nevermind the bricolage

religion+rabbit foot blues

I have been doing a lot of thinking this past year. I have been restless for a long time, frustrated, angry, despairing, sometimes hopeful, but mostly not. Much of that emotional stuff is internal, even though I have tended to externalize and project it onto many things--particularly my working environments, which I have found increasingly frustrating in the past couple of years for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that I often feel like a square peg in a round hole, but again, not their fault, mine, I have chosen to be there and must deal with the implications of that. I find most experiences of religion, whether it is in my pastoral role or my academic one, to be depressingly predictable and uninteresting to me. A large part of me feels that I should just simply walk away, that it is not worth the frustration and internal turmoil I feel, but then what? I suppose until I resolve that equation, "the then what?" I shall remain in a state of inner conflict. I am torn between taking a wild leap into the dark, and trying to work out what moves are available to me--I can't find my way to either place at the moment, so I shall live with my frustrations and try to make them work for me.

Plus I remain interested in religion, but I have realized in the past few years that I am interested in religion, mostly as Mark Taylor observes, in the places where it is least obvious, and of course, given that most of my occupational interactions are with religion where it is most obvious, you can probably work out why I'm in the state I'm in. That is not to say that I have no interest in obvious religion, it's just that I sometimes feel that it is in a cycle of self-understanding from which it will never free itself and I will always be at odds with it, and I don't particularly want to be. This is not to say that it is all bad, in fact, some of it is great, I just need to work out how to work within it in a way that is healtheir and more life-giving to me personally.

Religion is difficult to wrestle with, something the etymology of the very word demonstrates. The dictionary is actually a little vague on the origins of the word religion. It is often, and usually by religious people, declared to be derived from the Latin word religare, to bind-which fits nicely with the idea of god and religion inextricably interwoven. But others say it evolved from relegere, which means  to re-read. You can see that these two stems could lead to quite different understandings of what exactly is going on when we talk about and engage in religion.

Perhaps religion is best understood as having a couple of different trajectories, and I think those trajectories need to be held in tension or you wind up with a form of religion that has no bite, and one that resists change, resists new. "The last experience of God is often the obstacle to the next experience of God," says Richard Rohr and I think he is right, and a one-sided understanding of it contributes to that resistance. Maybe Zizek would invite some kind of dialectical understanding of it-it both stabilizes and destabilizes life.

I think that my tension lies in the belief that we are in a time of upheaval and dislocation, a destabilizing period if you will, and I seem to be in environments where the response to that sense, that feeling, that implication, is an entrenchment rather than a rising to meet it. During my PhD work I utilized the theory of Ptirim Sorokin's of cultural development which classified societies according to, what he termed their, cultural mentality. Societies can be "ideational" (reality is spiritual), "sensate" (reality is material), or "idealistic" (a synthesis of the two). He suggested that major civilizations evolve from an ideational, to an idealistic, and eventually to a sensate mentality. Each of these phases of cultural development not only seeks to describe the nature of reality, but also stipulates the nature of human needs and goals to be satisfied, the extent to which they should be satisfied, and the methods of satisfaction. He was a bit controversial to say the least (he founded sociology at Harvard and had some intense views on human sexuality and marriage that have been claimed by anti-homosexual groups-he argued that the regulation of sexuality was one of the first markers of a civilization and its deregulation was one of the pointers to collapse) and his theory has, like most theories, some major flaws, but I was taken by the fact that much of his theoretical assumptions and prognoses were borne out of a study of literature and the arts as much as by economics and other indicators.

It seems to me that if we were to take Sorokin's theory we might say that we are in a transitional phase, moving out of an ideational period into a sensate one, although it is a materialist view infused with the spiritual because we have shifted our understandings of things and don't operate with such distinct binary oppositions these days, or I don't anyway. That shift to me, represents a destabilizing moment to religion, and this is what interests me--but lots of religious talk seeks to offer stabilization and security, which will a) inevtiably fail and b) turns religion into a talisman, little more than a rabbit's foot.

