lindbeck after wittgenstein?

eric lee has posted a very thoughtful engagement around george lindbeck's use of wittgenstein. Hopefully we will be able to discuss the political repercussions.

Health is not Profitable.

While being a very sad indicator of the current state of our health system, the below article by the NY Times reveals the symptom (the hidden truth) of our economy. What is best for the individual, environmental, social, and political health of our community is not what is best for the economy. The common good, which requires forethought and planning, is not nearly as profitable as crisis and carelessness.

What’s a Pound of Prevention Really Worth?
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Preventive medicine just doesn’t pay in the current American medical system.

Lectio divina vs. gramatico historica: the scripture parallax

A similar thing happened to me in seminary. It made me stop reading my bible. When I’m in a worship service, I only listen to scripture. I never read it in my own Bible. Now it has happened again to my wife.

She has been reading scripture as a catalyst for prayer and devotion, moving between word and prayer, the Book and her Life. But recently she became a ministerial study program that is teaching her the RIGHT way to read scripture: hermeneutics, exegesis, historical method, etc. We were talking yesterday and she told me that once she started LEARNING how to read the Bible that it no longer functioned as a base for prayer, but instead has died in her hand. The Spirit had left the Word. That is exactly what she said!

Why is it that when someone learns the historical-grammatical method that the Bible becomes less a means of devotion and more a task to be mastered?

There is a subtle lure about learning how to properly read the Bible. It is the ever-present shift from communing with God to learning about God; from listening/talking with God to overhearing someone else’s conversation; from conversation to monologue.

This is the parallax of Scripture: at one moment it is the means of communion with God, listening to the Spirit’s whispers, integrating life and text, present and past (and future); while in another moment it is document to researched and argued over, to be investigated and analyzed. The same object can lead us on the paths of God, even while it functions only as a map; in it sings the songs of salvation even while it only notes the score; it overflows with the Spirit even as it dries up as a dead Letter.

The paradox of Scripture: Divine Prayer is always in need of guidance; Exegesis is always in need of Life. The danger is there, but it can’t be resolved. Prayer and Theology must walk with one another.

Stats to Go Along with the State of the Union

Courtesy of our friends (via an email I received) at the Campaign for America's future here are few facts and figures to put the President's speech in context:

ON INCOMES:

--Median household income in 2000: $47,599
--Median household income in 2005: $46,326
(US Census Bureau, Table H-8. Median Household Income by State: 1984 to 2005)

--Salary of a full-time minimum wage employee without vacation: $10,712
--Average time for top CEOs to earn that sum: 2.06 hours
(Forbes Magazine. "What the Boss Makes." April 20, 2006)

--Federal minimum wage in 2000: $5.15/hr
--Federal minimum wage in 2006: $5.15/hr
--Loss in purchasing power, full time worker annually: $1,562

ON ENERGY PRICES:

--Average price of home heating oil on Jan. 3, 2000: $1.15 per gallon
--Average price of home heating oil on Jan. 1, 2007: $2.42 per gallon
(U.S. Energy Information Admin. Jan. 4, 2007)

--Average price of gasoline on Jan. 3, 2000: $1.31 per gallon
--Average price of gasoline on Jan. 1, 2007: $2.38 per gallon
(U.S. Energy Information Admin. Jan. 5, 2007)

--Exxon Mobil profits in 2000: $7.9 billion
--Exxon Mobil profits in 2006: $36.1 billion
(CNNMoney.com, accessed Jan. 19, 2007)

ON CLIMATE CHANGE:

--Year Bush said Kyoto Protocol emission targets were “not based upon science”: 2000
--Decrease in NASA budget for Earth observation since 2000: 30 percent
--Year with highest average U.S. temperature ever recorded: 2006
(The White House, June 11, 2001; New York Times, Jan. 21, 2006; National Climate Data Center. U.S. Dept. of Commerce. Jan. 9, 2007)

ON EDUCATION:

--Average cost of a year at a public four-year college in 2000: $9,958
--Average cost of a year at a public four-year college in 2006: $12,796
(Costs include tuition, fees, room & board. MSN Money 2000/Associated Press. Jan. 14, 2005. College Board. Trends in College Pricing 2007)

