Category Archives: culture

nothing more than culture?

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The Very Rev. Ryan S. Reed of St. Vincent’s Episcopal Church in Bedford, TX is quoted in a recent Fort Worth Weekly piece about the Episcopal Church. “The Episcopal Church is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the culture,” says Fr. Reed, speaking for what is perhaps the majority view of things in the ultra-conservative anglo-catholic diocese of Fort Worth. He is wrong, of course, but his error (to use a word I dislike in a context such as this) is of the heart, in my view. The Episcopal church is indeed a reflection of the culture of the United States of America, but not, I suspect, in the way Fr. Reed supposes. What the church reflects is in part a developing consensus about human sexuality and the law, not only in the United States and Canada, but in much of the world where modernity is an established condition. I don’t think this situation should trouble any Christian. It involves a relationship long familiar in the history of social justice issues.

Human equality and what we now call human rights have more often than not entered the modern Christian church by the back door, just as they have most usually claimed the teachings of Jesus as a warrant along with (take your pick) “the laws of nature and of nature’s god,” Kantian categorical imperative, history, the Constitution and laws of the United States, etc. I am thinking primarily of my own experience with civil rights issues since the 1950s, but I could document the claim going back at least to the time of Wycliffe in the English-speaking world, in the western colonies, and in post-colonial times. But I would rather put the case positively as Richard Rorty has, in a recent essay, “Anticlericalism and Atheism,” claiming that Christianity, enlightenment idealism, and skeptical pragmatism may be able to find common ground in the proposition that “love is the only law,” or as he was fond of putting it in the past, “Cruelty is the worst thing we do.” Rorty’s affirmations do not seek to conquer cruelty but rather to persuade against it “through . . . positive examples of a community-affirming discourse,” as one commentator has put it.

While I understand why many liberal Christians affirm that their social and ethical beliefs originate with Jesus and only with Jesus, I’m not myself troubled if somebody thinks I am “faithless and apostate,” as claimed in a passage noted on The Rev. Susan Russell’s An Inch at a Time:

This is not a matter of opinion, mine or anyone else’s, but of objective fact. If you are gay, support gay ordination or the gay lifestyle, then you are not a Christian, and will go to hell. Again, this is not opinion or a matter for conjecture: it is simply what the bible says. It is fact.

When I was a kid in West Texas, I was declared apostate by my classmates in the Church of Christ because I was a social gospel Methodist and read the RSV, which had “taken all the blood out” of the Bible. When I was a young adult trying to persuade fellow members of my downtown Methodist church in Durham, NC that it was OK if African Americans came in and worshipped with us, sat among us, etc., I was declared apostate. So–I had a fair amount of on-the-job experience before I became an apostate in the present-day Episcopal Church.

I remain convinced that “love is the only law.” I continue to believe that as a Christian citizen of a democratic society I am to practice the second commandment, whether it comes to me from Jesus or Emmanuel Kant or my own cultural identity, without regard to ancient prejudices against “all sorts and conditions” of humans. And I continue to believe that we apostates (I suspect I have a good many colleagues in the church) should continue to persuade against cruelty “through . . . positive examples of a community-affirming discourse”; though it’s my prose and entirely private opinion that people who think they know who is going to hell don’t know shit, as we used to say in Abilene.

Finally, I want to thank Fr. Nick Knisely for a wonderful piece that appears today at the Daily Episcopalian. In it, Fr. Knisely describes his experience in an ecumenical venture with Moravians, who “won’t fight and insult each other in the manner in which some Episcopalians revel,” even though

The Moravian Church is struggling with the same issues that the Episcopal Church is at the moment. They have groups and congregations breaking away over the same concerns, and they have to manage the same sorts of resolutions that we do at our national meetings. 

And I’d like to thank Fr. Mark Harris as well, for his critique today of Nigerian Archbishop Peter Akinola’s recent rant against the United States, in which the good Archbishop claims that hate-crimes legislation pending in the U. S. Congress is an abridgement of the freedom of religion. Too bad the Archbishop wasn’t on the Supreme Court when it ruled against cross burning. Fr. Harris notes ruefully that “The Archbishop has entered the morass of American religious politics.”

Soon he will be on the talk shows and an established darling of the religious right. After all, he has a proto-diocese here [in the United States] now.

I can’t forbear to point out that Archbishop Akinola is able to make his voice heard in this country because the United States of America is what it is. The good Archbishop is a beneficiary of the very capitalist multiculturalism he and his American disciples deplore. He will not only continue to benefit from the openness he decries as decadence, but if Fr. Harris is right he will be rewarded with media stardom as well, at least for a while.