I was supposed to be in Connecticut this past few days, gathering with a bunch of friends to talk through some of these things, unfortunately, I have been sick all week and was unable to go--would've been really helpful to me to be around a bit more of that conversation.

 

 

Noodlez and theologies of technology

I've been thinking a lot about technology lately. For a number of reasons not the least of which is because I have been teaching a class on theology and media culture, half of it devoted to television, the other to digital technologies. The ultimate goal of the class is to think about theologies of technology and as we are drawing near to the end of the course, I am focusing my own thinking, tweaking old ideas, reflecting on new possibilities and attempting, as always, to refine my own thinking and approaches to the realm of technology.

One of the things I have noticed is the reticence from the majority of Christian thinkers on this stuff. The usual approach is generally one of caution and critique, apart from Mark C Taylor most of the reading I have come across has essentially painted a wary posture towards technology and culture, something that does not sit well with me. I am just not a culture-despiser, nor am I blind to folly, or for the need for critique, but I begin with enthusiasm not suspicion (that's the reverse of how I do all my thinking about church funnily enough-ha! must think about that:)). I think this is probably because I do not regard secular society as a problem, but rather as the condition, and secondly, I believe that secularity is a product of religion and therefore has a religious dimension or shape to it, so while I may find much to challenge, I cannot create the pseudo-objective, too prescriptive correcto-theology that often is the result of these engagements. I'll post my latest theological posturings in the next couple of weeks as I bring the class to a close, but in the meantime, you can enjoy these photos from Noodlez--Yes its a naked woman smashing technology-trite, predictable, unnecessary-maybe, but they are cool photos.

RIP John Tavener

John Tavener has died. A man renowned for his religious compositions in an era when that alone was a bit of an anomoly, he embraced Orthodox Christianity in 1977 and was deeply influenced by its musical style. Later in life there was some thought that he had abandoned his faith as other sounds and religious imagery began to appear in his work, but he said, "I reached a point where everything I wrote was terribly austere and hidebound by the tonal system of the Orthodox Church, and I felt the need, in my music at least, to become more universalist: to take in other colors, other languages." And he continued to refer to himself as 'essentially orthodox,' kind of like most people I know today who consider themselves 'essentially christian.'

 

instructions on atoning for sins

These are pages from a booklet for young Catholics learning about confession.

and this is another way of handling them,

sexsexsexsexsexsexsex

Been doing a series of talks at church on life's big issues--money, sex, work etc. trying to break conversations out of their natural habitats and bringing other ideas into play. I am increasingly aware of how much we assume is given in any discussion of things, coming to terms with that is complex, because it requires a breaking up of the familiar lines and assumptions we have made about a particualr topic thus far. When it comes to tackling life, awareness of our own experience with something be it money or sex is a key element--our thinking shaped by our experiences. In churches money is addressed as though we still live in the 1950s--we pass offering plates but never ask the question who carries cash anymore? We assume the Bible is clear on money, when even what money was in bible times was a moving target and nowhere near the kind of thing it is today, etc.
Anyway, tonight we are talking sex, specifically how to think more about it-an idea courtesy of Alain de Botton--more in the sense of more richly rather than more quantitatively--we'll see where we get with this one. And we won't be starting with Adam and Eve.

millennials, whisky, and a whole bunch of other indiscriminate thoughts

 

I spend quite a lot of my life engaging with various aspects of religion, in two of my professions, one academic, the other ministerial I am continually engaging the complexities of what it all means. I try and read widely and broadly, engage with all sides of arguments, theories, etc., and I usually stay out of the arguments that emerge, usually because they seldom get anywhere anyway, so i don't really see the point. For some time now there have been these ongoing conversations within religion, particularly christianity over generational preferences and particular styles of worship etc. First it was boomers versus gen-xers, now it's the millennial discussion--what defines them, what 'they' like etc. Now, let me say up front that I think generational theory is mostly crap, it's essentially rooted in and borne out of the commodification of youth culture in the post-war years and is much a marketing strategy as anything else. Of course, there are differences among ages of people, but the idea that boomers like this, gen-xers like that and millennials something else is essentially a very flawed approach to anything in my mind. So much of this depends on so many things-geography, economics, for instance--you could argue that some supposed characteristics of gen-xers could to be applied in the U.K. to what would be regarded as baby-boomers because of a whole set of contributing factors such as the slow economic recovery of the post war years, the lack of a Vietnam-experience, latchkey kids--so many things--so I tend to be a bit wary of these generational studies, they are good for selling books and not much else as far as I am concerned--)I have also now lived long enough to know almost as many exceptions to every rule as the rule itself).

