Bad news: It was originally reported that Disney would back down, and replace "Famewhore Barbie" Merida with "Cute Tomboy" Merida in their official lineup. But they won't.
Good news: in their endless flogging of the dead horse that is Benghazi, the Republicans released some pretty damning emails from inside the Executive Branch. Fun fact, though: they wrote the emails themselves. Or, at any rate, re-wrote them to make them seem less like routine inter-agency bickering and more like The Worst Scandal Ever. The good part, though, is that the Obama Administration called their bluff and released the actual, thoroughly uninteresting, emails.
In other news: Sorry we haven't been blogging much lately. We're busy packing (pray for us now and in the hour of our move), writing our Pentecost sermon (not good yet), writing a screenplay (don't ask), re-learning how the WordPress software works (pretty damn well), and generally doing other stuff.
We'll be back soon.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Home of the Cowardly
Pictured up top are two versions of Merida, the heroine of Disney's medieval adventure cartoon Brave. On the right is Merida as she appeared in the movie itself; on the left is her revised "official" look, as Disney announced it in advance of what their press release called her "coronation" -- official recognition as the 11th of the fabulously overmarketed Disney Princesses.
This, in other words, is the version that will appear on cups and t-shirts and lunchboxes, if little girls still carry lunchboxes. It is the one you will see at Disneyland and in advertisements and in a million other places.
Notice that New Merida's hair is less frizzy. Her dress is more heavily decorated. Her expression seems a bit more knowing. And, critically, her waist is smaller and her little adolescent breasts are proportionally bigger. (Although this picture excludes her bow and arrow, they are still part of the official look -- thank heaven.)
Slate gives Disney credit for "democratizing" its recent princesses, at least up to a point. To be a Disney princess, you don't need to be born in a castle; you can be poor and black (like Tiana); a crossdressing warrior (like Mulan). But, as Slate goes on to observe:
... two restrictions remain. You have to be young. You have to have a very particular body type and long, perfect hair. The edits to Merida reflect those priorities. Her famous hair, which took six Pixar employees—a mix of artists and engineers—three years to design, has been smoothed out, made less kinky, less frizzy, and less alive. Her waist has been slimmed down, emphasizing her breasts, but at the expense of Merida's solid frame, which is a real shame given the way Brave celebrated Merida's pleasure in her body's capacities.
We hope we need not point out how unfair this makeover is to girls whose bodies (and wardrobes) don't conform to the type, which is itself just a shade less barbarically unrealistic that Barbie's. We have already signed a petition at Change.org, and encourage readers to do likewise.
Must. Have. This.
We at the Egg make little secret of our intense snobbery or, as it otherwise known, our Francophilia.
While we aren't the sort of horrible people who try to use their lame high school French to order at a French restaurant in Manhattan, we're only a few small steps up the ladder from this. We like our cheese runny and our snails buttery. Against all logic and even our own better judgment, we prefer Madame Bovary to Middlemarch. We have actually bought and sort-of-almost read books by Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. We used to own a cassette tape of Colette reading her own works, and about half our Tintin books are in French. Sometimes, when the moon is full and we are all alone with the doors locked and the shades drawn, we crank of the Victrola and sing along to Edith Piaf.
We are monsters.
So needless to say, we are pleased about the news that websites originating in Brittany (oh, pardon us, Bretagne) may now adopt the ".bzh" domain name. This is no doubt useful if, for instance, you happen to sell apple brandy online.
But what really jazzes us is that Parisian websites may now adopt the ".paris" domain name. This has immediately become de rigeur for the fashion and fragrance industries as well as, we assure you, snobby Francophiles the world over.
While we aren't the sort of horrible people who try to use their lame high school French to order at a French restaurant in Manhattan, we're only a few small steps up the ladder from this. We like our cheese runny and our snails buttery. Against all logic and even our own better judgment, we prefer Madame Bovary to Middlemarch. We have actually bought and sort-of-almost read books by Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. We used to own a cassette tape of Colette reading her own works, and about half our Tintin books are in French. Sometimes, when the moon is full and we are all alone with the doors locked and the shades drawn, we crank of the Victrola and sing along to Edith Piaf.
We are monsters.
So needless to say, we are pleased about the news that websites originating in Brittany (oh, pardon us, Bretagne) may now adopt the ".bzh" domain name. This is no doubt useful if, for instance, you happen to sell apple brandy online.
But what really jazzes us is that Parisian websites may now adopt the ".paris" domain name. This has immediately become de rigeur for the fashion and fragrance industries as well as, we assure you, snobby Francophiles the world over.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Joyous Light
One of our little projects is to put together YouTube playlists of music for the Daily Office. We've stumbled over a few interesting pieces, and although this one by the David Crowder Band isn't quite as ... meditative as the music we would choose for our own Vespers, it is worth a listen.
Much more interesting to us, though, are the lyrics. They are by John Keble, slightly mangled for this version.
Here is Keble's version from Hymnary.org:
Much more interesting to us, though, are the lyrics. They are by John Keble, slightly mangled for this version.
Here is Keble's version from Hymnary.org:
1 Hail gladdening Light, of his pure glory poured
who is the immortal Father, heavenly, blest,
Holiest of Holies, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
who is the immortal Father, heavenly, blest,
Holiest of Holies, Jesus Christ, our Lord.
2 Now we are come to the sun's hour of rest,
the lights of evening round us shine,
we hymn the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit divine.
the lights of evening round us shine,
we hymn the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit divine.
3 Worthiest art thou at all times to be sung
with undefiléd tongue,
Son of our God, Giver of life, alone;
therefore in all the world thy glories, Lord, we own.
with undefiléd tongue,
Son of our God, Giver of life, alone;
therefore in all the world thy glories, Lord, we own.
Thursday, May 09, 2013
The Mysterious Rising Feet
 |
| The Ascension, by Albrecht Duerer |
There are a number of ways to illustrate the Ascension. Most do not satisfy us, much as the story itself does not satisfy us. As a lifelong reader of superhero comics, Father A. shies away from the image of Jesus flying superman-style into the clouds. It was, we do not doubt, a compelling image for the ancients. But to us, now, it seems ... well, comic-booky. Fine for an imaginary Kryptonian, but not really mysterious enough for God. Infra dig, as the prep school kids say.
In the church we attended as a child, there was an exceptionally ill-advised Ascension, hung against the west wall. Jesus, in a very full robe, stands in the pinkish clouds, surrounded by the little disembodied heads of infants, each with wings sprouting from their necks. Cherubim, of course. But creepy little guillotined cherubim. The painting was known among the faithful as "Severed Heads."
 |
| From a breviary |
It's a sight gag, at one level. There;'s no denying that it's funny, if only because it is so unique. We chuckle every time we see it.
But at another level, it is a way of making the image less absurd; we do not have to imagine Jesus gradually disappearing from view like a rocket, or surrounded by poofy pastel clouds and angels bearing Counter-Reformation drapery.
At the deepest level, a "feet-only" Ascension helps us to focus our attention upon the wounds of the Crucified, and upon the astonished expressions of the Apostles. (In fact, the great oversight of Dali's version is that the Apostles are left out.)
Wednesday, May 08, 2013
My Head Is Not Square
When Martin Bucer, busy reforming England, was asked why he did not wear the square cap conventional among the clergy, predecessor to the modern biretta, he answered "Because [my] head is not square."
In fact, that cap was the subject of much contention in the long sweep of Anglican history. George Smith Tyack, in his amusing little Historic Dress of the Clergy, quotes a Papist teasing an Anglican bisop by saying, "Do not some among [your clergy] wear square caps, some round caps, some button caps, some only hats[?]" Queen Elizabeth demanded that priests wear the square cap, and a long list of bishops issued strict orders on the subject, precisely because some among the clergy refused -- consistently and for generations -- to conform. Tyack adds:
The cap, we suspect, was a marker of identity, a badge used to show that one's position on other matters (episcopacy, royalty, whatever) conformed to or varied from the official position. Perhaps the variations, circular or button or "only hat," served to mark out minute personal variations. Very likely, for some people, it was also a matter of which was cheapest.
This is pretty close to the way clerical shirts are used today; when the pastor of the neighboring parish shows up wearing a shirt in that shade of purple, he may not be lying when he tells you that he got it at a great discount, but we all know that he is also telling you what he thinks of bishops and their funny hats. (Unless, of course, she is making a point about purple as the color of either gay rights or womanist theology.) The guy who arrives in the denim shirt is trying to send a message of Sixties-style hipness or even solidarity with the working class, even though he paid an extra ten bucks for the privilege.
But Tyack's real point is the one that matters: who really cares about hats, when your liturgy is a shambles, and when churchgoers walking in the door have no idea what new abuse or aberration to expect this week? In Anglicanism, that meant, to start with, the spoliation of the churches, as their stone altars were ripped out and replaced with wooden tables, their silks sold to Spain, their frescoes whitewashed. Then came the west-facing position, the endless moving-about of the communion table, the gradual replacement of historic vestments with quasi-academic ones. More deeply still, the rise of Mattins to a place of liturgical supremacy, and the corresponding removal of the Eucharist from its centrality. Not to mention a century or two without any hymns. And then, as each of these abuses was gradually undone, the undoing came to be seen as an innovation, a marker of some new and threatening identity.
We don't mean to pick on Anglicans. Other churches have their own variations on this history -- not just other Protestants, but Roman Catholics as well. Each wave of liturgical "reform" exists, principally, to fix the things broken by the last wave. This guarantees that it will never end, and that nobody will ever be happy.
Just the other day, we heard tell of a Lutheran church in which the "service of the word" consisted, in its entirety, of a brief reading from The Message, followed by whatever the hell the pastor felt like. What is most remarkable is that he person who told us the story says, rightly or wrongly, that the pastor leading the service claimed for all this the authority of one of our own teachers, a liturgical scholar of the first rank -- and, incidentally, a man who would not put up with this sort of shambolic, presider-centered, tradition-busting worship. In the same way, we imagine, Karlstadt claimed Luther's authority for his own bad ideas, and the Puritans routinely claimed God's.
We say all this to be clear about something important. We at the Egg spend a lot of our time exploring liturgical minutiae -- birettas and maniples and how to use the Athanasian Creed. Some guys build ships in bottles, others work on their car, we excavate obscure traditions. But lest there be any confusion, let us say clearly that we don't care much about any of these things. They are square caps.