ON RETIREMENT SECURITY:

--Workers without retirement plans at work in the private sector 2006: 80 percent
--Baby boom Americans approaching retirement: 76 million
(Bureau of Labor Statistics, March 2006; The Seattle Times. Jan. 22, 2005)

ON HEALTH CARE COSTS:

--Americans without health insurance, 2000: 38.2 million
--Americans without health insurance, 2005: 46.6 million
(US Census Bureau, Sept. 2001; US Census Bureau, Aug. 2006)

--Average monthly worker contribution for family coverage in 2000: $135
--Average monthly worker contribution for family coverage in 2006: $248
--Personal bankruptcies due to medical bills: 55 percent
(The Kaiser Family Foundation, Sept. 26, 2006; Health Affairs Health Policy Journal, Feb. 2, 2005)

ON THE IRAQ WAR:

--Number of US troops killed in Iraq prior to “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003: 139
--Number of US troops killed in Iraq as of Jan. 22, 2007: 3,056
--Number of Iraqi civilians killed in 2006, according to the United Nations: 34,452
(iCasualties.org, Jan. 22, 2007; U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, Jan. 16, 2006)

--Number of US troops wounded in Iraq prior to “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003: 542
--Number of US troops wounded in Iraq as of January 10, 2007: 22,834
(iCasualties.org. Jan. 10, 2007)

--Total US military expenditures (including in Iraq and Afghanistan) in 2006: $522 billion
--Total military expenditures of the 10 next top spenders combined: $386 billion
(Includes China, Russia, the UK, Japan, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Italy, and Australia. Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Feb. 16, 2006.)

--U.S. Federal Discretionary Budget spent on Military not including Iraq, in 2006: 48.7 percent
--Amount spent on Education: 6.7 percent
(White House Office of Management and Budget, Feb. 6, 2006) ON DEBTS AND DEFICITS:

--Monthly U.S. Trade Deficit in October 2000: $33.8 billion
--Monthly U.S. Trade Deficit in October 2006: $58.9 billion
(U.S. Census Bureau Foreign Trade Statistics. Jan. 10, 2007)

--U.S. Current Account Deficit, FY 2000: $435.4 billion
--U.S. Current Account Deficit, FY 2006: $900 billion
(Economic Policy Institute. March 14, 2001; Economic Policy Institute. March 14, 2006)

--Loss of value of U.S. dollar relative to the Euro, Jan. 24, 2000 to Jan. 23, 2006: 23 percent
(X-rate.com, accessed Jan. 23, 2006)

--US Budget Deficit in FY 2000: $230 billion surplus
--US Budget Deficit in FY 2006: $423 billion deficit
(White House Office of Management and Budget. Budget of the United States Government, Historical Tables, Fiscal Year 2007; White House Office of Management and Budget. Table S-1. 2006 budget totals)

--US National Debt in FY 2000: $5.7 trillion
--US National Debt in FY 2006: $8.5 trillion
(Bureau of the Public Debt, Jan. 16, 2007)

Welcoming Christ in the Migrant

"I Was A Stranger And You Welcomed Me." (Matt 25:35)

A very thoughtful (thought provoking) YouTube film. I've never posted a YouTube before but i thought this was worth it. Thanks to Catholic Joy for the heads up.

I got a new computer...

...well actually it is an old computer, but it is new to me. I can't tell you how excited I am. I've now officially made the switch to MAC. Not by choice. My old laptop's screen went out and there was an old mac for church use that wasn't being used. One of our congregants (thanks Steve Wilson) works at a MACstore and updated everything.

so i'm not sure if now I'm going to be super productive b/c of all the cool features, or if i'm just going to fool around and waste all my time. we'll see.

more substantial post will be coming shortly...

Incarnational vs Incorporational.

In the wake of Christmas time and Advent, when God becomes a human in Jesus Christ, I want to consider how the ‘person’ of Christ is different than the ‘person’ of Corporations? There has been adequate critique of the Church organizing like a business corporation, but what about the Church living in, but not of, multinational corporations?

