Great and Holy Friday

Then shall I not be put to shame,
as I give heed unto all thy commandments.
The Master of all creation is here seen lying dead,
and in a new tomb he is laid,
who hath emptied the tombs of their dead.

The way of thine ordinances make me to understand,
and I shall meditate on thy wondrous works.
As a mortal man thou diest willingly, O Saviour,
but as God thou didst raise up the dead
from their tombs and from the abyss of their sins.

(Psalm 118/119, verses 6 and 27, with the accompanying troparia from the first stasis of the Lamentations, from Orthros of Holy Saturday.)

Lyrics for a World in Turmoil

In recent weeks, with Iran, Syria, and Afghanistan dominating the news, this song by Warren Zevon has been running through my head a lot. The title song of his 1982 album, The Envoy, it is his tribute to U.S. diplomat Philip Habib, who served as President Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East during the Lebanese Civil War. Reagan later sent Habib to the Philippines and Central America on missions of peace. You can here Zevon perform the song live here.


The Envoy

Nuclear arms in the Middle East
Israel's attacking the Iraqis
The Syrians are mad at the Lebanese
And Baghdad does whatever she please
Looks like another threat to world peace
For the envoy

Things got hot in El Salvador
CIA got caught and couldn't do no more
He's got diplomatic immunity
He's got a lethal weapon that nobody sees
Looks like another threat to world peace
For the envoy

Send the envoy
Send the envoy

Whenever there's a crisis
The President sends his envoy in
Guns in Damascus
Oh, Jerusalem

Nuclear arms in the Middle East
Israel's attacking the Iraqis
The Syrians are mad at the Lebanese
And Baghdad do whatever she please
Looks like another threat to world peace
For the envoy
Send the envoy
Send the envoy
Send for me
Send for me
Send for me

Christian Missions: Cultural Imperialism?

Back in December, one of my frequent e-mail correspondents sent me a link to a post on the Via Meadia blog, “The Missionaries Win: Christianity Becomes Global Religious Superpower”, in which Walter Russell Mead comments on a report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which looks at the growth of the world’s Christian population over the past century. I forwarded the link to a few friends with a special interest in Christian missions, including Brad, a missionary with Wycliffe Bible Translators. A lively discussion was sparked by one reader, Micha, who posted a comment equating proselytism with cultural imperialism. I liked Brad’s response so much that I asked if I could re-post it here.


Micha: I’d like to make a couple of points in reply to your post:

1. You seem to hold the view, like a lot of people, that no one “religion” is better than another, but they are just a personal choice, influenced largely by culture. Under that view it is “rude” to try to get someone to change their religion. It’s like fans of one sports team trying to get fans of other teams to switch to their team. That can be okay if done politely, but it can also get bothersome, sometimes even rude or violent. But most people, even avid sports fans, would agree that it ultimately just doesn’t matter. Cardinals fans are not going to convert Cubs fans, Yankees fans are not going to convert Red Sox fans, and it doesn’t really matter. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is how you view religion.

The reason you are not understanding posters coming from a Christian perspective is that we see religion differently. We see it as a statement or set of beliefs about reality, not just an opinion. So to us, there really is one right answer. The statement “Christians don’t believe that non-Christian religion has as much value to people as Christianity does.” is offensive to you in the same way that the statement “Being a Cubs fan does not have as much value as being a Cardinals fan” would be to a Cubs fan. The bottom line is that there is no underlying reality, it is just a matter of opinion.

But what if someone were to say “Cancer treatment X has more value than cancer treatment Y”? That would be a question of immense importance to cancer sufferers. This is the way Christians, Muslims, and other religious people see the question of religion. It is crucial to get it right. It’s okay to say “I’m right and you’re wrong.” We do it all the time about medicine (and lots of other subjects, of course). But if we do it about religion we are labeled “intolerant.”

