depleting their assets. Luther’s reasoning on this topic is not nearly as strong and uses little Scripture or verifiable data in presenting his evidence. Nevertheless, it is dealt with quickly with harsh words that accuse them of being consumed by greed for money and more or less worthless in serving Christians. His solution is to either abolish their posts altogether or greatly reduce their number. Likewise, papal offices should suffer the same fate thus alleviating the third controversy. On this offence his discussion once again becomes more concrete as he claims these offices suck the Germans of all their wealth for what amounts to protection money and control too many benefices which deprive them of property and income. In the third part of the treatise he then segues into another set of specific reforms that comprise nearly half of the treatise. These 27 reforms hold some of his more interesting ideas some of which include no longer kissing the pope’s feet, the ability to confess sins to anyone, abolishing most pilgrimage places, and some temporal matters but will not be discussed at length here.
In Luther’s next treatise titled “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church” he once again wags a finger at the church in Rome this time focusing his work on the sacraments. To start, it should be observed that the title of this work alludes to the Babylonian forces of the Hebrew Bible who forced the Jewish people out of their promised land and forced them into captivity and servitude. In this instance, however, the title refers not to Babylon of the earlier Scripture but equates the church of his day with that nation because he sees Rome as similarly holding the Christian people captive. After opening with a short rant on indulgences, papal infallibility, and the some clergy members that oppose his views Luther illustrates the major theme of this work: the sacraments.
Throughout this treatise Luther goes into great detail on the seven sacraments of the church of which he ultimately rejects all but two as bonafide. The first sacrament discussed at length and one of the two he holds as true is the Lord’s Supper. Early in this discussion, Luther writes “no eating can give life except that which is by faith,” (133) which is vital to understanding his take on the sacrament. The sacrament itself is not as important to Luther because it requires faith and does not save in and of itself. Luther then explains that there are three major ways in which the church withholds the sacrament from the Christian. The first captivity lies in the fact that laity are deprived of the cup during this sacrament and given the bread alone. This is a grave injustice for Luther because he finds fault with the way the Scripture was interpreted/manipulated for which he explains is totally incorrect and determines that both cup and wine should be given. Second on his list of captivities one finds the doctrine of transubstantiation based on the Aristotelian idea which Luther absolutely loathes because the idea is not based on Scripture and it would seem because the theory was based on Aristotle. He attests that transubstantiation, which states that the essence of the sacrament is the flesh and blood while accidents are the bread and wine, is invalid because it is not supported by Scripture. Instead, Luther adopts his own view of how Christ is present at the sacrament commonly known as “real presence” which holds that Christ is everywhere and especially in the consecrated bread and wine. He attempts to validate this view scripturally which he does to some extent, however, his view is of course not considered definitive in most Christian circles. Luther then identifies the third captivity which deals with the mass which he considers “by far the most wicked of all,” (152). According to Luther, the church has turned the mass into a sacrifice for salvation. This, however, cannot be because faith and trust in God’s Word alone has the power to save not the works of man.
The other sacrament Luther does not reject is baptism, however, he finds fault in the church’s treatment of it. According to Luther, for the true believer “baptism is the divine promise” (180) to be “the foundation of all the others” (181) which can never be altered by sin. On the other hand, the church holds that sin can undo this sacrament so they tie it in with the sacrament of penance in order to resolve this problem of post-baptismal sin. In spite of this Luther asserts that there is no problem because one will ultimately sin but through faith he or she will always return to God’s grace. Another disagreement between his view of baptism and that of normative Christianity arises in the sign itself. For him too much emphasis is placed on the sign rather than the word or to faith and this is where the church errs. By highlighting the works and ceremonies of the church they impede faith because in doing this what is important is that it is done not the mindset of the person being baptized. The baptismal vow, the only vow that is needed, must be cherished because one is “saved through faith alone” (201) as Luther explains with Scripture. Of the other sacrament, originally he does not denounce penance as a sacrament because it does have basis in the Scripture, however, he does determine that it should not be considered as one because it has no physical sign. He reproves the status of the remaining four sacraments of confirmation, marriage, ordination, and extreme unction mostly on the grounds that they are not promised as signs of grace in the Scripture.