What we do care about is that churches not worship badly or foolishly, chasing after fads, serving meals of junk food to people who come looking for spiritual nourishment. Give us the Word and the Sacrament, in forms that can be recognized and trusted, and we don't care about your hat.
In fact, that cap was the subject of much contention in the long sweep of Anglican history. George Smith Tyack, in his amusing little Historic Dress of the Clergy, quotes a Papist teasing an Anglican bisop by saying, "Do not some among [your clergy] wear square caps, some round caps, some button caps, some only hats[?]" Queen Elizabeth demanded that priests wear the square cap, and a long list of bishops issued strict orders on the subject, precisely because some among the clergy refused -- consistently and for generations -- to conform. Tyack adds:
[I]n fact, an absurd amount of trouble seems to have been taken to enforce the use, and an unaccountable amount of heat shown in opposition to it, when we consider the general carelessness with which points of ritual of far greater moment were abandoned, or allowed to lapse into disuse.Just so.
The cap, we suspect, was a marker of identity, a badge used to show that one's position on other matters (episcopacy, royalty, whatever) conformed to or varied from the official position. Perhaps the variations, circular or button or "only hat," served to mark out minute personal variations. Very likely, for some people, it was also a matter of which was cheapest.
This is pretty close to the way clerical shirts are used today; when the pastor of the neighboring parish shows up wearing a shirt in that shade of purple, he may not be lying when he tells you that he got it at a great discount, but we all know that he is also telling you what he thinks of bishops and their funny hats. (Unless, of course, she is making a point about purple as the color of either gay rights or womanist theology.) The guy who arrives in the denim shirt is trying to send a message of Sixties-style hipness or even solidarity with the working class, even though he paid an extra ten bucks for the privilege.
But Tyack's real point is the one that matters: who really cares about hats, when your liturgy is a shambles, and when churchgoers walking in the door have no idea what new abuse or aberration to expect this week? In Anglicanism, that meant, to start with, the spoliation of the churches, as their stone altars were ripped out and replaced with wooden tables, their silks sold to Spain, their frescoes whitewashed. Then came the west-facing position, the endless moving-about of the communion table, the gradual replacement of historic vestments with quasi-academic ones. More deeply still, the rise of Mattins to a place of liturgical supremacy, and the corresponding removal of the Eucharist from its centrality. Not to mention a century or two without any hymns. And then, as each of these abuses was gradually undone, the undoing came to be seen as an innovation, a marker of some new and threatening identity.
We don't mean to pick on Anglicans. Other churches have their own variations on this history -- not just other Protestants, but Roman Catholics as well. Each wave of liturgical "reform" exists, principally, to fix the things broken by the last wave. This guarantees that it will never end, and that nobody will ever be happy.
Just the other day, we heard tell of a Lutheran church in which the "service of the word" consisted, in its entirety, of a brief reading from The Message, followed by whatever the hell the pastor felt like. What is most remarkable is that he person who told us the story says, rightly or wrongly, that the pastor leading the service claimed for all this the authority of one of our own teachers, a liturgical scholar of the first rank -- and, incidentally, a man who would not put up with this sort of shambolic, presider-centered, tradition-busting worship. In the same way, we imagine, Karlstadt claimed Luther's authority for his own bad ideas, and the Puritans routinely claimed God's.
We say all this to be clear about something important. We at the Egg spend a lot of our time exploring liturgical minutiae -- birettas and maniples and how to use the Athanasian Creed. Some guys build ships in bottles, others work on their car, we excavate obscure traditions. But lest there be any confusion, let us say clearly that we don't care much about any of these things. They are square caps.
What we do care about is that churches not worship badly or foolishly, chasing after fads, serving meals of junk food to people who come looking for spiritual nourishment. Give us the Word and the Sacrament, in forms that can be recognized and trusted, and we don't care about your hat.
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Abstinence Aids Sex-Trafficking
The soi-disant Evangelicals in the US and Britain have fastened onto human trafficking as the new form of slavery, and are engaged in a major effort to publicize it and ultimately defeat it. This is a noble thing, and we support them.
At the same time, it must be noted that these same Evangelicals are the principal advocates of "abstinence only" as a model of sex education. So we hope they will think hard about the possibility that this model may inadvertently make it harder for sexual slaves to seek their own freedom.
Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped at 14, raped, and held captive for nine months. Since her rescue, she has grown to adulthood, formed a foundation to educate children about sexual crimes. Speaking recently at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, she talked about why it was so hard for her to escape:
Let's not overreach. For one thing, Smart was not raised in an Evangelical Christian household, but in a Mormon one. For another, she was kidnapped, rather than than "trafficked" in the commercial sense. And, critically, we are aware of no evidence at all that the women trafficked for sexual purposes are more likely than any others to come from religious families.
Still, "abstinence only" educational efforts are only one of the many ways that societies worldwide have historically used sexual shame to exercise control over their members, and especially over women. Take away the shame, and how many enslaved prostitutes might not feel free to break their chains?
At the same time, it must be noted that these same Evangelicals are the principal advocates of "abstinence only" as a model of sex education. So we hope they will think hard about the possibility that this model may inadvertently make it harder for sexual slaves to seek their own freedom.
Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped at 14, raped, and held captive for nine months. Since her rescue, she has grown to adulthood, formed a foundation to educate children about sexual crimes. Speaking recently at a Johns Hopkins human trafficking forum, she talked about why it was so hard for her to escape:
[Smart explained that] she was raised in a religious household and recalled a school teacher who spoke once about abstinence and compared sex to chewing gum.
"I thought, 'Oh, my gosh, I'm that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away.' And that's how easy it is to feel like you know longer have worth, you know longer have value," Smart said. "Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value."
Let's not overreach. For one thing, Smart was not raised in an Evangelical Christian household, but in a Mormon one. For another, she was kidnapped, rather than than "trafficked" in the commercial sense. And, critically, we are aware of no evidence at all that the women trafficked for sexual purposes are more likely than any others to come from religious families.
Still, "abstinence only" educational efforts are only one of the many ways that societies worldwide have historically used sexual shame to exercise control over their members, and especially over women. Take away the shame, and how many enslaved prostitutes might not feel free to break their chains?
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?
Who watches the watchmen, asks the satirist Juvenal. In respect of which comes today's lovely little fable:
The United States Air Force has an unfortunate track record with scandalous sexual behavior. A 2003 investigation at the Air Force academy, 70% of the women who had graduated the previous year reported that they had been subjected to sexual harassment, and 12% reported that they had been victims of rape or attempted rape. Recently, two generals (including a female ex-astronaut) have made the controversial decision to reverse judgments against officers convicted by a military court of misconduct. More recently still, a series of 18 military trials connected to Joint Base San Antonio- Lackland has revealed a vast network of sexual abuse, including rape, and resulted in the conviction of a dozen instructors and the high-profile discipline of 5 commanding officers.
Fortunately, they have put somebody in charge of policing this sort of misconduct: Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski, chief of the Sexual Assualt Prevention and Response Program. The program's website includes stern messages from the brass, talking about respect, core values, personal responsibility and moral courage. Secretary Donley says, "Sexual assault is a crime and is categorically unacceptable." General Welsh reminds his people that "You know what right looks like," and adds that, the way he sees it, "You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem."
The Pentagon estimates that sexual misconduct in the military is on the rise -- up 35% since 2010,
Early last Sunday morning, Col. Kusinski was arrested for sexual battery.
It seems that, in a Virginia parking lot, he drunkenly fondled a stranger's breasts and buttocks. In addition to committing a crime, abdicating personal responsibility, and violating his force's core values, he let women in the Air Force know just what sort of respect and moral courage they could expect from his program.
The Air Force says that Kusisnski has been relieved of duty. The police are unable to say how he got the cuts (or are they scratches?) that appear on his face in the booking photos.
The United States Air Force has an unfortunate track record with scandalous sexual behavior. A 2003 investigation at the Air Force academy, 70% of the women who had graduated the previous year reported that they had been subjected to sexual harassment, and 12% reported that they had been victims of rape or attempted rape. Recently, two generals (including a female ex-astronaut) have made the controversial decision to reverse judgments against officers convicted by a military court of misconduct. More recently still, a series of 18 military trials connected to Joint Base San Antonio- Lackland has revealed a vast network of sexual abuse, including rape, and resulted in the conviction of a dozen instructors and the high-profile discipline of 5 commanding officers.
Fortunately, they have put somebody in charge of policing this sort of misconduct: Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski, chief of the Sexual Assualt Prevention and Response Program. The program's website includes stern messages from the brass, talking about respect, core values, personal responsibility and moral courage. Secretary Donley says, "Sexual assault is a crime and is categorically unacceptable." General Welsh reminds his people that "You know what right looks like," and adds that, the way he sees it, "You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem."
The Pentagon estimates that sexual misconduct in the military is on the rise -- up 35% since 2010,
Early last Sunday morning, Col. Kusinski was arrested for sexual battery.
It seems that, in a Virginia parking lot, he drunkenly fondled a stranger's breasts and buttocks. In addition to committing a crime, abdicating personal responsibility, and violating his force's core values, he let women in the Air Force know just what sort of respect and moral courage they could expect from his program.
The Air Force says that Kusisnski has been relieved of duty. The police are unable to say how he got the cuts (or are they scratches?) that appear on his face in the booking photos.
Sunday, May 05, 2013
Guns Vs. Cars
Firearms and automobiles are, obviously enough, different varieties of device. One is made to kill, the other to transport. It is important to keep this teleological distinction clear in our minds, because the discussion that follows may tend to muddy it up a bit.
A few weeks ago, we mentioned stumbling across some writing by a gun enthusiast which misrepresented official data concerning the number of deaths caused by firearms each year. We've found another example here, unsurprisingly, at Breitbart.com. A guy named Awr Hawkins writes that
Wow. Zinger, right? We first came across this claim not in Hawkins' original piece, but in an online exchange with somebody who had clearly read this, or read something like it. Our interlocutor -- let's call him Skippy -- argued that "America pays too much attention to gun deaths, when drunk drivers kill so many more people."
It's a strange argument, when you think about it, like saying that we worry about Al Qaeda when cigarettes are so deadly. But set that aside for a moment. The real question is whether cars really do kill three times as many people as guns.