2. At worst, your low opinion of missionary efforts has some basis in reality. You see it as “cultural imperialism.” Sadly, it has been that in some cases. But the vast majority of Christian mission organizations today (I can’t speak for Islam or others) are much more aware of cross-cultural issues than they were in the past. Specifically, they strive to separate the religious reality from its cultural baggage. This is known as the “contextualization of theology” and will make no sense to you if I have correctly described the way you view religion in pt 1 above (sports fan analogy). You will see religion as inseparable from culture. But for the Christian the two are separable. Of course, there is no simple formula for separating the theological “non-negotiables” from the cultural trappings. That’s why mission organizations today send not only evangelists (as well as doctors, teachers, etc), but also anthropologists, linguists, sociolinguists, ethnomusicologists, ethnographers, etc. We don’t always get it right, but we are trying to bring our message in a way that values the local culture. Our view is that all cultures, including our own, have aspects that are good and aspects that are bad. All cultures need to be examined in light of our religious beliefs. Again, this will make no sense if religion is just an opinion that doesn’t really matter. I think the global success of Christianity in the past 100 years, as noted by Mead’s article, is at least in part a result of this new wave of missionaries trying to get it right.

3. On cultural imperialism, you need to read Spirit of the Rainforest by Ritchie. It is a mind-blowing account told by the Yanomamo people of Brazil/Venezuala. This is the group that anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon wrote about. The traditional Yanomamo culture is heavily steeped in revenge killing, rape, and slavery, encouraged by the spirit world of their religious system. The book documents the coming of secular anthropologists as well as missionaries. The missionaries came to teach love and forgiveness, and also brought modern medical techniques, literacy, etc. The anthropologists just came to study the people. One village wanted a “white person” to come because they had heard of the good things that missionaries brought. But to their eventual disappointment, they got a (non-religious) athropologist. They took a sick child to this anthropologist, and he told them to treat the child their traditional way. He took notes. The child got worse. He took notes. The child died. He took notes.

Eventually, when a number of Yanomamo had become Christians, they founded a village. This village refused to participate in revenge killings. Other villages fought against them in one of their traditional ways – two by two with clubs. The Christian village was able to defend itself in this, well not “non-violent,” but at least “non-deadly” way. Eventually, due to good medical care and the absence of revenge killing, this villge grew strong enough that no other villages dared attack it. It became a place of refuge, healing and forgiveness for those seeking safety. Yet, the secular anthropologists were enraged by the “cultural imperialism” of Christians. They wanted people to hang on to their killings, rape, wife-beating and inadequate medical care so they could be studied. This is the point at which anthropology becomes imperialistic, wanting to keep people in a sort of “cultural zoo” so they can be studied.

Note that the cancer treatment analogy I made above is actually not totally metaphorical. It is a metaphor for how we see religion, but it also has literal examples in how some people have been denied life-saving treatment in the name of “cultural sensitivity.” What if a culture had a cure for cancer, but didn’t give it to us because the way we treat cancer was so fascinating that they wanted to study it? Would we thank them for their cultural sensitivity?

The other fascinating thing about this book is how the Yanomamo spiritual beliefs dovetailed with the teachings of Christianity. They discovered that the spirits they were following were evil and leading them into more and more suffering. Nothing conflicted with their traditional belief system, but they switched their allegiance to a different set of spirits, and ultimately the “greatest spirit” whom they formerly called the “enemy spirit.” I obviously can’t do the book justice here. You’ll just have to read it.

4. You may be wanting to say “Lots of conflicts would be avoided if only nobody held religion as a statement about reality.” That is undoubtedly true, but does not bear on the question. Religion is either a statement about reality or it isn’t. Either/Or. If something is true, we should not disbelieve it just because we don’t like the consequences of believing it. All religious people need to interact in love and respect with adherents of other religions.

I hope some of this resonates with you. I probably haven’t changed your mind, but I hope you can understand a bit better why we feel religion is worth spreading. Sorry for such a long post. Thanks for reading, and have a happy new year.

Welcome to Linthicum

Welcome to a new year: 2012. Here in Maryland this year we are commemorating the War of 1812, which took place 200 years ago. I will return to this topic shortly.