I submit that unless the emerging/missional/organic church of progressive evangelicals moves beyond a critique of corporate influences on ecclesial life and a superficial critique of consumerism (as in “Do buy things you do need!”), to a robust practice of investing in local cooperatives, then we will fail in our attempts to be Incarnational, and remain in the grips of the Incorporational.

Wendell Berry makes the interesting observation that “the folly at the root of this foolish economy began with the idea that a corporation should be regarded, legally, as “a person.” This point is often overlooked in critiques of Capitalism. Usually people make a big deal about the exploitation of workers by those who own the means of production, or there is talk about the ‘fetishism’ of money, how we go around chancing more and more of it, even though it really isn’t anything. But the fiction that a corporation is legally a ‘person’, with rights, aims, and purposes, really begins the step beyond outright oppression and exploitation (say in agragian and feudal societies), to the more insidiou, once removed, form of exploitation otherwise known as the ‘free market.’

Berry goes on: “A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance...It goes about its business as if it were immortal, with the single purpose of becoming a bigger pile of money.”

‘Incorporation’ literally means ‘to make into one body’ which is to gather many different human persons into one giant uberperson (whose goal is to make more money). This uberperson remains even if its founders all die off. The modern corporation is immortal, living beyond all it mortal creators (although of course it can be killed by an economic wound).

But this immortality is precisely the problem. Corporations don’t fear natural deaths, they have no being-towards-death. Berry continues: “The limitless destructiveness of this economy comes about precisely because corporations are not a person. As such, unlike a person, a corporation does not age. It does not arrive, as most persons finally do, at a realization of the shortness and smallness of human lives; it does not come to see the future as the lifetimes of children and grandchildren of anybody in particular. It can experience no personal hope or remorse, or change of heart. It cannot humble itself.”

And this is exactly where we see the antithesis in Christ, “Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Phil 2:6-8). In the Incarnation we see God become man, so that he could die, even a death reserved for the most lowly. A corporation could never sacrifice itself. Its whole purpose is to return back more money to its investors. Anything else is a failure. This ultimately is where the agency of the Corporation exceeds the agency of its individual investors, managers, and executives. Anyone who in their old age finds a humane conscience is asked to leave, to start a charitable foundation, or carry on their philanthropic work somewhere else on their own time.

But those who gathered together in the Incarnation do not try to escape death, but know they must die for the sake of the world. Those gathered together in a Corporation attempt to escape death, storing up riches on earth and kingdoms to rule.

Now of course I’m not advocating that we all quit our corporate jobs and do something else (although that would be good), but rather that we, as much as possible, support alternative ways of grouping people together, which are otherwise known as cooperatives or co-ops. Cooperatives support an alternative to the ‘free market’ by allowing producers and consumer to share the risks and opportunities of generating products. One way it works is like this. My family becomes a ‘member’ of my local CSA, Angle Organics, at the beginning of the year. This guarantees delivers of 20 boxes of organic vegetable (from June to October). The benefit to me is that I get a bunch of great food, grown in a manner that I know is responsible to the Earth (God’s Creation) and fair to its employees (made in God’s image). The benefit to the farm is they get, in advance, the cash necessary to produce the crops of the next year. In this way I assume the risk of a bad crop along with the farm. If the crop is bad, my boxes will not be full. If it is good, they will overflow. This keeps my money, and the farmer's money, from getting tangled up in the financial institutions of multination corporations. Everything stays local; and money is not thrown into a pile of ever increasing money. Along the same lines, there are clothing and food cooperatives, housing and energy, and even healthcare cooperatives, whose goal is not to sells their moral allegiance to a pile of cash, but instead to share in the benefits and dangers of securing the things they need.

So again, I submit that the emerging/missional/organic church of progressive evangelicals mmust move beyond a critique of corporate influences on ecclesial life, to a robust practice of stepping outside of the circulation of money between multinational corporations and instead begin investing in local cooperatives. Only then we will succeed in escaping the grip of the Corporation.

Best Contemporary Theology Meme

Cynthia Neilsen tagged me to compile a list of what I believe to be the most important and substantial theological works published in the last 25 years (1981-2006). The originator of the meme desires that the focus of our selection be theology (not biblical exegesis, historical studies etc., unless these are of special theological interest!).