One of the conversations that has ebbed and flowed this year particularly, and perhaps more specfically because of a post that went viral from Rachel Held Evans and the shift toward more liturgical worship environments.

This came back around today as I read a post from my friend Tony Jones about what the church can learn about millennials from small batch distilleries. It is a smart and sharp post, as most of his posts are and he includes a quote from RHE in it,

"many of us," she writes, "myself included, are finding ourselves increasingly drawn to high church traditions-Catholicism, eastern orthodoxy, the Episcopal Church, etc. -precisely because the ancient forms of liturgy seem so unpretentious, so unconcerned with being "cool," and we find that refreshingly authentic." "What millennials really want from the church is not a change in style but a change in substance."

I realize that there was a particular context for this comment, related to responses from talks she had given about the state of things, and my thoughts stray from that a little, but i am not necessarily responding directly to her blog as much as to one of its statements, which she is not alone in voicing. There are many things I can say but let me begin by saying that I would agree that chasing 'cool' is always folly, I will also say that liturgical churches can be as prone to that as non-liturgical because that is about much more than style, ambition plays a factor, as does desire for impact in the environment, it is not always voiced in the same way in high-church environments but it is most certainly there, along with elitism, snobbishness, blindness and a host of other things that can haunt the institutional church of all persuasions. Admittedly 'cool' is more often associated with the artifacts of popular culture, but the idea of 'cool' has extended beyond that and has become a signifier. Trust me I have been in enough conferences on both sides of this aisle to say this with some emphasis. It is often more apparent in more contemporary churches because the desire for 'relevance' is voiced, but the counter to relevance is redundancy and liturgical churches face that in spades and their 'unconcerned with cool' liturgical approaches will not necessarily be enough to help them in my mind. 'Cool'  is an elusive facet of contemporary culture, it is, as I just said, one of our cultural signifiers, I am not saying it is necessarily good or bad, it just is a part of the wallpaper of late capitalist society, and it ignores the boundaries of liturgical practices. But I get it, you hear it more in contemporary environments, and the main problem with pursuing cool is that it can't be attained, it has to be conferred, which can lead to a sense of looking a bit desperate at times if it is a central drive.

I say some of this with some personal experience, I teach at an evangelical seminary, I minister in a progressive, liberal Episcopal church, I have planted and led and engaged in any number of non-traditional churches, emerging churches, alternative worship churches and conferences, etc. etc., and all of them have more challenges and problems than they know how to handle, and many of them operate along a spectrum of practices and ideas that are challenged by the world we find ourselves in, for different reasons perhaps, but challenged nonetheless, and the common problem in both, in my humble opinion, is precisely what is voiced in the quote--substance--they lack it, or perhaps more specifically they have the wrong kind of substance for the times in which we live. Lateral moves will ease some of the concerns worshippers may have for a while, but eventually, once the routine has set in, once the curtain has been lifted and essentially the same wizard is seen behind the curtain, a similar disillusionment will set in. The questions facing the world will not be addressed by unbridled pushes for cool and relevance, but they will not be served by redundancy either or simply by assuming that there is substance because something has an age/duration advantage.

I also happen to feel that substance affects style to some degree, there are reasons things are done the way they are done, and those things can become transformational but can also become ossified, and because it is old, doesn't mean it is better or not consumed with similar aims and intentions as newer approaches, it is just voiced differently.