After I returned to Maryland at the end of July, it took six trips to the MVA to get my car registration and driver's license transferred to Maryland. And, for various reasons, it took me until well into October to get settled in my new apartment in the town of Linthicum (which some, including the U.S. Postal Service, insist on calling Linthicum Heights), just outside the Baltimore Beltway near Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

Apart from being just two blocks from church, the thing I like most about my new neighborhood is its walkability. I often walk to the library and the post office, and I sometimes go for walks on weekends when the weather is nice. I took my camera on a couple of my early walks, back when there were still fall leaves on the trees. My tour begins at the park featuring the new Veterans Memorial (above). The sign below gives a brief history of the town and the importance of the railroad to its development.

Just across the tracks from the sign is the old Linthicum railroad station.

Across the street from the station is the entrance to J. Charles Linthicum Memorial Park. The park is a trail that runs along the west side of railroad, which is now used for light rail. Not far into the park is a memorial to Mr. Linthicum.

It is interesting that the accomplishment chosen for emphasis was Rep. Linthicum's authorship of the bill to recognize "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem (which he first submitted in 1918), rather than his leadership of the effort to repeal prohibition or his reform of the foreign service. Because it was written just off the shore of Maryland during the British bombardment of nearby Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, Marylanders take a proprietary interest in our national anthem. (That explains the state's current license plate design, which you saw at the beginning of this post.) The top of the memorial is a relief plaque of the sheet music of the first verse of "The Star-Spangled Banner".

Continuing along the trail, I watch a two-car train zip past.

In the middle of the park is the Linthicum Light Rail Station.

I walk through the station, cross the tracks, and proceed towards downtown Linthicum. Here is the fire station, with the water tower looming behind it.

Across the street is the main shopping center. Not listed on the sign: the U.S. Post Office.

The hardware store and the water tower.

Returning to the light rail station.

Proceeding to the other side of the station and continuing for three blocks, I reach the Linthicum Branch of the Anne Arundel County Public Library. I have been borrowing a lot of recorded books to listen to while cooking and driving.

By the time I get back to the Veteran's Memorial, across the street from church, it is starting to get dark.

On the Futility of Councils

For my part, if I am to write the truth, my inclination is to avoid all assemblies of bishops, because I have never seen any council come to a good end, nor turn out to be a solution of evils. On the contrary, it usually increases them. You always find there love of contention and love of power (I hope you will not think me a bore, for writing like this), which beggar description; and, while sitting in judgement on others, a man might well be convicted of ill-doing himself long before he should put down the ill-doings of his opponents. So I retired into myself; and came to the conclusion that the only security for one's soul lies in keeping quiet. . . .

Gregory the Theologian (Epistle 130) to Procopius, excusing his absence from a council called by Theodosius I to meet in Constantinople in 382
Translated by B. J. Kidd, edited by J. Stevenson

Lyrics for Advent

We are now in the midst of a cluster of feasts honoring Christ's mother. Today we commemorated Mary's conception in the Byzantine churches. Most Catholics observed the same feast yesterday, and they will celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on Monday. This Sunday in the Byzantine Rite we commemorate the ancestors of Christ.

Earlier this week I heard the Lovemongers' cover of this song by Patty Griffin. You can hear a live recording of it by Patty with Natalie Maines here.


Mary

Mary you're covered in roses, you're covered in ashes
You're covered in rain
You're covered in babies, you're covered in slashes
You're covered in wilderness, you're covered in stains
You cast aside the sheet, you cast aside the shroud
Of another man, who served the world proud
You greet another son, you lose another one
On some sunny day and always stay, Mary

Jesus says Mother I couldn't stay another day longer
Flys right by me and leaves a kiss upon her face
While the angels are singin' his praises in a blaze of glory
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place

Mary she moves behind me
She leaves her fingerprints everywhere
Everytime the snow drifts, everytime the sand shifts
Even when the night lifts, she's always there

Jesus said Mother I couldn't stay another day longer
Flys right by me and leaves a kiss upon her face
While the angels are singin' his praises in a blaze of glory
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place

Mary you're covered in roses, you're covered in ruin
You're covered in secrets
You're covered in treetops, you're covered in birds
Who can sing a million songs without any words
You cast aside the sheets, you cast aside the shroud
Of another man, who served the world proud
You greet another son, you lose another one
On some sunny day and always stay
Mary, Mary, Mary