John D. Zizioulas: Being as Communion
George A. Lindbeck: The Nature of Doctrine
John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory

Pretty much to above three have formed me significantly. But the one that has really pulled things together for is...

Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence.

This book brings together the critique of ontotheology, linquistics, ritual studies, Moltmann, Girard, Trinitarian Theology, and many others. It is outstanding.

Lacan and the Political

I just received Lacan and the Political. I am very excited, and it better be worth it b/c $35 is alot to spend on such a small book. Arrrgh that Routledge!

But I can't get to it yet. Must practise self-control and actual finish digesting Transcritique before gorging myself on another book.

Agrarian Economics and Transcritique

I just finish a great book, and now I'm reading one that is blowing my mind.

The book that I recently finished is Kojin Karatani's Transcritique: on Kant and Marx. There is just too much to go into here. In fact I will probably spend much of the next month posting about it. His understand of the interrelation between the trinity of Capital, Nation, and State true open up helpful ways of understand globalization and individual states, as well as possible resistance to exploitative capitalism. Very philosophical. A tough read.

The one I'm currently reading is Wendell Berry's Art of the Common Place: The Agrarian Essays. It is honestly the most refreshing commentary on American life I have ever read. It is very accessible, written in a journalistic style rather than a academic one. He just pulls all these threads together. If you are at all concerned about ecological issues, the local economy, body and the earth, or if you read (or want to read Crunchy Cons, which is quite good also).

Thankfully, most of Berry's essays you can find online (I love the internet). Here are some that I found and that I strongly recommend:

The Idea of a Local Economy (written a couple of years ago... great critique of our economy)
Feminism, the Body, and the Machine (a response to a hostile reaction created by his essay in Harpers, the response is better than the initial essay)
The Body and The Earth (p. 29 of the pdf...long but interesting.
Health is Membership

off the grid: no sweatshop clothing

So it's just after Christmas time and we have all spent too much money on things we probably didn't need. I of course bought some books (which are a necessity) and a book stand.

My prized purchase is something I want to share with you. Perhaps you have hear of Blackspot sneakers adbusters (an information age social activists movement). Well I heard about it a while ago, but I didn't need new sneakers. And my momma said, "if you don't need it before you saw it, then you don't need it."

But this year I was in the market for new sneakers and I thought, "hey what about those adbuster shoes?" But then I found out they are 60 bucks and I thought, "no way!! that's like more than half my book money." But I continued to shop around and I found No Sweat Apperal (as in 'no sweatshop') with these sweet shoes. I just got them in the mail and they are great. Very comfortable.

Also, for other off the exploitation grip see:
the working world
new american dream
justice clothing

Advent Explorations over at C&P

I've recently been posting some thoughts on Advent and Political Theory over at C&P (churchandpomo.org)...

Emancipation and Advent: The Future of Freedom
Revolution and Advent: Christ Transforming Culture

...chech them out.

Personal Statement for Ph.D apps

Over the last couple of weeks I've been forced to write a 'personal statement' for Ph.D applications. Now while this might seem a bit pretentious, I thought I would post it because it really is the best statement of where I am at and what I intend to continue thinking about, whether or not it is in relation to an advanced degree.

So here is most of the statement that I'm submitting with my application. Let me know what you think and what questions you have. But don't steal my project!!

-----

How might we return the Book of Common Prayer to ministers as a revolutionary manual, rather than merely as a guide to personal prayer or corporate worship? Within the ................................ concentration of the ........................ program, I plan to answer this question by researching the intersection of Liturgy and Politics, with the hopes of reclaiming the subversive power of Christian liturgy for the Western Church after Christendom.