Richard Rohr has said in a number of places that sometimes it feels as if churches are focused on a god who seems more interested in the past than the present or future, and this can be intensely present in high church environments, shaped as they often are by a high-low cultural perspective which tends to elevate the past as naturally better than the present, and then we find ourselves moving into the elitism that can haunt liturgical churches at times--the appeal to credibility and legitimacy based on length of practice--reminds me a little of Jesus' comment to the pharisees that association with god by birthright doesn't legitimize anything, stones can become children of god.

I get it though, all that contemporary church stuff can drive you nuts, but there will come a day when you realize that in a liturgical environment the same shit exists, it just comes with a different face. I think that a factor in all of this is that we often react adversely to what has formed us, or we simply move beyond its scope and I think a lot of that is happening today--it's bit like that moment when teenagers go from thinking their parents are the coolest people who know everything to the sense that they are the world's most embarrassing people, I think we all do or have done that to some degree with pretty much every issue of our lives. This is sometimes part of our own maturing process where we break away from things, take new responsibility for our own lives and realize the world is bigger, that there are other ways, perhaps more personally appealing ways of experiencing things whether it be life or church, but it is a misnomer to think that a change of substance is necessarily what you are getting, it is first a change of style with the same substance that you are generally getting, the same substance from a different angle, from a different style. And let's just address this idea of 'performance' for a minute, if you don't think a liturgical service isn't theatre, isn't performance, you haven't been in enough liturgy planning meetings, there may not be video screens and rock star effects but trust me it's a show, its a performance, and there is actually nothing wrong with that in my mind. But the issue of substance is not addressed exclusively by style.

Some churches may have more ancient links, but they are peopled by those who live and breathe today, and they bring themselves to those places and spaces and they are contemporary human beings and even their enactment of the liturgy becomes a different thing, it is unavoidably so--chanting becomes a preferential option, a commitment to a particular version of the liturgy, rather than essentially a means of extending the voice without amplification or the other issues that gave rise to the chanting of the liturgy or eucharist--the vestments that were once intended to not make the clergy distract from the worship experience stick out like a sore thumb today, because nobody else in the world dresses in a like manner, and it is worth remembering that there was a time when liturgical dress was current with the dress of the day. The clerical collar, adopted in the late 1800s, and adapted from the black coat and white tie that had defined clergy in a world where most people were defined by 'uniforms of dress,' was intended as a means of separating clerics from emerging and increasingly secularizing society at the height of the industrial age, it had particular theological and cultural implications, and it heralded a hint of culture despising as Brueggemann might say, rooted in a form of Victorian piety (it's just one of the reasons I refuse to wear one, it is not representative of my view of either the relation between church and culture or my particular pietistic views). It is essentially only in the last 100-150 years that the gap between the shape, design, practices and habits of the church have moved away so dramatically from keeping pace with and responding to the culture and has created this traditional/non-traditional divide. At one point not so long ago, much of what we experience as ancient liturgy would have felt much more modern than we realize. Many liturgical churches invoke ancient liturgy, but much of it is influenced and shaped as much by 18+19th century approaches as anything else, so don't be taken in and think that you necessarily entering some gothic cave untouched for centuries-you might every once in while, but mostly its not that at all, its a style, it's an affect/effect, beautiful though it surely may be. 

All styles and approaches to worship can be lauded and critiqued, I am however,  like RHE, deeply concerned with substance and for me the challenge for millennials or boomers, or gen-xers, or zeroes, post-millennials or whatever, will not be addressed by lateral moves to different forms of worship alone, which I really think that has something to do with personal preferences and experiences of the sacred--and like everything, its always good to try new things, even if they are old things:) but the real substance won't necessarily come from either one, or perhaps it can and will emerge from any and all of them, but something has to shift first.

Some may find that a shift in liturgical focus will be enough to meet their needs and desires toward the sacred, it hasn't been for me. I have spent the past thirty years in church of all shapes and sizes and I have to say that most of its 'substance' is completely lost on me, not only do I not believe it, I find it gets in the way, and surprisingly perhaps, I have met a lot of people who go to church regularly who don't believe it either, they just tolerate it, hoping that one day it will be different, hoping one day, something will be uttered that heralds the dawn of what we are all looking for--substance. I hear the same things iterated in all kinds of churches--they all have their varying preoccupations and focuses, but contemporary christianity is sorely lacking in substance in most environments where it is being expressed if you ask me, it always has a feel of "I've heard this before, and it didn't make much sense the first time, even less so now."