Patty Griffin
One Big Love Music/Chrome Dog Music (ASCAP)
From the 1998 album Flaming Red

Obama's Jobs Bill: More of the Same

As an economist, I found President Obama's job-creation proposals predictably disappointing. Both the proposed tax cuts and the proposed new programs can be classified as fiscal stimulus. According to Keynesian orthodoxy, such stimulus can hasten the end of a recession by increasing demand, which induces increased production, which in turn necessitates increased employment. But fiscal stimulus, like all Keynesian policy, is oriented only to the short run. (In defense of his short-run orientation, Keynes famously said, "In the long run we're all dead.") Both the Bush stimulus of 2008 and the Obama stimulus of 2009 were arguably reasonable Keynesian attempts to hasten the end of what looked like a severe but otherwise normal recession.

But if this were a normal recession susceptible to cure by stimulus spending, by now those efforts would already have gotten us back to normal (say 5% unemployment and 3% real annual growth). The fact that the economy has not returned to a normal growth path shows that this is not just a normal, cyclical recession. Rather, it is a symptom of more serious structural problems in our economy. President Obama's policies have not just failed to address these long-term problems, but they are actually making them worse. Until we address those problems, stimulus spending will not get the economy moving again. The impact of stimulus spending under current circumstances will be like that of the Cash for Clunkers program – a quick boost whose impact will evaporate without a trace as soon as the program ends.

In appealing for support from Republicans, President Obama reminded them that they had supported President Bush's stimulus in 2008, implying that because they had done so once they were obligated for the sake of consistency to do so again. But he passed over in silence their near-unanimous opposition to his own politically larded 2009 stimulus plan. Given the failure of both stimulus programs, it would be perfectly reasonable for Congress to choose not to throw good money after bad with another stimulus program. At the very least, Congress should demand that the President explain why his previous stimulus did not end the recession and why he thinks it will be different this time.

On Monday the President dropped the other shoe: he gave us the details on how he wants to pay for his jobs program. Again, it sounded disappointingly familiar – the same tax increases that he has proposed repeatedly before, and that Congress has rejected. This combination of taxes and class warfare might appeal to the Democratic base that Obama has been in danger of losing, but it will be a non-starter in the House. The negative impact on jobs of the proposed tax increases might actually outweigh any beneficial impact from the payroll tax cuts, making the President's jobs proposal a net destroyer of jobs.

There are many things our government could do to create jobs without spending a single additional dollar of federal money. Here are a few: 1) rein in the out-of-control NLRB, which is actively obstructing the creation of non-union jobs; 2) enact the free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama that President Obama is holding up in an effort to extort concessions from Congress; and 3) repeal Obamacare. The fact that the Democrats will not countenance these sure-fire job creators shows that they care more about their special-interest constituencies than about jobs for unemployed workers. This rule is proven by the one recent exception: President Obama delayed implementation of some onerous EPA regulations, which might very well help businesses create jobs – and other Democrats threw a fit.

The House could move ahead with another reform without waiting for the President – a reform that would help businesses to create jobs and might even draw support from some Democrats: reform the corporate income tax. The universal recipe for tax reform is to broaden the tax base and reduce tax rates. Broadening the tax base means making more dollars subject to taxation – most often by closing loopholes. This would make the tax fall more evenly on all corporations instead of exempting those with good lobbyists who can persuade Congress to enact custom-made loopholes for them. This, in combination with lower tax rates, would reduce the distortionary effect of the tax and help to channel money to more productive uses, which would inevitably result in more jobs. If Congress could succeed in reforming the corporate income tax, perhaps it would be emboldened to take on the personal income tax next.

The Afterlife of Theological Formulae

Proposition: Once a theological formula is published, its interpretation cannot be limited to its original purpose and context.

Exhibit 1. The Nicene Creed was formulated to rule out Arianism. This is made explicit in the final section, which anathematizes those who employ Arian formulae and terminology:

Those who say, ‘There was when he was not’, and ‘Before being begotten he was not’, and that he came into being from things that are not, or assert that the Son of God is from another hypostasis or substance or is changeable or alterable, these the catholic and apostolic church anathematizes.