My interest in corporate worship has transitioned from an understanding of personal piety, to corporate spiritual formation, to the advent of an alternative community. These transitions roughly fit the trajectory of my intellectual and theological development. Beginning from my undergraduate studies in philosophy, and being influenced by Reformed Theology, I primarily understood corporate worship as a form of personal piety. During my preparation for pastoral ministry in graduate school, being influenced by post-liberal theology, I then shifted to an understanding of worship as corporate spiritual formation, or the place of forming a distinctive Christian identity. Finally, throughout my pastoral ministry, and in relation to the movement known as Radical Orthodoxy, I began to conceive of corporate worship as the definitive space for creating an alternative political community. During my three years as an associate pastor I have increasingly noted the importance, and yet difficulty, of forming an alternative community in the midst of American consumerism and individualism, as well as the capitulation of the Religious Right to conservative politics. All of this has led to my interest in the relation between liturgy and politics, culminating in a desire for sustained research in both sacramental and liturgical theology, as well as political philosophy focusing on the emergence of American Pragmatist political theory, exemplified by Jeffrey Stout, and post-Marxist appropriations of Christianity, represented by Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou. In relation to the above, as well as my vocational commitment to developing future church leaders, both pastorally in the church and academically as a seminary professor, I am seeking an advanced degree at .............................

My specific research proposes to investigate the intersection between Liturgy and Politics. Beyond merely stating that there is a connection between liturgy and politics, this research will show how liturgy constitutes the Church as the political Body of Christ, and how this Body interacts with the political, social, and economic bodies found in our global situation. The liturgical side of this project will examine the “subject” as it is produced through sacramental practices. It will draw particularly on the resources of Jacques Lacan, whose articulation of Freudian psychoanalysis can be understood as an anti-sacramental philosophy (mirroring an authentic sacramental theology), and for that reason offering insights into the inter-subjective, corporeal, and symbolic nature of liturgical practices. Building from this, the possibilities of a political subjectivity will be explored as a primary site of resistance to the current abuses of globalization. This research will suggest the liturgical resources of the worshipping Church as the culmination of recent political projects seeking to reintroducing the themes of Kantian ‘cosmopolitanism’ and Hegelian ‘recognition.’

This research will build from my past education and current activities. In addition to receiving a B.A. in Philosophy concentrating on Heidegger and Wittgenstein, and a Masters of Divinity, I am working with James K. A. Smith on a project relating postmodern philosophy to church practice in the works of John Caputo, Merold Westphal, Bruce Bensen, Graham Ward, and Karl Raschke. I am also organizing a conference concerning Political Theology at Northern Seminary. I have written an essay on Augustine’s Eucharistic theology in relation to the political philosophy of Antonio Negri under the supervision of Bruce Fields, and a paper integrating the New Perspective on Paul with post-Marxian revolutionary politics. In addition to this, I have developed a personal reading program covering the post-Marxist appropriation of Christianity in Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizkei, the Italian political philosophers Giorgio Agamben and Antonio Negri, and American Pragmatists such at Jeffery Stout, Hilary Putnam, and Robert Brandom, as well as the liturgical theologies of Gordon Laythrop (Lutheran) and Lious-Marie Chauvet (Catholic). Through all of this I have prepared myself to extensively research both political and liturgical theology.

Academically, this research will contribute a Lacanian reading to sacramental theology which will both enrich sacramental theology as well as an understanding of Lacan as an (anti)sacramental philosopher. In addition, this research will add to the nascent appropriation of Slavoj Zizek and Alain Badiou as resources for political theology. Practically, it will help ministers see how the planning and execution of corporate worship does not merely prepare or inform our political awareness (although it certainly should), but is itself a political act, producing a specifically Christian political subjectivity through the liturgical elements of public worship.

It is my conviction that within the secular processes, economic and political, of globalization and it fundamentalist (religious and/or ethnic) backlash, the Church must affirm again the politically constitutive nature of its public worship. Only when ministers see how the planning and execution of corporate worship does not merely prepare or inform our political awareness, but is itself a political act, producing a specifically Christian political subjectivity, will it again be able to witness to and embody the peace and reconciliation of the Gospel in Christ.

The GRE is finished!!!!

Where have I been?

I've been locked in mortal combat with an evil companion know as the GRE. The ferious encounter is over, and now I am nursing my wounds.

Someday so I will raise up again, stricking the keyboard with brilliant posts.

Rich Whitney for Govenor

This is the first time in my life where I have been following an election season, and might even vote. Actually I was going to not vote even thought I was voting b/c I'm voting for the Green Party here in Illinios (esp. Rich Whitney for Govenor).

But now it seems that Whitney is gaining support and that my vote might be much more of a statement in the elections b/c now he has 16% (click on Gubernetorial Races and hit IL) of possible votes in the election, which is very surprising. I was hoping to be irrelevant.