Upon reading “The Freedom of a Christian”, one immediately notices a major change of tone in Luther’s writing. In both this text and his letter to the pope that accompanied it, he no longer refers to him as the Antichrist or claims that Leo is in league with Satan; on the contrary, Luther goes to great lengths to explain that it is not the pope’s fault that the state of the church is so bad but the flatterers within the Roman See that are truly evil. However, this text seems to be written more for his supporters than an actual letter and treatise for the pope considering there is no record of Leo X receiving it, Luther’s advice and the way in which he addresses the pope can be regarded as patronizing, and he keeps the same systematic style as in his previous treatises. The only real difference in style is that he drops all the references to the pope being Satan.
Early in this treatise Luther quotes seemingly contradictory passages of Scripture that refer to Christians as both free and in bondage. Although it may seem impossible to be both a prison and free, Luther illustrates that this is not so because of the distinction between spiritual and fleshly natures. With respect to the “inner man” (278) the Christian is free from all wants and desires because this happy soul has all that it needs in abundance through faith in the Word of God. The spirit can desire nothing but trust in God’s Word so by trusting the Word one is liberated from this longing. Unworthy as one may be to receive such plentitude it is nonetheless given to the believer by God. No works offer such a gift, only faith justifies this reward. Faith alone which “justifies, frees, and saves” (282) bringing with it the benefits of possibility, righteousness, and unity with God. According to Luther, even though the laws are impossible to completely uphold this feat becomes possible, not by works but by faith.
While one may sin from time to time, faith alone can save, not obedience the rules. Luther does not mean that one is allowed to go out and commit multiple heinous crimes, on the contrary, Luther believes that if one truly has faith that this person would not intentionally offend God by sinning. In so many words, this is what Luther is anticipating when he writes things like “he who fulfills the First Commandment has no difficulty in fulfilling all the rest,” (288). However, the flesh being made weak and subject to desires of the flesh, the Christian is granted grace by a loving and merciful Christ. Through faith the believer also becomes obedient to God’s will where there resides an inherent level of trust in its acceptance. Faith also then leads to unity with Christ which Luther explains to be like the unity of marriage. Here the Christian inherits all the blessed things that Christ offers and Christ inherits and conquers the things that the soul has to offer (namely death, sin, and damnation). In this union one is infinitely well received. At this point, Luther again impresses upon the reader his firm belief in the priesthood of all Christians resulting from faith alone. As explained above, Luther holds that all those who have faith in Christ’s Word are truly priests in the eyes of God. This brother/sisterhood of priests makes all Christians equal even though not all will “publicly minister and teach,” (292).
While the soul may be free, the flesh remains in bondage to move toward the perfection that Luther believes the true Christian attains upon departing this transitory world. As Luther repeats hundreds of times through out these treatises and have been stated numerous times here as well these works do not save which is the ability of faith alone. In other words, these acts cannot be done in anticipation of future rewards which would actually make them wicked deeds; rather, they must be done freely in love.
Certainly one the most enjoyable Christian documents as a text, it is also the clear and illuminating, at least in my opinion. Luther’s intellect and style of discourse also made this a helpful and interesting read. One of the more surprising things about Luther though is his sense of humor. At times he is truly hilarious especially when he repeatedly calls the pope and other religious figures of his day Satan, the Devil, and the Antichrist. It is understood that many times these were not intentional on his part but it is hard not to laugh at this obsession considering he says someone is carrying out the work Satan on almost every page. At other times his humor almost has to be seen as intended specifically when he writes “as infant boys need beyond all else to be cherished in the bosoms and by the hands of maidens to keep them from perishing, yet when they are grown up their salvation is endangered if they associate with maidens,” (324) which is just silly.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
The Next Christendom
In his book The Next Christendom, Philip Jenkins asserts that Christianity is going through “one of the transforming moments in the history of religion worldwide” (1) which (for the most part) has gone unnoticed in the West. The transition that is taking place Jenkins explains is the shift from a Western dominated Christianity to a Christianity of the Southern hemisphere. Even though this trend has been nearly imperceptible to the Western/Northern witness, it very well may “play a critical role in world affairs,” (4) since many of the nations with the largest numbers of growing Christian numbers are also the nations with the fastest growing and youngest populations in the world. While the West sees Christianity as a movement in its last days in the middle of its death rattle, Christian numbers are soaring in regions that also see the number of Muslims on the rise as well which may cause intense rivalry between the two groups in these areas.