Later this month my beloved and I will attend the Mennonite Relief Sale in Iowa City. We’ll eat a good dinner, have some pie, meet friends, and contribute to “the worldwide relief program of the Mennonite Central Committee.” Aside from the fact that it’s one of the most effective of U. S. Charities, it’s a love-in. I’m hoping there will be some good gospel music to listen to before the big auction as there has been in the past. The Mennonites have generally been more tolerant regarding divisive issues of sexuality than other theologically conservative churches, though the record is mixed and some Mennonite churches have been expelled from their regional organizations for being too permissive.  Still, I thank God for the Mennonites (who ordain women, by the way).

calling it evil

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This week’s New Republic carries an essay by Gregg Easterbrook that takes issue with the media’s use of the words shooter and gunman to describe the person eventually identified as Cho Seung-Hui in coverage of the recent murders at Virginia Tech. Easterbrook also takes umbrage at the use of shooting spree to describe his actons.

Similarly odd was the frequent use of the phrase “shooting spree” to describe the Blacksburg horror. A spree is a gay, carefree outing. Those who say “shooting spree” make it sound as if killing at random is therapeutic, even recreational: He felt depressed, so he went on a shooting spree. The only term that fits what Cho did is “rampage,” and a few reports used this word. But a disturbing number opted for “spree.”

Easterbrook’s argument is that such terms do not identify the evil in Cho’s actions, that they are not judgmental, that they are terms which refuse to acknowldge the moral universe, and that they are used in the service of a misguided and foolish political correctness. After browbeating his reader for several paragraphs, Easterbrook concludes more or less as follows:

Evil exists and must be spoken of as evil, not in euphemism. On a windy Monday morning in Virginia, evil armed itself and performed the most despicable of acts: pleasure in the taking of innocent life. Evil will arm itself again. As George Orwell showed, unless we call a thing what it is, we can neither think about it clearly nor oppose it.

To be sure, the language Easterbrook deplores is the language of media cliché, and that is dreadful in its own way. But it seems to me that there may be a number of valid reasons for seeking neutral, descriptive language for reporting about terrible and terrifying events. I’m not sure I understand Easterbrook’s indignation, and I very much fear that if journalists followed rules such as the ones he lays down, the result would be sensationalism, not moral edification. Also, since I myself initially found it difficult to find words to talk about the Virginia Tech murders, and since I don’t particularly like having motives prescribed to me by press pundits, I beg to differ.

First and foremost I think the problem we have with language in the face of mass murders is understandable because it is human, and it is human because evil, however monstrous, is human. When our minds are invaded by yet another proof of the moral horror of which we human beings are capable, a first reaction is to recoil from the knowledge. Far from being a sign of decadent public discourse, I think the media’s tendency to fall back on trade clichés is a sign of decency. Indeed I wish I could think that all the press coverage of the murders at Virginia Tech had reflected a decent distaste for voyeurism and sensation. I was bothered by the constant attempt on the part of reporters to provoke emotion from the young people they interviewed, asking them how they felt at a time when such a question bordered on being obscene. My friend Tim Burke put this in excellent perspective when he wrote on this blog:

 . . . Is it so hard to let the dead lie in peace for a few days, to reflect quietly and somberly on the horror and pain of it? Do we have to domesticate every event into the simple-mindedness of single-cause arguments, master the meaninglessness that sometimes comes with being human with the jabber of the punditocracy? Can’t we just reach out collectively to put a quiet hand on the shoulder of those who have lost friends, family and colleagues?

Easterbrook also charges that “news reports have treated the murderer’s history gently,” rather than labeling him a madman. “There simply are no circumstances under which a person of sound mind would slaughter 32 unarmed innocents.” Fair enough. I’m imagining a two-inch headline that reads, “MADMAN GOES ON KILLING RAMPAGE, MURDERS 32!” Such a head would satisfy Easterbrook’s criteria, but this is the kind of language we expect from The National Enquirer. Such language trumpets the horror itself as a commodity, a form of sentimentality; and it objectifies the murderer and his victims.

The unarmed innocents at Virginia Tech, their families, friends, colleagues, and associates, all who were slain, traumatized, or otherwise directly involved in Cho’s murderous rampage (see, I can use judgmental words), were, are, all of them–valuable and precious human beings. And while I am saying that I must also point out that Cho himself was a human being. Reporting that has attempted to understand Cho as a deprived and lost soul is not misguided. To seek to explain a particular evil as the absence of some good is deeply embedded in our culture. Before it was part of secular therapy, it was Christian. Indeed, it remains Christian. I hope there will be many who will include Cho in their prayers along with those whom he killed and hurt, as I do.    

university news

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This weekend, the Saint Louis University board of directors voted to support the university administration in its determination to revoke the charter guaranteeing the independence of the eighty-six-year-old University News, the university’s student newspaper. According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the board’s vote also established a ten-day period during which student leaders have the opportunity to “express their concerns.”

Students have every right to be concerned, since they will lose the ability to choose their editor and since control of the publication will be placed with the SLU office of student development, an office that has a frankly public-relations mission. Kent Porterfield, who heads that office, has said that the administration only wishes to improve the quality of the paper, but the intent seems clearly to muzzle the student publication, which in the past has been sharply critical of high-handed administration actions. Observers are saying that the board intends the administration to go back and negotiate with the students. How likely the administration is to negotiate in good faith is anybody’s guess, but this is the second time the administration has sought to silence the University News.