They don't.
Legit numbers can be had from three sources: the FBI, the CDC, and the Century Council. They vary from year to year, although the general outlines remain consistent. And here is what, for example, 2010 looked like:
Now, when we pushed him on the numbers, Skippy claimed that "most of these gun deaths are suicide," which is another half-truth. Guns are used for suicide more often than they are used for homicide -- in 2010, there were 19,392 firearms suicides in the US. That's colossal and terrifying, and deserves all the attention we can give it. But, obviously, the numbers we have compared above don't include suicide. Year in and year out, over the last few years, guns and cars have killed almost the same number of people, as have gun murders and DUI crashes.
But there is one enormous difference. Since 1980, the number of drunk-driving deaths has dropped by 52%. The number of gun murders has dropped by about 10%, depending on the year.
When Skippy said that "we don't pay enough attention to drunk driving," he may have been forgetting that, for the past thirty years, Americans have put enormous energy into the campaign against drunk driving. Think about the hundreds of PSAs and billboards you have seen -- the wine glasses smashing into each other, the reminder that "friends don't let friends," and so forth. Add to that the lectures in school, and the stern warnings required by most states as part of the licensing process. Add to that the random stops instituted by some jurisdictions, at least on holidays. Add to that the invention of the breathalyzer.
On top of all that, of course, is the fact that automobiles are regulated in a way that guns are not. Both cars and drivers are examined and licensed. Changes of ownership are carefully tracked. These are things that the gun lobby is reluctant even to let legislators consider. Safety belts and airbags are required by law, where mandatory trigger locks remain deeply controversial and the idea that every handgun owner should also be required to posses a biometric gun safe will no doubt be dismissed as "Nanny- State Thinking."
The weak link in the chain seems to be judges, who are still reluctant to take a drunk driver's license away permanently. Nonetheless, 52% is a big drop.
As a society, we have put a lot of pressure on the drunk driving problem, and we have seen remarkable results. Now it is time to put the same sort of pressure on the problem of gun violence.
A few weeks ago, we mentioned stumbling across some writing by a gun enthusiast which misrepresented official data concerning the number of deaths caused by firearms each year. We've found another example here, unsurprisingly, at Breitbart.com. A guy named Awr Hawkins writes that
According to the federal government, the number of people killed in automobile-related deaths annually is approximately three times higher than the number of people killed by all gun-related deaths combined -- handgun, shotgun, and rifle.
Yet there is, to my knowledge, no concerted effort to ban automobiles.
Wow. Zinger, right? We first came across this claim not in Hawkins' original piece, but in an online exchange with somebody who had clearly read this, or read something like it. Our interlocutor -- let's call him Skippy -- argued that "America pays too much attention to gun deaths, when drunk drivers kill so many more people."
It's a strange argument, when you think about it, like saying that we worry about Al Qaeda when cigarettes are so deadly. But set that aside for a moment. The real question is whether cars really do kill three times as many people as guns.
They don't.
Legit numbers can be had from three sources: the FBI, the CDC, and the Century Council. They vary from year to year, although the general outlines remain consistent. And here is what, for example, 2010 looked like:
Firearms deaths: 31,672 (10.3/100,000)
Motor vehicle traffic deaths: 33,687 (10.9/100,000)Basically, guns and cars kill the same number of Americans most years, although cars are indeed a little bit ahead. So where does Hawkins get his "three times the number"? Easy: he's talking about homicides, which represent a quarter to a third of all gun deaths. But, conveniently enough, DUI deaths represent about a third of all motor vehicle deaths. Voila, 2010 again:
Firearms homicides: 8,874
DUI deaths: 10,228So it is absolutely true that cars kill more people than guns, and DUI accidents kill more people than gun murders. But the numbers are fairly close, meaning that these are comparable threats to public safety.
Now, when we pushed him on the numbers, Skippy claimed that "most of these gun deaths are suicide," which is another half-truth. Guns are used for suicide more often than they are used for homicide -- in 2010, there were 19,392 firearms suicides in the US. That's colossal and terrifying, and deserves all the attention we can give it. But, obviously, the numbers we have compared above don't include suicide. Year in and year out, over the last few years, guns and cars have killed almost the same number of people, as have gun murders and DUI crashes.
But there is one enormous difference. Since 1980, the number of drunk-driving deaths has dropped by 52%. The number of gun murders has dropped by about 10%, depending on the year.
When Skippy said that "we don't pay enough attention to drunk driving," he may have been forgetting that, for the past thirty years, Americans have put enormous energy into the campaign against drunk driving. Think about the hundreds of PSAs and billboards you have seen -- the wine glasses smashing into each other, the reminder that "friends don't let friends," and so forth. Add to that the lectures in school, and the stern warnings required by most states as part of the licensing process. Add to that the random stops instituted by some jurisdictions, at least on holidays. Add to that the invention of the breathalyzer.
On top of all that, of course, is the fact that automobiles are regulated in a way that guns are not. Both cars and drivers are examined and licensed. Changes of ownership are carefully tracked. These are things that the gun lobby is reluctant even to let legislators consider. Safety belts and airbags are required by law, where mandatory trigger locks remain deeply controversial and the idea that every handgun owner should also be required to posses a biometric gun safe will no doubt be dismissed as "Nanny- State Thinking."
The weak link in the chain seems to be judges, who are still reluctant to take a drunk driver's license away permanently. Nonetheless, 52% is a big drop.
As a society, we have put a lot of pressure on the drunk driving problem, and we have seen remarkable results. Now it is time to put the same sort of pressure on the problem of gun violence.
Thursday, May 02, 2013
The Dark Triad Speaks Out
Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotional Intelligence, has a compelling chapter on the so-called "Dark Triad," consisting of clinical narcissists, Machiavellians and sociopaths. These are people so constructed that, although they may have "cognitive empathy" -- a great sense of how somebody else ticks -- lack the sort of emotional empathy that results in compassion. They can be dangerous and destructive people, but they can also be brilliant debaters and even inspiring leaders.
Attorney, professor and author M.E. Thomas is, by her own confession, "a diagnosed sociopath."* Indeed, she has begun carving out a little niche as the nation's public sociopath, creating a blog devoted to the subject, writing a book and most recently an article in Psychology Today (May/June 2013; not online yet).
Thomas is all about mythbusting. As she says, often, she's not a criminal. Not because she is restrained from crime by any feelings of guilt or compassion, but because she understands that a safe, well-ordered world is one in which she can prosper. The same is true of most sociopaths, who may constitute up to 4% of the population. (On the other hand, they make of 20% of the prison population, and "are probably responsible for about half of all serious crimes," according to her PT article.)
She says, several times, that loves her family. This seems natural enough, although it is difficult to imagine what "love" means to somebody whose life is lived without empathy, as a constant exercise in manipulation. (Indeed, she tells a repulsive, Mean Girls-esque story of a man who was romantically interested in her, and how she used his interest to create havoc for another woman who was interested in him -- not for any particular reason, but because it amused her. It is unnerving to think that somebody like that might be married, or have children.)
Most interesting to us, though, are Thomas's reflections upon her work and, yes, her faith.
Under the heading "Why Trial Law is a Sociopath's Fantasy," she writes:
_______________________________________________
*"Sociopath" is no longer a clinical diagnosis; it has disappeared into the category of "antisocial personality disorder."
Attorney, professor and author M.E. Thomas is, by her own confession, "a diagnosed sociopath."* Indeed, she has begun carving out a little niche as the nation's public sociopath, creating a blog devoted to the subject, writing a book and most recently an article in Psychology Today (May/June 2013; not online yet).
Thomas is all about mythbusting. As she says, often, she's not a criminal. Not because she is restrained from crime by any feelings of guilt or compassion, but because she understands that a safe, well-ordered world is one in which she can prosper. The same is true of most sociopaths, who may constitute up to 4% of the population. (On the other hand, they make of 20% of the prison population, and "are probably responsible for about half of all serious crimes," according to her PT article.)
She says, several times, that loves her family. This seems natural enough, although it is difficult to imagine what "love" means to somebody whose life is lived without empathy, as a constant exercise in manipulation. (Indeed, she tells a repulsive, Mean Girls-esque story of a man who was romantically interested in her, and how she used his interest to create havoc for another woman who was interested in him -- not for any particular reason, but because it amused her. It is unnerving to think that somebody like that might be married, or have children.)
Most interesting to us, though, are Thomas's reflections upon her work and, yes, her faith.
Under the heading "Why Trial Law is a Sociopath's Fantasy," she writes:
My sociopathic traits make me a particularly excellent trial lawyer. I'm cool under pressure. I feel no guilt or compunction, which is handy in such a dirty business. Misdemeanour prosecutors almost always have to walk into a trial with cases they've never worked on before. All you can do is bluff and hope that you'll be able to scramble through it. The thing with sociopaths is that we are largely unaffected by fear. Besides, the nature of the crime is of no moral concern to me; I am interested only in winning the legal game.It it hardly surprising that some successful lawyers are dirty and amoral. What does fascinate us is not only that Thomas has religious commitments, but that she is a Sunday School teacher:
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is a sociopath's dream. Mormons believe that everyone has the potential to be godlike -- I believe this includes me. Every being is capable of salvation; my actions are what matters, not my ruthless thoughts, not my nefarious motivations. Everyone is a sinner, and I never felt that I was outside ths norm.She then goes on to describe scamming and stealing from her classmates at Brigham Young University ( who were "even more trusting than the average Mormon"), and concludes:
But I am functionally a good person -- I bought a house for my closest friend, I gave my brother $10,000, and I am considered a helpful professor. I love my family and friends. Yet I am not motivated or constrained by the same things that most good people are.Her story raises any number of theological questions, not least about differences between Mormonism and Christianity, the nature of "goodness," and the existence of natural law. Beyond that, it is fascinating for its sheer strangeness. Here we have the rare chance to glimpse into the mind of a person whose mind works very, very differently from most of ours -- and to be shaken by the sheer funhouse-mirror vision of an alternative humanity. We wonder whether a sociopath could enjoy such an experience.
_______________________________________________
*"Sociopath" is no longer a clinical diagnosis; it has disappeared into the category of "antisocial personality disorder."