Even though most accounts of missionary work in the South have been romanticized either positively or negatively, their message proved appealing. After Western imperial expansion dissipated in the twentieth century, many believed that Christianity would dissipate in those regions once occupied by quote unquote Christian nations. This was not the case; in fact, Christianity in the South is expanding at such a rate that in fifty years there will be more Christians in Africa and South America than in Europe. According to Jenkins, there are at least four reasons Christianity enjoys the success that it does in the South: (1) the “networking effect”, (2) reconciliation with local traditions, (3) structure (4), and message. To begin, in the networking effect, the word traveled along from one individual to another; that individual, in turn, would spread the idea to his or her family; the family then would spread the word to the rest of the village; the villagers then would spread the good news to other villages in their area and so on and so on and so on. In other words, converts took the message to others which produced more converts.
Secondly, integrating traditions with Christianity which Jenkins calls the “Silk Strategy”—referring to a question raised in China about what material could be used in vestments—has proved to be one of the main causes for both Christianity’s success and the great diversity of worship in the South.
With the fourth reason for Christianity’s success-- providing structure—the religion offers something familiar in the face of a changing world. In this way, as Jenkins explains, it is a response to similar economic circumstances… [that] can be seen as a by-product of modernization and urbanization,” (72-73). While Christianity in the South speaks to all classes, it is with the very poor that the religion has become most popular. Jenkins illustrates this point more thoroughly when he writes “churches provide a social network that would otherwise be lacking, and help teach members the skills they need to survive in a rapidly developing society,” (74).
The final reason Christianity has enjoyed such success proves more complicated but of great importance (in Jenkins’s view) that the Southern churches hold that “God intervenes directly in everyday life” (77). According to this view, evil rises not from societal affairs but from spiritual evil that religion has the power to traverse. Christianity, promising boons in both this life and the next, is not a form of escape but a path toward prosperity. The poor in the Third World suffering from all the diseases present in say the United States as well as those associated with poverty, hunger, and pollution (78)—not mention mental health issues and substance addiction—find themselves desperate to improve their lot; thus, they look to God for divine intervention in the form of healings and miracles. Regardless of the reasons to why Christianity has proved so popular in the South, this growth will have a great impact on world diplomacy especially in areas where the number of Muslims is also on the rise.
In regions of the globe where the population is increasing most rapidly there is often times a serious tension between Christians and Muslims which in many cases has erupted into violence. The Muslim-Christian conflict has become commonplace in postmodernity with crucial implications for world order. To illustrate that this is a reality in the areas that are most divided between the two faiths, Jenkins looks at the civil wars and riots that have plagued nations like Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, and Indonesia for the last half century. Looking at Sudan, for example, where there are 35 million people (a number that is projected to increase to 84 million by 2050), 25 million of which are Muslim while only one in about seventeen is Christian, the world sees one of the most unstable nations in the world with atrocities that are barely even believable. Listed among these are “indiscriminate bombings, the burning and looting of villages, and the killings, abductions, rapes, and arbitrary arrests and detentions of civilians,” (171) which are often acts of violence from the Muslim majority against the Christian minority. The southern region of Sudan made up of black Africans who make up most of the two million Christians, has experienced great oppression by the Muslim controlled northern part of the country. When the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) came into being in an attempt to overthrow the oppressive regime, the government responded by massacring thousands upon thousands of the southern Sudanese while burning entire villages to the ground and forcing women and children into slavery. It completely blows the mind to think in the Year of Our 2008 there are still nations which tolerate slavery.
While Sudan is one of the most extreme examples of religious intolerance of Christian minorities, it is by no means an isolated occurrence and as Jenkins explains “if Muslims insist that their faith demands the establishment of Islamic states, regardless of the existence of religious minorities, the violence is assuredly going to occur, “ (172-73). This can be seen in the African nation Nigeria (which could have as many as half a billion people by 2050) with possible consequences that are terrifying in that the state could become a radical, violent Islamic-super-state.