But once that heresy had been extinguished (at least in the eastern Mediterranean – it hung on among some German tribes for another three centuries), the anti-Arian creed was not set aside. Rather, it became a touchstone of Orthodoxy. Its most prominent exponent, Athanasius, was elevated to sainthood as his generation’s paragon of orthodoxy, while Arius became forever the archetypal heretic. Adherence to “the faith of Nicaea” came to distinguish orthodox Christians not only from Arius, but also from later heretics, like Eunomius, Apollinarius, and Nestorius.

Since the Arian controversy had begun as an intra-Alexandrian affair before it spread abroad, certain assumptions shared by Arius and his local Alexandrian opponents were embedded in the arguments of both sides, as well as in the Nicene resolution. Athanasius’s successors Cyril and (especially) Dioscorus tried to interpret Nicaea not just as a negative statement ruling out Arianism, but as a positive statement enshrining the local peculiarities of Alexandrian Christology for the entire Church. (This might explain why Cyril was a stickler for the exact creedal formula approved by Nicaea, in opposition to the many other “Nicene” creeds in use in the early fifth century, which assimilated key Nicene phrases to existing local baptismal creeds.)

Exhibit 2. In his Letter to Acacius of Beroea (Ep. 33), Cyril of Alexandria defended his Twelve Anathemas by insisting that they were to be read only in opposition to Nestorius:

But the force of the statements was written only against the teachings of Nestorius. For they throw out what he said and wrote in error. Those who anathematize and deny his evil teaching will cease to object to the documents which have been written by us. For they see that the meaning of the statements only goes against his blasphemies. (John I. McEnerney, trans., St. Cyril of Alexandria: Letters 1-50, The Fathers of the Church 76 (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1985), 133.)

But neither his theological allies nor his opponents read Cyril’s Anathemas in such a circumscribed, negative way. They read the Anathemas as a more general Christological statement with positive implications, seeing them either as an essential supplement to the Creed of 325 or as a revival of the heresy of Apollinarius (on whose writings Cyril had unwittingly drawn in formulating them). After the Reunion of 433, though Cyril never explicitly renounced the Anathemas, neither did he continue to emphasize them, and they faded into the background for the last decade of his life. But after his death, those who proclaimed themselves loyal to the memory of Cyril (a very selective memory that ignored the historical Cyril’s commitment to the Reunion of 433) denounced the terms of the Reunion and revived the Anathemas as a litmus test of orthodoxy. Eventually, long after the Nestorian heresy had been driven out of the Church, the Second Council of Constantinople (553) elevated Cyril’s Third Letter to Nestorius with the Twelve Anathemas to dogmatic status in an unsuccessful attempt to placate the enemies of Chalcedon.

Exhibit 3. In an appendix to his Tome to the Armenians, Proclus of Constantinople condemned selected passages from the writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia. When he demanded that the Syrian bishops formally endorse both the Tome and the appended condemnations, they objected that the passages from Theodore had been removed from their proper literary, historical, and theological context. In his polemics against the Arians, the Syrian bishops said, Theodore had been driven to a

certain great distinction (i.e., between the natures in Christ), not coming to it from a depraved understanding, but deciding to use that mode of expression more efficaciously against the heretics, and he was not ignoring nor denying the total unity, far from it, for all his books are full of this mode of expression, but he was dividing the properties of the natures more fully as the fight which he had against the heretics dictates that he should do. (Nicholas Constas, Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity: Homilies 1-5, Texts and Translations, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 66 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 117.)

But some Antiochene bishops, like Ibas of Edessa, did not restrict their reading of Theodore’s polemical extracts to an anti-Arian context any more than his enemies did.

This idea was a by-product of my thesis on the Formula of Reunion (433). It might find its way into my thesis in some form.

County 4-H Fair

Last Sunday, while I was visiting my parents in Indiana, I attended the local 4-H fair. There was an open house at the agricultural museum with demonstrations including soap making, rope making, and a 19th-century one-room school. I went back again the next day for the annual gathering of my mom's family at the fair. We had lunch in the ag museum and then talked until well into the afternoon. I took some photos, mostly of old tractors.