Heavy Metal Trinity
Our own use of the Athanasian Creed this year will be restricted to private recitation at Matins. However, if some of you are looking for adventurous ways to use it in public worship, the Internet has a few suggestions.
Here's John Stainer's musical setting via Google Books. (Stainer lived from 1840-1901 and was, among other things, organist at Magdalen College and St. Paul's Cathedral).
Apparently, there is also a setting attributed (with some doubt) to the great Thomas Tallis, of a which a PDF can be downloaded here.
Here it is in sign language on Vimeo.
Here are some adorable cherubs reciting it in a gym (excerpt only):
And here is the king of them all, one that really sums up our own thinking on the matter, a recitation in Latin over a heavy metal soundtrack:
Here's John Stainer's musical setting via Google Books. (Stainer lived from 1840-1901 and was, among other things, organist at Magdalen College and St. Paul's Cathedral).
Apparently, there is also a setting attributed (with some doubt) to the great Thomas Tallis, of a which a PDF can be downloaded here.
Here it is in sign language on Vimeo.
Here are some adorable cherubs reciting it in a gym (excerpt only):
And here is the king of them all, one that really sums up our own thinking on the matter, a recitation in Latin over a heavy metal soundtrack:
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Carry Me Back
Break out the corn pone and Joel Chandler Harris. Father Anonymous is moving down south.
He and Mother A. have been offered a call, together, at a wonderful congregation located somewhere between the Chesapeake Bay and the Blue Ridge. It's an agricultural community, specializing in horses and wine. Under the synod's guidelines, your humble blogger and his wife had thirty days to accept; it did not take them thirty seconds.
The champagne corks have been popping around the Rental Rectory tonight, at least metaphorically. (In non-metaphorical fact, Mother A. went to a conference meeting while Father A. fed the kid a corn dog. But there was a glass of seltzer involved: both celebratory and digestive.) After a gut-wrenching nine months of unemployment, and a depression-inducing seven call processes of one sort or another, this news is balm in Gilead.
We invite you to join us in offering fervent prayers of thanksgiving.
Now for the hard part: imagining ourselves Down South.
Our Dutch ancestors settled Nieuw Amsterdam. We have long proposed that the Mason-Dixon Line runs through Staten Island, and that people who use the Outerbridge Crossing talk a little funny. (We jest, of course: everybody in Noo Yawk tawks a liddle funny. You got a problem widdat?) But, in all seriousness, we have lived our entire life (except for brief interludes) within a ninety-minute drive of Central Park, depending on traffic. We have served our entire ministry in one synod. Much of our free time, in recent years, has been spent researching and meditating on the history of Lutheranism in New York, a subject about which we know more than many other people, and one which will do us not a whit of good in the foreseeable future.
It is entirely possible that the remainder of our ministry will be carried out in Virginia. It is unlikely that we will ever live in New York City again, and possible that we will never even live in New York State. This exile will take some getting used to.
Not so much for Mother A. though. She was born in New Orleans, raised in Mississippi and Texas. She actually likes grits. And before our Dutch ancestors ever set foot on Manhattan, her Anglo-Sephardic ancestors were settling Jamestown. So she's practically a native.
Not to mention the fact that we fell in love in Virginia, watching a full moon rise over the mountains (and then heading back to the cabin for a Star Trek: Next Generation marathon.)
It is the beginning of an exciting new chapter in Father A.'s life. He's already looking forward to his first Stuckey's Pecan Log.
He and Mother A. have been offered a call, together, at a wonderful congregation located somewhere between the Chesapeake Bay and the Blue Ridge. It's an agricultural community, specializing in horses and wine. Under the synod's guidelines, your humble blogger and his wife had thirty days to accept; it did not take them thirty seconds.
The champagne corks have been popping around the Rental Rectory tonight, at least metaphorically. (In non-metaphorical fact, Mother A. went to a conference meeting while Father A. fed the kid a corn dog. But there was a glass of seltzer involved: both celebratory and digestive.) After a gut-wrenching nine months of unemployment, and a depression-inducing seven call processes of one sort or another, this news is balm in Gilead.
We invite you to join us in offering fervent prayers of thanksgiving.
Now for the hard part: imagining ourselves Down South.
Our Dutch ancestors settled Nieuw Amsterdam. We have long proposed that the Mason-Dixon Line runs through Staten Island, and that people who use the Outerbridge Crossing talk a little funny. (We jest, of course: everybody in Noo Yawk tawks a liddle funny. You got a problem widdat?) But, in all seriousness, we have lived our entire life (except for brief interludes) within a ninety-minute drive of Central Park, depending on traffic. We have served our entire ministry in one synod. Much of our free time, in recent years, has been spent researching and meditating on the history of Lutheranism in New York, a subject about which we know more than many other people, and one which will do us not a whit of good in the foreseeable future.
It is entirely possible that the remainder of our ministry will be carried out in Virginia. It is unlikely that we will ever live in New York City again, and possible that we will never even live in New York State. This exile will take some getting used to.
Not so much for Mother A. though. She was born in New Orleans, raised in Mississippi and Texas. She actually likes grits. And before our Dutch ancestors ever set foot on Manhattan, her Anglo-Sephardic ancestors were settling Jamestown. So she's practically a native.
Not to mention the fact that we fell in love in Virginia, watching a full moon rise over the mountains (and then heading back to the cabin for a Star Trek: Next Generation marathon.)
It is the beginning of an exciting new chapter in Father A.'s life. He's already looking forward to his first Stuckey's Pecan Log.
Friday, April 26, 2013
Whosoever Desires
This time last year, we talked about the Athanasian Creed. Specifically, we talked about ways to incorporate this extremely long piece of Christian history into one's worship service, should you so desire -- and we insisted, we think now too forcefully, that you should so desire.
The subject was raised again last night in an online chat among some colleagues. It was a good chat, but one very specific thing that came up was confusion about the role of the Athanasian Creed in historic liturgies, whether Evangelical or otherwise. We did a few minutes of research, and want to clear up some misconceptions on the subject.
Briefly, the liturgical history of the Athanasian Creed looks like this:
BEFORE THE REFORMATION
The Athanasian Creed seems to emerge in the 5th-6th centuries in southern Gaul. It is a Latin document reflecting Augustinian theology (and, obviously, has nothing to do with Athanasius). No matter what the Book of Concord says, it is not really an "ecumenical creed," since it was never accepted by any of the councils. However, its structure suggests that it may have been intended from the beginning as a liturgical document. Indeed, in documents from the 10th and 11th centuries, it is called "the Hymn of St. Athanasius on the Trinity" or "the Psalm Quicunque vult."
From at least 820, according to the old Catholic Encyclopedia, it occurred on Sundays at Prime in the Roman and Ambrosian breviaries (as well as derivatives, such as Sarum). The Ambrosian rite also used it, sometimes, in the commendation of the dying.
Unsurprisingly, it has no formal role in Orthodox worship, but it is sometimes printed on the Horologion, as a text for private devotion. As you would expect, it is printed without the filioque.
DURING THE REFORMATION
In his commentary on Joel, Luther says of the Athanasian Creed that, "I doubt if, since the days of the apostles, anything more important and more glorious has ever bee written in the Church of the New Testament." This is hyperbolic, to be sure, but it shows that the Reformers had no plan to surrender their inheritance.
Among Evangelicals, the Athanasian Creed was used in two ways. Some church orders (Wittenberg 1533; Braunschweig Wolfenbuettel 1543; Pomerania 1563; John Casimir of Saxony, 1626) used it as part of the Daily Office. In these cases, according to the 1899 Lutheran Cyclopedia article, it was typically sung at Matins on Saturday or Sunday, alternating in use with the Te Deum and Benedictus. In practice, it was sung antiphonally, with the Gloria Patri added (because, obviously, it wasn't long enough already).
Timothy Wengert describes the use at Wittenberg, during Luther's lifetime, in detail:
The Pomeranian agenda also prescribed it for use "at the opening of synods, and once a month," at least according to an 1899 article by R. Morris Smith. It also seems to have been used at ordinations.
What must be added here is that, while some Evangelicals retained this creed in worship, others did not. The Lutheran Reformation was liturgically diverse, and -- for all its conservatism -- sought to impose no common liturgy upon its adherents.
Anglicanism, of necessity, sought precisely that. Each successive revision of the Prayer Book became, at least in theory, a legal document prescribing just what would be said, and when, at worship in each parish church. In 1549, the BCP prescribed the Athanasian Creed for use after after the Benedictus at Matins on Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity. The 1559 added seven saints' days, for a total of thirteen recitations. This rubric was retained in the 1662 book, which remains the principal liturgical book of the Church of England.
Thirteen times per annum, the Anglican rubric (which remains in force to this day, at least on paper) seems like a lot. It is worth remembering that the Pomeranians, and presumably some of the other German churches, sung it about as often.
DURING THE BAD YEARS
Notwithstanding Fr. Zuhlsdorf's thing about red and black, we all know that rubrics are made to be ignored. It seems pretty clear that, during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Athanasian Creed fell into disuse. Evidence is that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA, when it developed its own version of the BCP, omitted the Athanasian Creed entirely. A post at the Prayer Book Society blog avers that the minatory clauses were to blame, and this sounds likely.
We aren't sure just what the various Lutheran churches did during these years. Perhaps, on paper, some retained the Athanasian Creed at Matins -- but then, it seems that the Daily Office dropped almost entirely out of use, which would moot the rubric without abolishing it.
THE 19th CENTURY REVIVAL
In a curious 1875 essay, the Anglican writers Pebody and Kenny describe the gradual restoration of the Athanasian Creed in their own church. They extol the frequency of its use in English churches, where it seems to have been sung to instrumental accompaniment. They admit, however, that it has only returned to widespread use over the preceding 60 years, as BCP rubrics have been more carefully followed, and that even in their own time many of the English clergy refuse to obey the rubric, and they estimate that 3/5 would prefer it were removed.
They also mention that, in 1829, the Prussian church had given permission for the Athansian Creed to be used "in any churches where the use had lingered to that time." This suggests that at least a few Lutherans had continued the practice through the liturgical lean years.
Nonetheless, such use must have been exceptional. A 1906 LLA essay on the liturgical use of the creeds in Lutheran churches states flatly that it "is not used ... at this time." It is not clear how the author knows this, or even whether he is correct.