Worldwide, the Christian-Muslim tension is all the more problematic when Judaism enters into the dialogue, especially when dealing with the United States’ “blind support” of Israel. This support “infuriates not just the bulk of the world’s Muslims, but also many Third World Christians” since it is in these countries that the Muslim governments are able to oppress the unwanted minority. Since the United States is a Christian nation, as Jenkins sees it anyway, and one of the world’s most powerful at that, all of Christianity is then seen as supporting Israel. That is to say, simply being Christian is seen by much of the Islamic world as supporting the U.S. policy regarding Israel which they see as being “anti-Muslim,” (181).
Jenkins’s analysis on world order and global Christianity proves to be one of the authoritative texts on this subject. While extremely informative on issues that every Christian should become familiar, it basically scared me more than anything else. Considering most people know little about these Christian-Muslim conflicts with potentially devastating effects, I seriously doubt that any real action will be taken to stabilize the region. Nor does Jenkins really offer any solution to the problems facing global security. Much like a group like say the SPLA, Jenkins is great at exposing the corrupt hypocritical governments, but when it comes to establishing a superior alternative, there isn’t one readily available. While the SPLA used the fact that they were good at pointing out the shortcomings of others (ironically) to become better tyrants, Jenkins doesn’t really seem to offer any answers as for what to do either. Pointing out the problem doesn’t really solve anything. Everyone wants change but no one offers anything but a vague notion of what change involves. In postmodernity, the one thing we are lacking more than anything else is the know how to bring about real change.
Even though most accounts of missionary work in the South have been romanticized either positively or negatively, their message proved appealing. After Western imperial expansion dissipated in the twentieth century, many believed that Christianity would dissipate in those regions once occupied by quote unquote Christian nations. This was not the case; in fact, Christianity in the South is expanding at such a rate that in fifty years there will be more Christians in Africa and South America than in Europe. According to Jenkins, there are at least four reasons Christianity enjoys the success that it does in the South: (1) the “networking effect”, (2) reconciliation with local traditions, (3) structure (4), and message. To begin, in the networking effect, the word traveled along from one individual to another; that individual, in turn, would spread the idea to his or her family; the family then would spread the word to the rest of the village; the villagers then would spread the good news to other villages in their area and so on and so on and so on. In other words, converts took the message to others which produced more converts.
Secondly, integrating traditions with Christianity which Jenkins calls the “Silk Strategy”—referring to a question raised in China about what material could be used in vestments—has proved to be one of the main causes for both Christianity’s success and the great diversity of worship in the South.
With the fourth reason for Christianity’s success-- providing structure—the religion offers something familiar in the face of a changing world. In this way, as Jenkins explains, it is a response to similar economic circumstances… [that] can be seen as a by-product of modernization and urbanization,” (72-73). While Christianity in the South speaks to all classes, it is with the very poor that the religion has become most popular. Jenkins illustrates this point more thoroughly when he writes “churches provide a social network that would otherwise be lacking, and help teach members the skills they need to survive in a rapidly developing society,” (74).
The final reason Christianity has enjoyed such success proves more complicated but of great importance (in Jenkins’s view) that the Southern churches hold that “God intervenes directly in everyday life” (77). According to this view, evil rises not from societal affairs but from spiritual evil that religion has the power to traverse. Christianity, promising boons in both this life and the next, is not a form of escape but a path toward prosperity. The poor in the Third World suffering from all the diseases present in say the United States as well as those associated with poverty, hunger, and pollution (78)—not mention mental health issues and substance addiction—find themselves desperate to improve their lot; thus, they look to God for divine intervention in the form of healings and miracles. Regardless of the reasons to why Christianity has proved so popular in the South, this growth will have a great impact on world diplomacy especially in areas where the number of Muslims is also on the rise.
In regions of the globe where the population is increasing most rapidly there is often times a serious tension between Christians and Muslims which in many cases has erupted into violence. The Muslim-Christian conflict has become commonplace in postmodernity with crucial implications for world order. To illustrate that this is a reality in the areas that are most divided between the two faiths, Jenkins looks at the civil wars and riots that have plagued nations like Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, and Indonesia for the last half century. Looking at Sudan, for example, where there are 35 million people (a number that is projected to increase to 84 million by 2050), 25 million of which are Muslim while only one in about seventeen is Christian, the world sees one of the most unstable nations in the world with atrocities that are barely even believable. Listed among these are “indiscriminate bombings, the burning and looting of villages, and the killings, abductions, rapes, and arbitrary arrests and detentions of civilians,” (171) which are often acts of violence from the Muslim majority against the Christian minority. The southern region of Sudan made up of black Africans who make up most of the two million Christians, has experienced great oppression by the Muslim controlled northern part of the country. When the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) came into being in an attempt to overthrow the oppressive regime, the government responded by massacring thousands upon thousands of the southern Sudanese while burning entire villages to the ground and forcing women and children into slavery. It completely blows the mind to think in the Year of Our 2008 there are still nations which tolerate slavery.