I think substance is what the church really needs to look at, not just the substance of its worship-that's too internal, I mean it's substance in terms of how it seeks to engage with the world, what it talks about, how it interprets both scripture, its practices and priorities, itself and culture at large. I come back again and again to the idea that christianity has all been said before and yet needs to be said anew--that one eras encounter with the gospel is not always enough for the next age. Neither the tendencies and preoccupations of conservative forms of christianity-liturgical, high-church or otherwise, nor the focus and concern of any kind of liberal/progressive church-traditional, non-denominational, contemporary or whatever, which have largely been shaped by late 19th and 20th century experience are at the core of the substance I long for.

Tony said in his post that millennials are hyper-conscious about where things come from, I agree, but again I don't think that this is an exclusively millennial dynamic, it is something that is occurring everywhere in our culture at the moment, there might be a preponderance of this among millennials but its not just them, it's a broader cultural response to the effects of living with disposable fashion, an attempt to manage constant change--it's like the work-wear trend in fashion right now--its romaticized, people are wearing it in the city, not on farms, it is an affect, the roots reconfigured to fit the contemporary world as much as anything else--sometimes brand new things transform the world. We live in a time where we both love and hate the new, again it's a phenomenon of our time, and it makes us a bit bi-polar in our approach to life.

The substance I seek is substance that addresses a world come of age to quote Mr. Bonhoeffer, not the ancient world, not the modern world, not the traditional church world or the contemporary church world, but this world--the post-freudian, post-darwinian, post-marx, post-liberal, post-secular, post-religious, post-christian, post-materialist, post-everything world, and only then will we be able to have a conversation about how to give it shape, in the meantime we are jsut moving things around, avoiding the most important conversation of all-that we need a new iteration, a new telling of the tale, one that is not simply an attempt at relevance or cool, nor marked by a blind resistance to the moment, but shaped by our time, reflecting the world we live in, not wish we live in, hope we live in, or want to live in. Until then I recommend going where you like but don't advance it as a model for what a generation is doing, because I think most of them are actually staying home and listening to Lorde.

Theology and Media Culture

On September 30th, 1929, John Logie Baird, inventor of the televisor, initiated the first ever live tv broadcast in London. A fitting beginning point for the Fall term's class on theology and media culture.

The class is going to focus on two principle media lenses--the first half will consider television, the second focusing on the digital shift and concentrating on social media. There is communication, media and cultural theory, plus theological methodologies, thinking about the way various media re-direct content, transform how and what we communicate. It's ultimately about joining dots between theology, culture and media exploring the interplays between various artifacts.

in between spaces

Much of my adult life has been wrestling with the complexities of religion, and how it plays out in my own life and the world around me. Last night at dinner someone asked me what my core value was, expecting I think, some kind of religious statement. To be honest, I felt a little stuck because for one thing, I don't really conceive of life in terms of 'key statements' that I live by, but also because I was aware that my 'core beliefs' if they exist, aren't necessarily that religious, which might be surprising given that my life has been so intimately wrapped up in religion. First I said, 'there is no god and we are his disciples,' but then I figured I should offer a bit more so I said something about that living a life of love will do you no harm, and followed it up with a coda that it won't do you any harm, but it will cost you--a bit of a bind really, what I meant was that I really believe attempting to live a life that is marked by graciousness and loving kindness will fuck you up, it will expose flaws deep in your psyche, will present daily challenges to ones sanity, will expose hypocrisies, weaknesses, and blatant bullshit like nothing else, and there will often be little in the way of positive result, because I think, as Amy Winehouse decreed, Love is a Losing Game--sure she was singing about romantic love, but I don't think its very different with any other kind of love.