THE 20th CENTURY
In 1914, revisions to the Roman breviary reduced the use of the Athanasian Creed to Prime on Trinity Sunday. (In the contemporary Liturgy of the Hours, it is used only on Trinity.)
Among Lutherans, recitation on Trinity Sunday seems to have been common enough by the mid-20th century. The Athanasian Creed was not included in the 1917 Common Service Book, or the 1958 Service Book and Hymnal, but it was in The Lutheran Hymnal (1941). In 1967, Catholic World noted in passing that Lutherans and Roman Catholics were "almost" the only American churches to use the Athanasian Creed in worship.
In a 1965 article, Arthur Carl Piepkorn prescribes thusly for TLH users:
Meanwhile, Episcopalians added it to the back pages of their 1979 BCP, as "an historical document" like the 39 Articles or the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, rather than a liturgical text. Evangelical Lutheran Worship omits it entirely.
This, so far as we know, covers the field. At the moment, Lutherans (at least users of LBW, ELW or the new Missouri book) have no rubric prescribing the Athanasian Creed, but a fair number of congregations are accustomed to its use, at least on rare occasions. This use, while by no means obligatory, is deeply rooted in the history of the Evangelical movement, and deserves to be remembered, whether or not it is continued.
The subject was raised again last night in an online chat among some colleagues. It was a good chat, but one very specific thing that came up was confusion about the role of the Athanasian Creed in historic liturgies, whether Evangelical or otherwise. We did a few minutes of research, and want to clear up some misconceptions on the subject.
Briefly, the liturgical history of the Athanasian Creed looks like this:
BEFORE THE REFORMATION
The Athanasian Creed seems to emerge in the 5th-6th centuries in southern Gaul. It is a Latin document reflecting Augustinian theology (and, obviously, has nothing to do with Athanasius). No matter what the Book of Concord says, it is not really an "ecumenical creed," since it was never accepted by any of the councils. However, its structure suggests that it may have been intended from the beginning as a liturgical document. Indeed, in documents from the 10th and 11th centuries, it is called "the Hymn of St. Athanasius on the Trinity" or "the Psalm Quicunque vult."
From at least 820, according to the old Catholic Encyclopedia, it occurred on Sundays at Prime in the Roman and Ambrosian breviaries (as well as derivatives, such as Sarum). The Ambrosian rite also used it, sometimes, in the commendation of the dying.
Unsurprisingly, it has no formal role in Orthodox worship, but it is sometimes printed on the Horologion, as a text for private devotion. As you would expect, it is printed without the filioque.
DURING THE REFORMATION
In his commentary on Joel, Luther says of the Athanasian Creed that, "I doubt if, since the days of the apostles, anything more important and more glorious has ever bee written in the Church of the New Testament." This is hyperbolic, to be sure, but it shows that the Reformers had no plan to surrender their inheritance.
Among Evangelicals, the Athanasian Creed was used in two ways. Some church orders (Wittenberg 1533; Braunschweig Wolfenbuettel 1543; Pomerania 1563; John Casimir of Saxony, 1626) used it as part of the Daily Office. In these cases, according to the 1899 Lutheran Cyclopedia article, it was typically sung at Matins on Saturday or Sunday, alternating in use with the Te Deum and Benedictus. In practice, it was sung antiphonally, with the Gloria Patri added (because, obviously, it wasn't long enough already).
Timothy Wengert describes the use at Wittenberg, during Luther's lifetime, in detail:
It was to be sung at Matins on Sundays by the boys choir in Latin, alternating week by week with the Te Deum, after the sermon and a German hymn sung by the congregation. The same choir was to begin the Matins service reciting the catechism in Latin antiphonally.A smaller number of orders used it as part of the Communion service, following the Gospel. (Hesse 1574 and, specifically on Trinity Sunday, Schwaebisch Halle 1615).
The Pomeranian agenda also prescribed it for use "at the opening of synods, and once a month," at least according to an 1899 article by R. Morris Smith. It also seems to have been used at ordinations.
What must be added here is that, while some Evangelicals retained this creed in worship, others did not. The Lutheran Reformation was liturgically diverse, and -- for all its conservatism -- sought to impose no common liturgy upon its adherents.
Anglicanism, of necessity, sought precisely that. Each successive revision of the Prayer Book became, at least in theory, a legal document prescribing just what would be said, and when, at worship in each parish church. In 1549, the BCP prescribed the Athanasian Creed for use after after the Benedictus at Matins on Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Trinity. The 1559 added seven saints' days, for a total of thirteen recitations. This rubric was retained in the 1662 book, which remains the principal liturgical book of the Church of England.
Thirteen times per annum, the Anglican rubric (which remains in force to this day, at least on paper) seems like a lot. It is worth remembering that the Pomeranians, and presumably some of the other German churches, sung it about as often.
DURING THE BAD YEARS
Notwithstanding Fr. Zuhlsdorf's thing about red and black, we all know that rubrics are made to be ignored. It seems pretty clear that, during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Athanasian Creed fell into disuse. Evidence is that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the USA, when it developed its own version of the BCP, omitted the Athanasian Creed entirely. A post at the Prayer Book Society blog avers that the minatory clauses were to blame, and this sounds likely.
We aren't sure just what the various Lutheran churches did during these years. Perhaps, on paper, some retained the Athanasian Creed at Matins -- but then, it seems that the Daily Office dropped almost entirely out of use, which would moot the rubric without abolishing it.
THE 19th CENTURY REVIVAL
In a curious 1875 essay, the Anglican writers Pebody and Kenny describe the gradual restoration of the Athanasian Creed in their own church. They extol the frequency of its use in English churches, where it seems to have been sung to instrumental accompaniment. They admit, however, that it has only returned to widespread use over the preceding 60 years, as BCP rubrics have been more carefully followed, and that even in their own time many of the English clergy refuse to obey the rubric, and they estimate that 3/5 would prefer it were removed.
They also mention that, in 1829, the Prussian church had given permission for the Athansian Creed to be used "in any churches where the use had lingered to that time." This suggests that at least a few Lutherans had continued the practice through the liturgical lean years.
Nonetheless, such use must have been exceptional. A 1906 LLA essay on the liturgical use of the creeds in Lutheran churches states flatly that it "is not used ... at this time." It is not clear how the author knows this, or even whether he is correct.
THE 20th CENTURY
In 1914, revisions to the Roman breviary reduced the use of the Athanasian Creed to Prime on Trinity Sunday. (In the contemporary Liturgy of the Hours, it is used only on Trinity.)
Among Lutherans, recitation on Trinity Sunday seems to have been common enough by the mid-20th century. The Athanasian Creed was not included in the 1917 Common Service Book, or the 1958 Service Book and Hymnal, but it was in The Lutheran Hymnal (1941). In 1967, Catholic World noted in passing that Lutherans and Roman Catholics were "almost" the only American churches to use the Athanasian Creed in worship.
In a 1965 article, Arthur Carl Piepkorn prescribes thusly for TLH users:
On Trinity Sunday, at Matins, the Athanasian Creed may be used instead of the Psalmody. The Lutheran Liturgy [a manual for TLH] authorizes you to use the Athanasian Creed in place of part of the Psalmody. When you use the Athanasian Creed, render it like a Psalm or Canticle; use Gloria Patri at the end and, if you wish, use an appropriate Antiphon at the beginning and the end. The Athanasian Creed should never be substituted for the Nicene (or the Apostles') Creed.It was printed in the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship, and although we recall no rubrics concerning its use, we have neither our desk edition nor Pfatteicher's Manual on the Liturgy available to us just now. The latter, we assume, had at least some suggestions.
Meanwhile, Episcopalians added it to the back pages of their 1979 BCP, as "an historical document" like the 39 Articles or the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, rather than a liturgical text. Evangelical Lutheran Worship omits it entirely.
This, so far as we know, covers the field. At the moment, Lutherans (at least users of LBW, ELW or the new Missouri book) have no rubric prescribing the Athanasian Creed, but a fair number of congregations are accustomed to its use, at least on rare occasions. This use, while by no means obligatory, is deeply rooted in the history of the Evangelical movement, and deserves to be remembered, whether or not it is continued.
He Would Cease Being God
Here is Clement of Alexandria on the Fourth Commandment:
From here, Clement continues on with an argument for the "orders of creation." This is a theological construct which troubles us at the Egg. For one thing, it was beloved of the Nazis; but even in Clement, it posits that some created things are less "worthy" to their Creator than others. This may be true, but -- if so -- it does not seem to us to flow necessarily from the days of creation. (On the other had, watch a real theologian deal with the matter.)
But that sentence in red is worth remembering.
Thus the Lord Himself is called “Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end,” “by whom all things were made, and without whom not even one thing was made.” God’s resting is not, then, as some conceive, that God ceased from doing. For, being good, if He should ever cease from doing good, then would He cease from being God, which it is sacrilege even to say. The resting is, therefore, the ordering that the order of created things should be preserved inviolate, and that each of the creatures should cease from the ancient disorder.
(Stromata, Bk 6, Ch. 16)
From here, Clement continues on with an argument for the "orders of creation." This is a theological construct which troubles us at the Egg. For one thing, it was beloved of the Nazis; but even in Clement, it posits that some created things are less "worthy" to their Creator than others. This may be true, but -- if so -- it does not seem to us to flow necessarily from the days of creation. (On the other had, watch a real theologian deal with the matter.)
But that sentence in red is worth remembering.
Sacraments and Secularism
Paul Tillich, of all people:
His actual argument is far more ... Tillichian ... than these excerpts. Still, though, it is worth thinking about.
The classical combination "word and sacrament" means, in the first place, "the word as well as the sacrament." Next it signifies, "the sacrament through the word." And it has often been used, especially in Protestantism, as "word without sacrament." ...
The phenomenal growth of secularism in Protestant countries can be explained partly as a result of the weakening of the sacramental power within Protestantism. For this reason the solution of the problem of "nature and sacrament" is today a task on which the very destiny of Protestantism depends.From Shaking of the Foundations.
His actual argument is far more ... Tillichian ... than these excerpts. Still, though, it is worth thinking about.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
"Pastors, Not Functionaries"
That is the line that Rocco Palmo pulled out of a sermon by Pope Francis, delivered at a recent service of ordination. The sermon is posted at Whispers in the Loggia, and well worth a read.