While Sudan is one of the most extreme examples of religious intolerance of Christian minorities, it is by no means an isolated occurrence and as Jenkins explains “if Muslims insist that their faith demands the establishment of Islamic states, regardless of the existence of religious minorities, the violence is assuredly going to occur, “ (172-73). This can be seen in the African nation Nigeria (which could have as many as half a billion people by 2050) with possible consequences that are terrifying in that the state could become a radical, violent Islamic-super-state.
Worldwide, the Christian-Muslim tension is all the more problematic when Judaism enters into the dialogue, especially when dealing with the United States’ “blind support” of Israel. This support “infuriates not just the bulk of the world’s Muslims, but also many Third World Christians” since it is in these countries that the Muslim governments are able to oppress the unwanted minority. Since the United States is a Christian nation, as Jenkins sees it anyway, and one of the world’s most powerful at that, all of Christianity is then seen as supporting Israel. That is to say, simply being Christian is seen by much of the Islamic world as supporting the U.S. policy regarding Israel which they see as being “anti-Muslim,” (181).
Jenkins’s analysis on world order and global Christianity proves to be one of the authoritative texts on this subject. While extremely informative on issues that every Christian should become familiar, it basically scared me more than anything else. Considering most people know little about these Christian-Muslim conflicts with potentially devastating effects, I seriously doubt that any real action will be taken to stabilize the region. Nor does Jenkins really offer any solution to the problems facing global security. Much like a group like say the SPLA, Jenkins is great at exposing the corrupt hypocritical governments, but when it comes to establishing a superior alternative, there isn’t one readily available. While the SPLA used the fact that they were good at pointing out the shortcomings of others (ironically) to become better tyrants, Jenkins doesn’t really seem to offer any answers as for what to do either. Pointing out the problem doesn’t really solve anything. Everyone wants change but no one offers anything but a vague notion of what change involves. In postmodernity, the one thing we are lacking more than anything else is the know how to bring about real change.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Community Spirits: Living Buddha, Living Christ Review
Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, in his work Living Buddha, Living Christ bridges the teachings of two of the worlds most popular and peaceful religions. With the Buddha and Christ as his spiritual guides, Hanh illustrates how Christians and Buddhists can learn from their founders that will improve and inspiring human lives the world over. In this powerful work, Hahn brings the reader to the realization that not only do these faiths share the same goal, at the core of human existence, we all do.
As Hahn makes clear, at some base level, all of existence shares in the same “body of God,” also referred to as “the body of ultimate reality,” (31). In this way, every life is connected as an extension of the spirit flowing through us all. The hobby of the Dali Llama proves to be a good of metaphor of how the community is one interconnected being that shares the same ultimate fate. Timepieces made up of gears and springs and many other parts perform together to move the hands of the clock. If a gear breaks or spring comes loose, the timepiece no longer works. Similarly, communities of people assign certain tasks to individuals who provide a service for that community. For Hahn, the teachings of the Buddha and Christ serve to enlighten the people of the world to the fact that the things that make up the university are all within the same community.
All Christians, Buddhists, and people the world over as an interconnected entity should recognize that “every act is linked with the whole humankind and the whole cosmos,” (106). However, because we delude ourselves in insisting on our individuality while ignoring the nature of reality, people the world over experience pain and suffering. Seeing ourselves as individuals, we take sides that are often based on self-interest because we “misunderstand the will of God,” (80). Many religious people throughout the world see themselves as having a superior belief system making a true interfaith dialogue impossible. In insisting on words and concepts, people miss what is truly important insight into the nature of reality” and “a way of responding to [that] reality,” (55).