What I probably should have said is I am just trying to be a slightly nicer person, because that's the truth--there are so many arseholes in the world, and I don't want to be one if I can help it. I have let go of so many lofty religious aims, mainly because I don't think they work in people's lives, they just become baggage and I don't really think about life in terms of religious conceptions--redemption, salvation etc. it doesn't interest me to approach things that way. I have been thinking a lot about repentance lately, there have been a series of stories in the lectionary gospels that have utilized this idea--to me it means seeing what you have chosen up to now to not to see (because I think we spend our lives editing what we see-in ourselves, in each other and in the world around us)--and then doing something about it--I don't want to dress it up in language and ideas that have followed that thread for so long that they have nullified its invitation--in Jesus' accounting it seems that the people who have the hardest time with the concept are the ones who proclaim it, those who presumably have 'repented' but they haven't they have entered into some kind of religious blindspot-the 99 he jokes who have no need of it--as if 99 even exist-those to whom they direct their calls for repentance are already seeing differently. Why is religious so often such a blinder to reality? This is a question I ask more and more.

On Mark Vernon's blog recently there was a link to a new project being conducted by the RSA that I think looks quite interesting. It's called, The Brains Behind Spirituality, it is definitely worth a read. I realize it addresses these issues from a British angle, and that the American situation is somewhat different, however, I think there are resonances addressed in this initial article that make its finding of interest. The essay names something that I think should get more attention--contemporary spiritual embarassment--a lot of people I encounter wrestle with this on a regular basis--to claim spirtitual affiliation is often attended by hearers with visions of rabid fundamentalists etc. and having to clarify what one means by that over and over can be wearing. Anyway, the article is helpful I think and the findings will be interesting to engage with next year.

 

Thou Shalt Not 2.0

Whenever there is discussion of the 'Abrahamic' faiths, difference is, of course, factored in, but it seems to me that there are way too may assumptions about similarity that throw the conversation a little. For me the single biggest issue of import, and. difference, revolves around imagery and the imaginary. In both Judaism and Islam, God is invisible and therefore not to be represented, Christianity, on the other hand, is a religion of revelation, of revealing--Jesus it is claimed, is the image of the invisible God. These differing views have sent cultures in entirely different directions. 

I wrote the other day about the priority in Christianity on avoiding falsehood, that the axis of Judeo-Christian thinking is linked to all the "thou-shalt-nots" that frame the conversation. However, to nuance that a little I want to examine the second commandment and its expansion, or explanation that comes a little later, after the giving of the commandments.

"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments."

Linked of course to the first commandment, to have no other gods before god, this command addresses the issue of making images of gods, something that seems to have been characteristic of most religious practices of the time. A 'graven image' is essentially an icon, a representation of the gods, but the prohibition goes even further--no likenesses of anything, and no bowing down to them.

A little later in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses gets a further clarification,

“Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves..."

In other words, no images are allowed because the encounter with god, was with a god who was invisible, and therefore cannot be worshipped via anything visible. So there is a boundary between the human and the divine--invisibility, and consequently a prohibition against representation. This plays out in all three of the Abrhamic faiths but perhaps more evidently in Judaism and lately in our encounters with certain facets of 21st century Islam--the protests against the danish cartoon of the prophet, Salman Rushdie's writing, and the Taliban's prohibitions on music, images etc.

(It is also linked on another level I think to coverings/veils-in both Judaism and Islam, and to be honest, in early Christianity--god is veiled, invisible, and those who come to him must also be covered--but I have to give that some more reflection and research before I can really say anything about that--because I think it is important and I think christianity had something to do with all that, but, another time.)

For now let me say that I think that Christianity works, or perhaps ought to work, on another logic, not the logic of prohibition, nor the logic/fear of religious falsehood, nor the logic of invisibility, but rather the logic of revelation, of seeing.