Tow sections grab our attention. In the first, Francis briefly distinguishes the general from the particular priesthood:
This is a lucid statement of something we have long tried to communicate to our fellow Evangelicals. The "priesthood of all believers" -- a phrase not to be found in Luther -- is built, in the Confessions, on just the passage to which Francis refers here, 1 Peter 2:9. Some Lutherans like to imagine that our Confessions establish the Evangelical priesthood on a basis quite distinct from the Catholic one, but it has never been clear to us that they are correct.
Rather the opposite; the various theories (one cannot call them doctrines) concerning the office of ministry abroad in the Lutheran churches are surpassed in their inadequacy only by our myriad and conflicting ecclesiologies. One of the much-remarked-upon ironies of Lutheran life is that we have sustained a generally competent and traditional priestly practice despite a dismal supporting theology.
A shocking number of Lutherans are taught to believe that, since all the baptized are priests, there are no essential differences in their ministries. At its most extreme, this leads to lay presidency at the Eucharist, pastors ordained without bishops, and congregations reciting the Collect en masse, as if to spite the millennia. (Some days, we do not know which of these abuses is worst.) But even without these gross abuses, the simplistic understanding of the general priesthood has led to many smaller failures. How many congregations treat their pastor with barely suppressed contempt, the result of an anxiety about the office that leads to inadvertent anticlericalism? How many treat the pastor as an employee, a subordinate rather than a leader? And how many pastors let them?
It seems to us that the Confessions permit a more traditional reading, and that indeed the hermeneutic of Apology 14:1 practically demands it. The general priesthood is a Biblical reality; but so long as it cannot be proven to overthrow the particular priesthood, we must assume that both institutions continue, as they have throughout the history of the Church, distinct and complementary.
And Francis describes the duties of the particular priesthood in language that Lutherans will recognize: to preach the Gospel and celebrate the sacraments, and to shepherd -- to pastor, to lead -- God's people. No matter how confused, contradictory and inadequate our theories have been, our practice has almost always recognized that these are duties peculiar to the people set aside and blessed for them.
He then goes on to talk about something Lutherans have buried like pirate's treasure, keeping it as far from our everyday conversationas we can: the rites of confession and forgiveness. We at the Egg are constantly astonished by the umber of lifelong Lutherans who can recall from memory which page of the LBW or SBH or TLH their favorite hymn was on, but who do not even know that those books contain an order for individual confession. How many recall, with varying degrees of affection, a confirmation class in which they were asked to memorize the Catechism -- and yet never seem to have stumbled across Chapter 5?
Anyway, it is in this context that Francis offers wise advice to the whole clergy, and especially to those newly ordained, or soon to be ordained:
Tow sections grab our attention. In the first, Francis briefly distinguishes the general from the particular priesthood:
It is true that God has made his entire holy people a royal priesthood in Christ. Nevertheless, our great Priest himself, Jesus Christ, chose certain disciples to carry out publicly in his name, and on behalf of mankind, a priestly office in the Church. For Christ was sent by the Father and he in turn sent the Apostles into the world, so that through them and their successors, the Bishops, he might continue to exercise his office of Teacher, Priest, and Shepherd. ...
After mature deliberation and prayer, these, our brothers, are now to be ordained to the priesthood in the Order of the presbyterate so as to serve Christ the Teacher, Priest, and Shepherd, by whose ministry his body, that is, the Church, is built and grows into the people of God, a holy temple.
In being configured to Christ the eternal High Priest and joined to the priesthood of the Bishops, they will be consecrated as true priests of the New Testament, to preach the Gospel, to shepherd God’s people, and to celebrate the sacred Liturgy, especially the Lord’s sacrifice.
This is a lucid statement of something we have long tried to communicate to our fellow Evangelicals. The "priesthood of all believers" -- a phrase not to be found in Luther -- is built, in the Confessions, on just the passage to which Francis refers here, 1 Peter 2:9. Some Lutherans like to imagine that our Confessions establish the Evangelical priesthood on a basis quite distinct from the Catholic one, but it has never been clear to us that they are correct.
Rather the opposite; the various theories (one cannot call them doctrines) concerning the office of ministry abroad in the Lutheran churches are surpassed in their inadequacy only by our myriad and conflicting ecclesiologies. One of the much-remarked-upon ironies of Lutheran life is that we have sustained a generally competent and traditional priestly practice despite a dismal supporting theology.
A shocking number of Lutherans are taught to believe that, since all the baptized are priests, there are no essential differences in their ministries. At its most extreme, this leads to lay presidency at the Eucharist, pastors ordained without bishops, and congregations reciting the Collect en masse, as if to spite the millennia. (Some days, we do not know which of these abuses is worst.) But even without these gross abuses, the simplistic understanding of the general priesthood has led to many smaller failures. How many congregations treat their pastor with barely suppressed contempt, the result of an anxiety about the office that leads to inadvertent anticlericalism? How many treat the pastor as an employee, a subordinate rather than a leader? And how many pastors let them?
It seems to us that the Confessions permit a more traditional reading, and that indeed the hermeneutic of Apology 14:1 practically demands it. The general priesthood is a Biblical reality; but so long as it cannot be proven to overthrow the particular priesthood, we must assume that both institutions continue, as they have throughout the history of the Church, distinct and complementary.
And Francis describes the duties of the particular priesthood in language that Lutherans will recognize: to preach the Gospel and celebrate the sacraments, and to shepherd -- to pastor, to lead -- God's people. No matter how confused, contradictory and inadequate our theories have been, our practice has almost always recognized that these are duties peculiar to the people set aside and blessed for them.
He then goes on to talk about something Lutherans have buried like pirate's treasure, keeping it as far from our everyday conversationas we can: the rites of confession and forgiveness. We at the Egg are constantly astonished by the umber of lifelong Lutherans who can recall from memory which page of the LBW or SBH or TLH their favorite hymn was on, but who do not even know that those books contain an order for individual confession. How many recall, with varying degrees of affection, a confirmation class in which they were asked to memorize the Catechism -- and yet never seem to have stumbled across Chapter 5?
Anyway, it is in this context that Francis offers wise advice to the whole clergy, and especially to those newly ordained, or soon to be ordained:
Today I ask you in the name of Christ and the Church, never tire of being merciful. You will comfort the sick and the elderly with holy oil: do not hesitate to show tenderness towards the elderly. When you celebrate the sacred rites, when you offer prayers of praise and thanks to God throughout the hours of the day, not only for the people of God but for the world—remember then that you are taken from among men and appointed on their behalf for those things that pertain to God. Therefore, carry out the ministry of Christ the Priest with constant joy and genuine love, attending not to your own concerns but to those of Jesus Christ. You are pastors, not functionaries. Be mediators, not intermediaries.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Principia Phantasmatica
Which brings us to Rebecca Stott's novel Ghostwalk. We picked the book up a few months ago, and last week, while all hell was breaking loose nationwide, we read it -- taking advantage of an opportunity to immerse ourself in the alternate realities of geneticists and alchemists, Cambridge University, and Sir Isaac Newton's lifelong fascination with the color red.
As you might guess from the title, this is a ghost story. A specter is haunting Cambridge, and a series of mysterious deaths in the 1660s seems connected to an ongoing series in the early 2000s. An historian, writing a study of Newton's alchemical work, has drowned. Her son, a research geneticist, hires his sometime lover to complete the book. Meanwhile, the town is troubled by outbreaks of vandalism and violence that appear to be the work of an animal-rights group, which has made the geneticist its particular target.
It sounds complicated, but it isn't really. The cast of characters is small, and the story is not hard to follow. It takes her a while, but Stott manages to build some genuine suspense, as we try to discern what is real and what is unreal, and of real things, which are natural and which supernatural.
It would be easier to follow if the prose were less affected. The narrator, Lydia Brook, speaks in the first person, addressing her lover Cameron Brown in the second; on a few occasions she drops into the third for no evident reason. This is annoying enough. She rambles a bit, indulges in unnecessarily florid descriptions and unimpressive bits of wordplay. This is a first novel, and here is where it shows. Nonetheless, the story is plotted well enough, and the characters are drawn sharply enough, to keep things from getting too boggy.
As for whether you like the story or not, it will depend (we imagine) on how you feel about ghost stories and/or about Newton.
Ghostwalk is part of a distinctive sub-genre, the so-called "antiquarian ghost story" associated with M.R. James -- himself a Cambridge don. Stories like this generally involve academicians on holiday, doing some sort of ordinary historical research. They are, by nature, full of dusty documents and obscure details about dead people, not infrequently accompanied by maps, footnotes and appendices. Ghostwalk provides all of the above; better yet is the fact that the dead people are ones who really lived. Needless to say, we at the Egg are the sort of people who like everything better with footnotes, up to and including our ice cream.
As for Newton, well, he was in his own lifetime, and remains to this day, one of the most celebrated of all Englishmen, "a national hero" as one of Stott's characters calls him. This has made him an attractive character for deconstruction: back in the 1960s, John Barth portrayed him as a pederast, Dan Brown put him in the Priory of Sion, and a Rob Cohen detective adventure movie is said to be in the works. (Of these, weirdly, Brown's version seems likeliest.) A pioneer in mathematics and physics, and therefore one of the creators of what we mean today by "science," he was at the same time greatly preoccupied with things that we do not today consider scientific at all. His interest in alchemy, perhaps under the influence of secret societies such as the Rosicrucians, has moved one historian to call him "the last sorcerer." This is the heart of Stott's story.
And yet, strangely, she makes no mention of his other related interest, which was Christian theology. Newton wrote a great deal of highly speculative (read: heterodox) theology, dealing with Biblical hermeneutics and eschatology. None of it was published in his lifetime, but modern scholars are well aware of it. Since Stott is concerned with events of the 1650s and 60s, and Newton wrote his theological tracts after 1670, it is possible that she doesn't find them germane. But it is hard to imagine that her characters, obsessed as they are with climbing into Newton's mind, would simply set this aside.
