God as silence

05.10.04 | Permalink | Comments Off

God is silence, and the silence is deafening.

Hope, uncertain and unnamed

Curtiss at Hector Rottweiler is signing off. Curtiss was one of the first bloggers I met when I started, and his blog encouraged me that this might be a worthwhile medium after all. Curtiss, I salue you, and I look forward to your next incarnation.

In his last post, Curtiss quotes Mike at Vitia to explain his departure:

Under empire, rhetoric cannot look to the future, and can exist in the present only as hypothesis and speculation. Its most significant role is in rewriting the past to suit the whims of power — but in this, it need convince no one, because of the very fact of power. It is nothing but an ornament, a diversion, a way for personal pride to pass the time. (emphasis mine)

The early Christians found a new rhetoric, and those of us who are not Christians should not underestimate its power. (Or, rather, what its power was). In place of “Caesar is Lord” they lifted up cries of “Jesus is Lord.” They found a radical cry from a new site of power: a backwater prophet killed by the arm of Caesar. They found power not under the Empire but in the shared life (koinonia) of the ekklesia, the assembly of followers of the Anointed One.

It was not long (three centuries?) before Caesar discovered the counter to this threatening rhetoric: adopt it as his own. But it was more than a counter: now Caesar could claim he ruled not simply for Empire but for the purposes of the Nazarene. The ekklesia, founded in opposition to the logic of Empire, would now enjoy the favors of Caesar.

I have not found in Christianity any but the most isolated examples of koinonia since Caesar took up the ekklesia’s rhetoric. Mere hints, really. Or projects doomed from the outset by an ambitious utopianism that was not the Nazarene’s own. Caesar will always topple alternative Empires (if they do not topple him and become Caesars themselves). What Caesar cannot topple is unEmpire, nonEmpire. His tools don’t cut that way.

Prove me wrong

05.04.04 | Permalink | 2 Comments

A) Anyone (who is middle-class or richer) who works more than 40 hours a week is performing, not a job, but a spiritual discipline.

If not A, then B) anyone (who is not middle-class or richer) who works more tha 60 hours a week is performing, not a job, but a spiritual discipline.

But is it worth it?

Take that, comma nazis!

05.04.04 | Permalink | Comments Off

I highly recommend this beautiful piece by Dave Pollard on common sense punctuation. I dare the comma nazis to prove him wrong

Coffee Hour: Hitting the jackpot

05.03.04 | Permalink | 3 Comments

My wife and I play this game all the time: what if we won the lottery? But supposing I gave a chunk or two of change to UUism, what would I give it for?

2 chunks of change: A huge campus ministry fund. 10 campus ministers at elite private universities. 15 at state universities. 20 at community colleges. Schools would need to have a fighting chance of having a viable campus group after, say, three years of work.

1 chunk of change: An RE building for UUCA. As Woodie Guthrie said, “There’s childrens everywhere.”

1 chunk of change: A study of “permanent options in alternative worship.” I’ll just say it: I hate the typical congregational/frontier worship format. It’s all sermon and no community. But alternative worship services can be a bit touchy feely for me. My ideal worship service is one that has enough ritual to it to run itself sans sermon. I don’t want to think about the worship service or feel like it needs my help; I’d rather just experience it and play an (expected) part. Nothing more than a long homily (say, 15 minutes) will be allowed. The rhythms of ritual and liturgy must be central.

3 chunks of change: A fund to teach lay leadership to explain (a) what UUism is and (b) why it’s better than Brand X. Workshops would be intensive and interactive. Laity would be “forced” to ask themselves individually and corporately what UUism stands for and why that matters. They would then be “forced” to envision a plan to put it into practice, again, individually and corporately.