Having the ability to choose where we place true meaning usually leads to a path of least resistance because implementing a practice that requires a change of the heart and the way we think makes us complacent and causes us to suffer. Jesus spoke of this in his warning “where your treasure is, there will be your heart also,” (Luke 12:34) while Buddhism teaches that our attachments to things is the root of all our suffering. This makes what we choose to worship, that which we find of most importance, of the utmost importance. If one is constantly striving for wealth or power, this person will never have enough; beauty or intellect are also no better choices since both fade as time goes by. People grasp onto these things because they fail to truly experience. Always putting off our spiritual happiness for transitory delusions causes a failure to realize that “we are already in paradise,” (19).
Paradise, as Hahn explains, is found in this world that is filled with the Holy Spirit. To understand or experience that spirit is to be truly alive. This spirit is what makes all things equal in the eyes of Mother Nature and what makes all things resemble God. True understanding of this concept cannot be done purely by intellect; “it must be experiential” as well in the form of “prayer, contemplation, and meditation,” (112). Once action is taken to awake to this realization and “we become truly aware of our hearts, we feel comfort and release right away,” (18). This must take place in order to become compassionate souls willing and able to produce real change for a better, happier existence for all transient beings. In order to make the world a peaceful and merciful place to live, our hearts must first become peaceful and merciful. For Hahn, this is an essential ingredient to a formula for progress. Like the gears of a clock, we are parts of a larger whole, and like the gears, if we are not each working to move forward, movement stops.
Mindfulness, the term Hahn gives to this state of inner peace, is living the examples of both Christ and Buddha which is an extraordinarily hard thing to do. Liberating ourselves from a deep self-centeredness is to resist the default way most people live their entire lives. The example Hahn gives to illustrate the concept of this kind of enlightenment is that of a wave. Waves crest and fall as a part of the fluid body of water that cannot separate itself from the sea that enables its existence. It must discover and then remind it self “I am water.” By way of this example, Hahn’s argument is at its most lucid, which forces the reader to spend time intensely reflecting on and search the obvious realities that over intellectualizing has kept us from being truly alive. What concealed truth have we overlooked, what great, infinite reality in plain sight has been lost, in what ways are we imprisoned without even realizing it? To be mindful, on must ask these questions, because the truth is, oftentimes the most significant, visible components of life are the hardest to see and realize. Becoming aware of the universal oneness takes cognitive effort to achieve and discipline to sustain. But this is true experience.
In unconsciously going through the motions of a seemingly meaningless existence, one is a lonely slave to the self and unable to experience the Holy Spirit. Attentiveness to our ability to exercise control over where we place meaning will free us of repulsive, closed-minded certainties that cause our suffering. Being completely conscious through the examples of Christ and Buddha in mindfulness allows us to see all experience meaningful and sacred in focusing our energy on improving life before death. The disregard for the gift of life and domain over the world is perpetuated because the consequences of humankind’s selfish, wasteful neglect of natural resources is probably wrecking the climate to a point where reconstruction will be impossible. Viewing the world through our own set of lenses, policies are determined by immediate, selfish priorities.
In exhibiting tolerance of diverse beliefs, we accept the differences in the ways we construct meaning from our experiences instead of insisting that our one interpretation is the truest thing in the universe while the other is false or unsound. When tolerance does not take place, the unexplainable, deep down light inside all of us is obscured and progress is thwarted. As part of a universal community, everyone is connected “to the causes of our suffering” and implicated to “find ways out,” (114). For this quest to bear fruit, ecumenical dialogue and peaceful, noble intentions are absolutely necessary. I agree full fledged with Hahn’s faith that we have the power to perform such a righteous work since “understanding and love are values that transcend all dogma,” (198).
As Hahn makes clear, at some base level, all of existence shares in the same “body of God,” also referred to as “the body of ultimate reality,” (31). In this way, every life is connected as an extension of the spirit flowing through us all. The hobby of the Dali Llama proves to be a good of metaphor of how the community is one interconnected being that shares the same ultimate fate. Timepieces made up of gears and springs and many other parts perform together to move the hands of the clock. If a gear breaks or spring comes loose, the timepiece no longer works. Similarly, communities of people assign certain tasks to individuals who provide a service for that community. For Hahn, the teachings of the Buddha and Christ serve to enlighten the people of the world to the fact that the things that make up the university are all within the same community.