I'm voting for the Green Party because I'm convinced that if Christians really are meant to engage in national politics, then the most important contribution would be to form a viable Third Part (either with a platform or coalition of independent candidates).

now of course the Green Party is not inline with my view of sexual ethics, but their economic policy (esp. education) is up my alley. Some say that the Green Party is what the Republican used to stand for before neo-conservatives took over along with Big Business. Most of Green Party's 10 Values I can get behind, which is more than I think of either repubicans or democrats. And I think that if jim wallis really followed his reasoning, he would not be pro-Democrat, but would be Green or independent.

Toward World Republic: Beyond Capital-Nation-State

Today I'm going to see Kojin Karatani at the university of chicago. he's an anarchist, or an 'associationist' these days, talking about "Toward World Republic: Beyond Capital-Nation-State". I've been meaning to buy his Transcritique: On Kant and Marx for quite awhile, so maybe now I will.

Zizek, in Parallax View, draws heavily from Karatani, and I'm interested in reading a Japanese Marxist who is offering a theoretic project comprible to Negri's Multitude. Basically I'm drawn to this stuff as one who is interested in alternative to global capitalism as well as how the Church might be part of this alternative.

Meat Labels Hope to Lure the Sensitive Carnivore

This is a very interesting and hopeful article from the NYTimes: Meat Labels Hope to Lure the Sensitive Carnivore .

It talks about the trend toward labelling products "organic," "free-range," "animal compassionate," and "certified humane" in order to attract the more conscientious consumer.

The article notes two different consumers toward whom these labels might be appealing: 1) either the animal lovers who are worried about the treatment of chickens, cows, pigs, etc, and 2) those with a fine taste for food (free range chicken tastes better than factory farm chicken who never run around or see day light).

Now my wife and I are not well off, spending large amouts of money on organic food because it tastes so much better, nor are we out of control animal lovers (we both each meat whenever we can afford it). But we do spend extra amount on organic foods because not beause of taste, or activism, but because of Health.

Not only are organic, free range foods humane and tasty, but they are much more health for you: they don't have growth hormones, pesticides, pumped into them, and the meat has been feed what God intended for them to eat rather than artifical sources of nutrients. The factory farms are produce much lower quality foods which is contributing to Americas much lower health, and much higher cancer rate.

So I think it is interesting that the NYTimes would ignore this Health angle to the story, when for many it is their over-riding conviction on the matter, more than animal activism or food snobbery.

"If the Lord is Risen, why can't we see Him?"

I just posted an engagement with Pete Rollin's How (Not) to Speak of God.

After an appreciative summary of Pete's argument in Part One of How (Not) to Speak of God, I offer an immanent critique (a critique internal to his presuppositions) of his project. After this I outline what I see as a continuation of his project be other means, via sacramental theology, attempting to answer the question implicit in the story of the Road to Emmaus, “If the Lord is Risen, why can’t we see Him?”

Please check it out and join the discussion here.

"You look like Lenin," I was told

So, about 2 minutes ago, I'm sitting in Panera, about to work on a little essay I'm writing for churchandpomo.org. A man approaches me and asks me if I can help him with his computer. It keeps freezing on me. After trying for a bit to help him (which I can't because all I know how to do on computers is create Word documents and surf the web), I give up.

"You know way I asked you to help?" said the older gentleman. "Because I'm young and you figured young people know all about computers," I replied with a smile. "No! Because you reminded me a Lenin. You know I'm from Russia. You know who Lenin is, Yes? Do you know history? You look like Lenin when he was a student, your chin. He was a genius!" And with that he let me go.

Should I ponder the deeper significance of this? Or chalk it up to chance?

Where Have I Been?

Yikes! it has been an entire month and I haven't posted anything.

Well, I've studying for the GRE which is stressing me out. and our church, life on the vine, has been entering into a process of finding another pastor (actually two pastors), so while this is great for our church, it has taken a bunch of time and thought, which means less time for posting.

and lastly, i've been hanging out at churchandpomo.org. we're engaging pete rollin's book, how (not) to speak of god. it has so far been a very creative and stimulating conversation.