It is ironic that one of Stott's images for human relationships, whether those of separated lovers or of haunter and haunted, is quantum entanglement, "spooky action at a distance." This idea comes not from Newtonian physics but from the quantum mechanics that partially supplanted it. But of course science -- whether the science of light or of inheritance -- is not what Stott is trying to talk about. neither, for that matter, is the dubious mixture of physics and metaphysics known as alchemy. These are just metaphors for the interplay of love, ambition and rage that hold people together down through the years.
Ghostwalk is not for everybody. But if you are interested Cambridge or Newton, and especially if you are interested in the past and how it haunts the present -- sometimes ruinously -- then this is worth a look.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Oh, Yeah. Here It Is.
Camden's Hampden Library counts among its various special collections a shelf or three dedicated to junk paperbacks, from the 1940s onward. Spoiled rich kids have all the fun.
Anyway, is it just us, or does Ramba (or her gladiatrix companion? Anyway, the one on the left) bear a powerful resemblance to Pam Grier?
A powerful resemblance.
Okay. Play time's over. Next time we post, it will be something about the 17th century, next week's pericopes, or the hideous undead creature that calls itself Dick Cheney.
Friday, April 19, 2013
God Bless You, Mrs. Rosewater
The beat-up copy here, which lived on a shelf at Grandma's beach house and was abused by decades' worth of houseguests, dates from the mid-40s.
Eunice Rosewater was a New England novelist, a chess champion, and married to a senator. Her prose style has been described, charitably, as "Lyttonesque."
We've heard that there was a paperback re-issue in the early 60s, which didn't sell. Copies are said to be very, very rare.
In completely unrelated news, they got Suspect #2.
Live and Learn
We're not sure how he came by such an oddity, but we're very impressed. Perhaps through his association with Campus Crusade for Cthulhu, back in the 1970s?
In any case, an impressive find for a certain sort of antiquarian.
And it certainly saved us a lot of time, as we sit here at our desk trying desperately not to think about Boston and Watertown.
Back In Print?
It seems strikingly unlikely.
And if it has been re-issued by a new publisher, don't you think the cheap SOBs could have paid for cover art that wasn't an obvious mash-up of a Planet of the Apes publicity still and that widely-internetted wallpaper of a sexy Japanese nurse riding a motorcycle and shooting a gun?
Still, Klopstein -- whose suicide by blow-gun at the Christlike age of 33 is still an open wound among historians of American literature -- deserves attention.
We ourselves treasure our dog-eared copy of Klopstein's Once More the Cicatrice. As we recall, it gave us quite a thrill in our adolescence, although it would no doubt be tame by today's standards.
Stranger Than Fiction
Turns out there really is an Anglo-American Encyclopedia, 1917 edition.
However, the volume containing an entry for "Uqbar" is said to be missing from most libraries.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Damn I Love That Movie
Sadly, this is not one of those books we'll ever scrounge up in a used bookstore or on the half-price table at a church rummage sale. Like the 1917 edition of the Anglo-American Encyclopedia, or Aaron Klopstein's Twenty Inches of Monkey, it does not exist, and never did.
Still, we keep looking. Because we're that kind of people.
Jingle Bells, Iron Man Smells
Per Wired, the film Iron Man 3 will be released in smell-o-vision, at least in Japan. Of course, it's not called that anymore -- "that's so last century" -- but you get the idea. Apparently, there is a new wave of "fourth dimension" theaters emerging worldwide, which offer such dubious pleasures as fog, tilting seats and, well, odor enhancements. (As if our typical multiplex weren't already stinky enough.)
Wired proposes that Tont Stark, being a billionarire, probably smells pretty good, what with all the expensive cologne. We're thinking it's more about sweat and engine grease, though. Sounds ... ducky. (But maybe he'll just smell like the official fragrance from IM2. There actually was one.)
In Rome last summer, we took our kid to a tourist trap that offered a special "history" of the city, with some of these features. The seats rocked and at some point, for reasons that made sense at the time, water was sprayed in our faces. Huzzah. He liked it, but he was five years old.
For our own part, we dislike 3-D movies with a passion, and can only imagine that adding aromas will make the whole thing worse. Not to mention more expensive.
All of which is why we are sticking to Netflix.
Roosevelt on Sheep and Shepherds
we saw this years ago, in Edwin Morris' magnificent The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. The blog Mountain & Prairie sources it to TR's 1885 Hunting Trips of a Ranch Man, p. 121:
Cattle-men hate sheep, because they eat the grass so close that cattle cannot live on the same ground. The sheep-herders are a morose, melancholy set of men, generally afoot, and with no companionship except that of the bleating idiots they are hired to guard. No man can associate with sheep and retain his self-respect. Intellectually a sheep is about on the lowest level of the brute creation; why the early Christians admired it, whether young or old, is to a good cattle-man always a profound mystery.Try not to think of it as you write your Sunday sermon. Stick to Austin Farrer, for mercy's sake.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
How Are People Murdered in America?
The short answer is guns. The long answer is handguns.
Among the loony claims floating around the Internet, you occasionally come across some variation on this one: "More people are murdered by hands and feet [or knives, or pressure cookers] than by guns! Check the statistics!"
We did, and that particular claim is false.
However, we can see where it comes from, and what rhetorical purpose it serves. According to the FBI's tally of murders in the US from 2007-2011, numbers vary from year to year but the rough outline remains the same.* In 2011, there were 12,664 murders. Of those, 8,583 -- almost 68% -- were committed using guns. In comparison, knives or other cutting instruments accounted for 13%, and "personal weapons" -- hands and feet, perhaps the occasional savage head-butt -- for about 6%. (Explosives murdered 12 people in 2011, a huge increase from the previous years but still less than a tenth of a percent).
So what's going on? The false claims start with inflammatory articles like this one, posted at the Daily Caller. Here's the headline:
Here's the fact: of those 8,583 gun murders in 2011, 6,220 -- 72% -- were committed with handguns. In 2011, 49% of all murders in the US were committed with a single class of weapon: handguns. This is an extremely important fact, of which nobody should lose sight in the current debate over gun laws. Handguns kill 8-10 times as many Americans as do rifles and shotguns.
Which means that while a ban on automatic rifles might very well make it more difficult for killers seeking mass casualties to commit their crimes, the place to begin, if we are serious about reducing the overall number of murders in our country, is with a dramatic reduction in the number of handguns.
____________________________________________________
*Note that the FBI reports murders, not deaths. This means that cases in which a death is ruled "accidental" -- father's loaded pistol kills boy in truck; toddler shoots woman at household party, and so forth -- are not included.
** We say "more or less" because the FBI's numbers also include several hundred "other guns" murders, and over a 1500 "firearms, type not stated." If as few as 50 of those murders were committed with long guns, the Caller is mistaken.
Among the loony claims floating around the Internet, you occasionally come across some variation on this one: "More people are murdered by hands and feet [or knives, or pressure cookers] than by guns! Check the statistics!"
We did, and that particular claim is false.
However, we can see where it comes from, and what rhetorical purpose it serves. According to the FBI's tally of murders in the US from 2007-2011, numbers vary from year to year but the rough outline remains the same.* In 2011, there were 12,664 murders. Of those, 8,583 -- almost 68% -- were committed using guns. In comparison, knives or other cutting instruments accounted for 13%, and "personal weapons" -- hands and feet, perhaps the occasional savage head-butt -- for about 6%. (Explosives murdered 12 people in 2011, a huge increase from the previous years but still less than a tenth of a percent).
So what's going on? The false claims start with inflammatory articles like this one, posted at the Daily Caller. Here's the headline:
You are more likely to be killed by hands and feet than by a shotgun or rifleIt claims, more or less correctly,** that
Total murders by hands and feet in 2011 exceed the total number of murders by shotgun and rifle. Does that mean gloves and shoes need regulation because they are concealing deadly weapons? No, but it does mean that there is no need for any further regulation of long armsYou can see what happened. The article is about long guns -- rifles, shot guns, and the much-ballyhooed "assault weapons." And strictly on its own terms, it is accurate. But excitable readers may fail to ask "What about handguns?" Then they click all over the web, spreading their own misinterpretation of the story -- a misinterpretation which is all too easily come by, since the Caller article never mentions handguns.
Here's the fact: of those 8,583 gun murders in 2011, 6,220 -- 72% -- were committed with handguns. In 2011, 49% of all murders in the US were committed with a single class of weapon: handguns. This is an extremely important fact, of which nobody should lose sight in the current debate over gun laws. Handguns kill 8-10 times as many Americans as do rifles and shotguns.
Which means that while a ban on automatic rifles might very well make it more difficult for killers seeking mass casualties to commit their crimes, the place to begin, if we are serious about reducing the overall number of murders in our country, is with a dramatic reduction in the number of handguns.
____________________________________________________
*Note that the FBI reports murders, not deaths. This means that cases in which a death is ruled "accidental" -- father's loaded pistol kills boy in truck; toddler shoots woman at household party, and so forth -- are not included.
** We say "more or less" because the FBI's numbers also include several hundred "other guns" murders, and over a 1500 "firearms, type not stated." If as few as 50 of those murders were committed with long guns, the Caller is mistaken.
Simplicity
Here is Austin Farrer, on the image of the Good Shepherd in John 10:
CHRIST'S parable of the shepherd escapes us not by being obscure, but by being so plain. The meaning is so familiar that we overlook it.
What does he say? A man cares naturally for his own things. He does not have to make himself care. The shepherd who has bought the ground and fenced the fold and tended the lambs, whose own the sheep are to keep or to sell, cares for them. He would run some risk, rather than see them mauled; if he had only a heavy stick in his hand, he would beat off the wolf.
Christ does not boast, as a man among men, that he loves mankind more than any other man, through a higher refinement of virtue. He says that he cares for us as no one else can, because we are his. We do not belong to any other man; we belong to him. His dying for us in this world is the natural effect of his unique care. It is the act of our Creator.Technically, he is commenting on the passage in the old lectionary (John 10:11-16), but it applies almost as well to the RCL pericope. From LectionaryCentral.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Report, Don't Guess
In Eastern Europe and the Levant, conspiracy theories are the very stuff of life. Although we Americans certainly have our share -- did you hear about the time Roy Cohn took Elvis for a ride in his UFO and they shot Kennedy together? -- our natural tendency is more manichaean. We like our white hats and our black hats, our easily-identified enemies, and even though the world stubbornly refuses to conform to our vision, we keep looking out the window and seeing what we want to see.