If Judaism and Islam operate on a logic of no representation, Christianity is the reversal--of Jesus it is said, 'he is the image of the invisible god,' you see him you see god--no longer invisible, veiled, hidden, but revealed--the veil is lifted and eyes can see what was previously unseeable? This takes the eye in new directions, accounts for the Western way perhaps of looking at the world--it becomes about the quest for revealing, for understanding (unfortunately this is often reduced to a search for ultimate truth, but to me this is different), rather than the avoidance of falsehood. This of course, is not without immense problems of its own, and, I am not certainly saying it is better, I am just highlighting what I think is an important difference within Christianity.  Christianity has, nonetheless,  wrestled with the role of imagery throughout its history, and still does, because the roots of the conversation are intertwined--its not so much an either or equation, perhaps a both and, but there is no doubt in my mind that there is a major distinction and that this distinction has an impact on how we see the relation between the mundane and the sacred.

Anyway, I am still thinking my way through all this, I'm just blogging about it, because I am experimenting with new approaches to how I do my thinking, so bear with me.

 

thou shalt not and other tales of a different time

It could perhaps be argued that 'thou shalt not' is one of the most revolutionary ideas in civilization. If you think about Moses and the Ten Commandments--the prohibition about worshipping false gods, making graven images, worshipping any god but God, and the subsequent thou shalt nots of life--it runs counter to the conventional wisdom of the time, which produced an environment where every conceivable god was included--think of Paul in Athens for instance, where, in a city devoted to philosophy and discourse, there are statues, idols and altars to every conceivable god, including one to the 'unknown god'--the just-in-case altar if you will. But Judaism and subsequently Christianity functions on a reversal-the idea of religious falsehood. Rather than covering all the possibilities, avoiding the wrong options becomes paramount. This is the mechanism that begins the shift from monolatry to monotheism.

This idea runs through Judeo-Christianity's long relationship with society and culture, and threads through its own internal discourses and strife--"Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things, increase in us true religion" (a prayer not about the relation between christianity and other religions, but between true and false christianity-prompted by the schism of the Reformation). The focus on falsehood is the backbone of Christianity-focusing on the truth; identifying false prophets, on and on, a religion built upon exposing falsehoods anywhere and everywhere. And with this perspective comes a particular shadow or fear. In a world inhabited by a pantheon of deities the fear is missing or forgetting one and incurring its wrath-the reverse is idolatry and its partner heresy.

But of course, there is Jesus, who seems to reverse the reversal--'a new commandment' not a prohibition, not a 'thou shalt not' but an invitation, an imperative. Perhaps, even Paul, whose discourse in Athens has been used to underscore the religious falsehood equation, took a different approach--there was commendation and expansion, rather than damning accusation. Now I don't want to set up a false disconnect, its very east to present Jesus as a negator of all that came before, which happens a lot, and I don't think that, but it does seem that in his words and practices he offers a different interpretation of this thread.

I wonder if it might be linked to the different world Jesus found himself in--not the world of the Egyptians etc. whose views seemed to influence and shape the Hebrew counterview, but also the Hellenistic/Roman world, so there are cumulative influences--if as Feuerbach asserted, religion is social production (not talking about whether or not god exists, but simply that we incorporate god into our cultural sense of things and vice versa), then it would make sense that views about the nature of things would shift and transition. Which of course brings us to today--the exchange of priorities in religion from maybe things like sin, salvation and service to personhood, individuality and connecting or belonging, the shift from monarchy/hierarchy/feudalism models of power to democracy--brings god out of the sky on any number of levels and invites new understandings about how we do and dont relate to the sacred. And, I think, after centuries of prioritising religious falsehood as a principle lens through which we might consider the god/goods equation, we find ourselves in a less-convinced monotheistic grid, perhaps more monolatry--god among gods, living with new relations between the various views.

All of this of course, presents problems on so many levels with the "thou shalt not" approach to life-we live in an era of permissibility rather than prohibition--a "why-not?" rather than a "why shouldn't" era--this is a monumental change and it presents huge challenges for how we take Christianity forward. Or at least it seems to right now, but I am writing this in the midst of a 'flu-fog' and a level of professional frustration and anxiety that is very high, theologically and ecclesiologically I find myself on the edge of something...what I don't know, but i should stop because I think I have more thinking to do. I'll post this anyway, but feel free to ignore:)