My uncle's 1920s John Deere tractors

My uncle's 1950s Ford tractors, modified with V-8 engines

Art deco tractor #1: 1952 Oliver

Art deco tractor #2: 1956 Cockshutt

1940s Allis-Chalmers

1939 McCormick-Deering Farmall

Tractor ride for the kids

1935 Silver King

Other modes of transportation on display in the ag museum.

Small covered wagon

1901 Oldsmobile

Forty years ago my cousins dominated the dairy barn at the fair. Today their kids dominate . . . the small animal barn.

My cousins' chickens

My cousin's rabbits

Newly hatched chicks in the incubator

Changes

From the beginning, I have blogged under my long-time on-line alias Roland. In fact, I originally planned to name my blog Oliphant: The Horn of Roland. I was pretty upset when I found the name Oliphant was already taken. The resulting frustration launched me into a small crisis in which I questioned the purpose and content of my intended blog. I realized it would have a primarily religious/theological focus, and I came up with a more fitting title. But it did not then occur to me to switch to a different alias.

I first used the name Roland my first summer in grad school. It was a hot summer, with frequent record-breaking, triple-digit temperatures, and I was living in a cheap room without air conditioning. So I spent my afternoons studying in the comfort of a lounge in the student union. Every once in a while, for a break, I would go the basement and play the video game Tutankham. When I got a high score and had to come up with a name, I spontaneously chose Roland, inspired by the Warren Zevon song, “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner”. Years later, I revived the name for my high scores in Tetris on a friend’s computer and subsequently began using it in various on-line contexts.

About a decade ago, not long after 9/11, I read The Song of Roland, the medieval French epic poem based loosely on the 778 Battle of Roncesvalles, and I began to assimilate my on-line persona more to this older Roland by choosing appropriately medieval-looking avatars, or by using the name Roland778 when Roland was already taken.

At the same time, in other on-line contexts I was using the alias Arimathean. Long before my chrismation, when Joseph of Arimathea formally became my patron saint, I had considered him my patron. Within a year of starting my blog, I realized this would have been a more appropriate alias (thus my avatar, which is a mosaic image of Joseph of Arimathea), but I had already begun to establish myself in the blogosphere as Roland. So I decided to wait for a more opportune time to make the switch.

For the past two years while I have been studying theology, I haven’t had much time for blogging (or recreational reading or TV or movies . . .). In the few forums where I have been active, I have mostly been using Arimathean, so Roland is now less likely to be missed. So, as of today, my handle in the blogosphere is changing to Arimathean (though I will continue to go by Roland in some non-blogging contexts).

Speaking of recreational reading . . . My first post-seminary novel brought together both of my on-line personae. The hero of Judith Tarr’s Kingdom of the Grail is Roland, who is a descendant of Merlin and Nimue. Nimue, in turn, is the sister of Parsifal, the Grail King, whom one can infer to be descended from . . . Joseph of Arimathea (though he is not mentioned by name in the book). The novel’s execution was not as good as the concept – it too often followed the conventions of the romance genre rather than historical fantasy.

I am also adopting another change. I recently read a Slate article about “logical punctuation”. Until now, for my whole literate life I have slavishly followed the convention of placing commas and periods inside quotation marks. Unlike nearly all other grammar and punctuation rules, this one never made sense to me, and I was always ready to disparage it whenever the opportunity arose, even while following it scrupulously and enforcing it as an editor. In the Slate article, I learned that this is not the universal English language rule my teachers would have me believe. Rather, it is a peculiarly American rule. The rest of the English-speaking world follows the more logical convention of placing commas and periods after the closing quotation mark (unless the punctuation is logically a part of the quote). On-line, it appears that most Americans are now punctuating like Brits. Wikipedia and other sites have adopted logical punctuation as their standard. And even the old guard has conceded that when quotes enclose a URL any following punctuation should be placed outside the closing quote so that no one tries to paste it into the address bar of his browser as if it were part of the address. For now the conflict continues, but it is already clear that the prescriptivist-traditionalist American copy editors are doomed. I’m happy to join the winning side.