All Christians, Buddhists, and people the world over as an interconnected entity should recognize that “every act is linked with the whole humankind and the whole cosmos,” (106). However, because we delude ourselves in insisting on our individuality while ignoring the nature of reality, people the world over experience pain and suffering. Seeing ourselves as individuals, we take sides that are often based on self-interest because we “misunderstand the will of God,” (80). Many religious people throughout the world see themselves as having a superior belief system making a true interfaith dialogue impossible. In insisting on words and concepts, people miss what is truly important insight into the nature of reality” and “a way of responding to [that] reality,” (55).
Having the ability to choose where we place true meaning usually leads to a path of least resistance because implementing a practice that requires a change of the heart and the way we think makes us complacent and causes us to suffer. Jesus spoke of this in his warning “where your treasure is, there will be your heart also,” (Luke 12:34) while Buddhism teaches that our attachments to things is the root of all our suffering. This makes what we choose to worship, that which we find of most importance, of the utmost importance. If one is constantly striving for wealth or power, this person will never have enough; beauty or intellect are also no better choices since both fade as time goes by. People grasp onto these things because they fail to truly experience. Always putting off our spiritual happiness for transitory delusions causes a failure to realize that “we are already in paradise,” (19).
Paradise, as Hahn explains, is found in this world that is filled with the Holy Spirit. To understand or experience that spirit is to be truly alive. This spirit is what makes all things equal in the eyes of Mother Nature and what makes all things resemble God. True understanding of this concept cannot be done purely by intellect; “it must be experiential” as well in the form of “prayer, contemplation, and meditation,” (112). Once action is taken to awake to this realization and “we become truly aware of our hearts, we feel comfort and release right away,” (18). This must take place in order to become compassionate souls willing and able to produce real change for a better, happier existence for all transient beings. In order to make the world a peaceful and merciful place to live, our hearts must first become peaceful and merciful. For Hahn, this is an essential ingredient to a formula for progress. Like the gears of a clock, we are parts of a larger whole, and like the gears, if we are not each working to move forward, movement stops.
Mindfulness, the term Hahn gives to this state of inner peace, is living the examples of both Christ and Buddha which is an extraordinarily hard thing to do. Liberating ourselves from a deep self-centeredness is to resist the default way most people live their entire lives. The example Hahn gives to illustrate the concept of this kind of enlightenment is that of a wave. Waves crest and fall as a part of the fluid body of water that cannot separate itself from the sea that enables its existence. It must discover and then remind it self “I am water.” By way of this example, Hahn’s argument is at its most lucid, which forces the reader to spend time intensely reflecting on and search the obvious realities that over intellectualizing has kept us from being truly alive. What concealed truth have we overlooked, what great, infinite reality in plain sight has been lost, in what ways are we imprisoned without even realizing it? To be mindful, on must ask these questions, because the truth is, oftentimes the most significant, visible components of life are the hardest to see and realize. Becoming aware of the universal oneness takes cognitive effort to achieve and discipline to sustain. But this is true experience.
In unconsciously going through the motions of a seemingly meaningless existence, one is a lonely slave to the self and unable to experience the Holy Spirit. Attentiveness to our ability to exercise control over where we place meaning will free us of repulsive, closed-minded certainties that cause our suffering. Being completely conscious through the examples of Christ and Buddha in mindfulness allows us to see all experience meaningful and sacred in focusing our energy on improving life before death. The disregard for the gift of life and domain over the world is perpetuated because the consequences of humankind’s selfish, wasteful neglect of natural resources is probably wrecking the climate to a point where reconstruction will be impossible. Viewing the world through our own set of lenses, policies are determined by immediate, selfish priorities.
In exhibiting tolerance of diverse beliefs, we accept the differences in the ways we construct meaning from our experiences instead of insisting that our one interpretation is the truest thing in the universe while the other is false or unsound. When tolerance does not take place, the unexplainable, deep down light inside all of us is obscured and progress is thwarted. As part of a universal community, everyone is connected “to the causes of our suffering” and implicated to “find ways out,” (114). For this quest to bear fruit, ecumenical dialogue and peaceful, noble intentions are absolutely necessary. I agree full fledged with Hahn’s faith that we have the power to perform such a righteous work since “understanding and love are values that transcend all dogma,” (198).
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