So it is that, less than a day after the Boston Marathon bombings, a fair number of Americans began speculating on just which of the usual suspects to blame. We heard a guest commentator on NPR hinting darkly about the right-wing "patriot" groups that have, apparently, been multiplying in recent years. To the credit of WBUR and On Point's listeners, a caller quickly shut her up, with a reminder that it is irresponsible to speculate in the absence of evidence.
That scolding carried no weight with the people at Tea Party Nation (an actual website!), where Judson Philips writes:
For the record, this was posted at 7:08 this morning. As of the 9:40 press conference, there was nobody in custody. That "Saudi national" you keep hearing about, and whose rights Philips is so eager to set aside, appears to just be some student who got tackled by a patriotic bystander when he did what everybody else was doing, which was to run away from the explosion. (That's per John Miller, the John L. Allen Jr. of crime reporting).
Gawker has a guide to even more of this paranoid twittery.
But the one who really frustrates us here is in another (and higher) class altogether: Terry Mattingly, at GetReligion. In a rambling and self-referential post, Mattingly "waits for the religion shoe to drop in Boston," and gives fellow reporters instructions on how to handle the seemingly-inevitable. He reminds them to help readers understand the different forms of Islam, and makes suitable comparisons to Christian terrorists such as Anders Beivik and Paul Hill. All wise and appropriate.
And yet we are left, as so often in Terry's posts, with a nagging suspicion. Why jump in with this piece now -- unless you are assuming that there will be a religion angle to the story as it develops? Why drop the word "Islam" five times and "Muslim" three, if you are not trying to play up a little to the inevitable speculation about just what that religious angle may prove to be? To hint, just a tiny bit, at what you think happened?
The problem is that times like this call restraint, for caution, and for patience.
Maybe we're being unfair. But we wish that he had held back a little, and either refrained from publishing anything at all or simply written a short paragraph, reminding the pros that, if there does turn out to be a religious angle here, they have a duty to their readers to be as clear and specific about the details as they can be. Which he did say, of course.
Or, as John L. Allen, Jr. said in the post below, "Getting the story right means you have to respect the complexity of reality."
So it is that, less than a day after the Boston Marathon bombings, a fair number of Americans began speculating on just which of the usual suspects to blame. We heard a guest commentator on NPR hinting darkly about the right-wing "patriot" groups that have, apparently, been multiplying in recent years. To the credit of WBUR and On Point's listeners, a caller quickly shut her up, with a reminder that it is irresponsible to speculate in the absence of evidence.
That scolding carried no weight with the people at Tea Party Nation (an actual website!), where Judson Philips writes:
Unfortunately the sad truth is we will be hit again. It will happen sooner or later. It will probably be sooner than later.
There are two reasons why we will be hit again. First, we have a determined enemy who hates us. Second, we have a government that is not committed to protecting America.
It is a pretty safe bet right now that this attack was carried out by an Islamist. It was a well-coordinated attack. In its publication, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula called for just this kind of attack.
While the government and media have fallen all over themselves to downplay this fact, there is a twenty-year-old Saudi student being detained as a “person of interest.” Person of interest in a nice police term that is used for someone who is not under arrest and therefore does not have to be read his Miranda rights and who hopefully will not lawyer up.Case closed, right?
For the record, this was posted at 7:08 this morning. As of the 9:40 press conference, there was nobody in custody. That "Saudi national" you keep hearing about, and whose rights Philips is so eager to set aside, appears to just be some student who got tackled by a patriotic bystander when he did what everybody else was doing, which was to run away from the explosion. (That's per John Miller, the John L. Allen Jr. of crime reporting).
Gawker has a guide to even more of this paranoid twittery.
But the one who really frustrates us here is in another (and higher) class altogether: Terry Mattingly, at GetReligion. In a rambling and self-referential post, Mattingly "waits for the religion shoe to drop in Boston," and gives fellow reporters instructions on how to handle the seemingly-inevitable. He reminds them to help readers understand the different forms of Islam, and makes suitable comparisons to Christian terrorists such as Anders Beivik and Paul Hill. All wise and appropriate.
And yet we are left, as so often in Terry's posts, with a nagging suspicion. Why jump in with this piece now -- unless you are assuming that there will be a religion angle to the story as it develops? Why drop the word "Islam" five times and "Muslim" three, if you are not trying to play up a little to the inevitable speculation about just what that religious angle may prove to be? To hint, just a tiny bit, at what you think happened?
The problem is that times like this call restraint, for caution, and for patience.
Maybe we're being unfair. But we wish that he had held back a little, and either refrained from publishing anything at all or simply written a short paragraph, reminding the pros that, if there does turn out to be a religious angle here, they have a duty to their readers to be as clear and specific about the details as they can be. Which he did say, of course.
Or, as John L. Allen, Jr. said in the post below, "Getting the story right means you have to respect the complexity of reality."
Now For A Real Journalist
We have been reading a lot, lately, by John L. Allen, Jr. of the National Catholic Reporter. He is easily the most respected journalist covering the Vatican. In an interview with Nicholas Hahn at Real Clear Religion, Allen talks about what to expect from the Bergoglio papacy, and -- more interesting still -- about his work as a journalist. Here are some highlights.
ON REFORM, BOTH CURIAL AND LITURGICAL::
ON REPORTING:
ON REFORM, BOTH CURIAL AND LITURGICAL::
I think this was clearly, and self-consciously, the most anti-establishment conclave of the last 150 years. I think you'd probably have to go back to the election of Leo XIII in 1878 to find a conclave where the Cardinals understood themselves so clearly to be voting for a change. In this case it wasn't a rejection of the substance of Benedict XVI's papacy, but it was a rejection of the methods of management and governance. ...
RCR: There has been some concern from conservatives that this Pope won't be friendly to their issues. Are those concerns valid?
JA: I wouldn't worry about him rejecting them. I would worry that it's not what he's going to be thinking about when he gets out of bed in the morning. I mean, I don't see him abrogating Summorum Pontificum. However, I don't think you're going to get what you got under Benedict XVI who self-consciously tried to set an example of a more reverent and sober liturgical style. To the extent that the reform of the reform in the liturgical life of the Church goes on, it's probably going to be led less from Rome. I don't think the Pope is going to get in the way of it, but I don't think he's going to be the agent of it in the same way Benedict XVI was.
ON REPORTING:
RCR: Newsweek's Ken Woodward once wrote that outside of North Korea, "no bureaucracy is harder for a journalist to crack than the Vatican's." Do you agree with him?
JA: I'm not 100 percent sure that's true. The problem with the Vatican isn't so much secrecy, because this isn't like the Pentagon where they have troop movements they're trying to conceal. There aren't really state secrets in that sense. There aren't spy satellites orbiting.
RCR: No drones either?
JA: [Laughter] No. The problem with the Vatican is that it's unique. It is unlike any other institution so you have to learn how to crack the codes. Now, it's not rocket science, but you have to spend enough time doing it that you learn to speak the languages.
(That "cracking the code" and "learning the languages" is true for any sort of journalism -- and also, incidentally, for rpaish ministry).
Hahn observes that Allen does not necessarily support the positions taken by the NCR's editors, who sometimes dissent from church teaching. Allen responds:
JA: I'm a reporter and an analyst, so I'm trying to give people tools to think about issues in the Church. I'm not trying to tell them what to think about these issues.
RCR: Your kind of objectivity has been described as "maddening." Does it ever drive you mad?
JA: I take it as a compliment, if it's true. I have never in my life set out in an effort to write an objective story. I'm just trying to get the story right. That's it. Getting the story right means you have to respect the complexity of reality. There's always more than one view of what's going on in the Church or anything else.
You try to assemble the facts as best you can, then you try talk to a bunch of different people representing different points of view about those facts, and then you try to lay it all out there in a way that's engaging to people who don't have a Ph.D in ecclesiology. More than that, I'm very nervous of any journalist who has a loftier notion of what our calling is. Any journalist who goes into a story with an idea of who the good guys and bad guys are makes me nervous.
The aim should always be getting the story right and objectivity is a byproduct.
There's more where that came from, and it's fascinating.
Monday, April 15, 2013
"I Truly Despise the Episcopal Church"
Here is television host and noted bow-tie wearer Tucker Carlson, describing his faith in an interview with Marvin Olasky:
Well, at least he's honest.
We still go to the Episcopal Church for all kinds of complicated reasons, but I truly despise the Episcopal Church in a lot of ways. They’re for gay marriage because it’s trendy. It’s another way to express how hip they are. They don’t care at all what God thinks of it, because they actually don’t believe in God. And then the fact that they sanction abortion. Are you joking? A church is for abortion? What?
Q: You said you and your family go to an Episcopal church for all kinds of complicated reasons. Could you un-complicate that for us?
A: Part of it’s inertia. Part is we really like the people. Part is that’s the world I grew up in. I love the liturgy. I can recite it without looking at it. Dumb stuff like that. Am I going to defend that? No. It’s totally indefensible. I’m a shallow guy! That’s why I still go to the Episcopal Church. But I like it! I just don’t want to think too hard about my money going to these pompous, blowhard, pagan creeps who run the church!
Well, at least he's honest.
Miserere
Please pray for the people hurt by the explosions -- now said to be bombs -- at the Boston Marathon. You have probably prayed for them already; please don't stop.
George W. Bush Can Read
He mentions this surprising fact in an interview with the Dallas Morning News, which has been picked up by Politico.
In addition to being surprised that he can read, Mr Bush says, many people are surprised that he has some talent as a painter, which he describes with a little self-deprecating humor. He makes it sound like a kind of sissy-sounding hobby that he took up in retirement only because Winston Churchill said it was okay. (That said, we really do like his paintings of his dog).
In other news, recent polls suggest that his administration is still better-loved than Nixon's. However, its popularity appears to be dropping retroactively. James Buchanan had better look to his laurels.
In addition to being surprised that he can read, Mr Bush says, many people are surprised that he has some talent as a painter, which he describes with a little self-deprecating humor. He makes it sound like a kind of sissy-sounding hobby that he took up in retirement only because Winston Churchill said it was okay. (That said, we really do like his paintings of his dog).
In other news, recent polls suggest that his administration is still better-loved than Nixon's. However, its popularity appears to be dropping retroactively. James Buchanan had better look to his laurels.
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