This story has generated a good deal of support for the student journalists. In an editorial last week the Post Dispatch wrote that “the administration’s claim that the proposed changes will not affect editorial integrity rings hollow”; and the Saint Louis Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists went on record asking the SLU board to reject the administration proposal, saying:

The St. Louis Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists is troubled by reports concerning the University News, the student newspaper at Saint Louis University. The chapter believes a proposed change to the newspaper’s charter will stifle the publication’s editorial independence and freedom of expression on campus. . . .

A student newspaper is not an instrument that belongs solely to the university. The newspaper is a public forum where students can freely express themselves and exchange ideas about their community and the world. It should reflect the academic and intellectual freedom found in an internationally renowned institution of higher education.

Rather than trampling on students’ First Amendment rights, the St. Louis Chapter invites the university to adopt the SPJ’s Campus Media Statement, which states that campus publications “are designated public forums and free from censorship and advance approval of content.”

How likely it is that Saint Louis University’s present administration will constitute the University News a public forum free from censorship may be gleaned from a few facts. Here is part of University News editor Diana Benanti’s description of the students’ meeting with university provost, Joseph Weixlmann, in which the university’s intentions were announced.

Today, April 30, the Editorial Board of the University News and the current and newly-elected presidents of the Student Government Association met with the Vice President of Student Development Kent Porterfield and Provost Joe Weixlmann. (Dr. Avis Meyer, the “unofficial adviser” of the U.News and my attorney Tim E. Hogan were asked to leave before the meeting began, or Weixlmann refused to conduct the meeting. They waited outside).

And here’s an account of the meeting itself, from the May 4 issue of the News;

. . . On Monday, April 30, the editorial board of The University News met with Provost Joe Weixlmann, Ph.D., and Vice President for Student Development Kent Porterfield, Ed.D. After their adviser emeritus was persuaded to leave the room, students were informed that administrators planned to ask the Board of Trustees to revoke the organization’s charter at the Board’s meeting this weekend. Students were then told that they had two options: as individuals, they could attempt to start a completely independent, off-campus newspaper, without financial assistance and distribution rights, to be determined later. Or, they could join a new, university-sponsored newspaper, accepting a charter written by administrators, which was absolutely devoid of the editorial board’s input. Weixlmann and Porterfield made it clear that, though student input would be considered, no conceptual changes would be made to the administration’s new draft of the charter.

Benanti filed suit against the university when tuition remission she was promised as editor was revoked this past year. Why Weixlmann refused to conduct the meeting with the student’s advocates present, common sense can judge. Weixlmann has also dropped a couple of hints about financial improprieties at the University News, but the paper has been subjected to two recent unanounced audits (for what purpose one can only speculate), and no financial improprieties have been found.

Common sense can also judge what is behind the reorganization of the University News if one remembers the fairly long list of administrative decisions about which the paper has complained over the past few years. Mention of many of these may be found in the Post Dispatch editorial and on the current University News op/ed page. According to the Post Dispatch,

Over the years, the award-winning newspaper occasionally has clashed with Rev. Biondi, criticizing decisions to sell the university’s hospital, raise parking fees and graduation fees and dismiss popular teachers. One recent scathing editorial, reviewing a number of administrative decisions made without substantive student participation, wrote that “SLU resembles an authoritarian regime.”

University president, Lawrence Biondi, the authority in authoritarian, has said regarding the University News that it is “very important” that he help the paper “once again become a student newspaper that offers a respected, responsible voice.” This is the same Lawrence Biondi whom the University News exposed as a plagiarist in 2005 and who has recently fired basketball coach Brad Soderberg. About the firing, one local sportswriter declared, “Multiple sources told me [athletic director Cheryl] Levick had assured the parents of potential recruits that Soderberg’s job was safe — and now SLU’s word is dirt.”

The destruction of the University News shames Saint Louis University similarly–and it shames the Society of Jesus. One may hope that Diana Benanti is right that there is a 50/50 chance that the university will negotiate in good faith with the students. Perhaps one may hope as well that the Jesuits, who have often spoken truth to power, might find the will to remedy this wrong.

more, but not much

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Fr. Knisley, at Entangled States, has a nice mention of my previous post that garnered a couple of interesting negative comments from John. Here’s a selection:

. . . In The Wound of Knowledge [Williams] speaks of Scripture giving us a unity of ‘vision’ not ‘formulation.’ In his article on Balthasar and Rahner he appreciates the former precisely for avoiding ‘closure.’ And, anyone who knows Williams’ admiration for the interrogative mode of theology–and again is deeply immersed in this theology–will know that Long’s criticism here rings hollow.

. . . Long . . . has no time for Williams speaking of the “summons” of the Bible or the gospel precisely, one would think, because he (Long) has no idea of the Scripture being the vehicle by which God addresses, calls, summons, actively engages, the creature. Too bad. Williams doesn’t champion such a view to the exclusion of other means of address by God, but he does have a view which gives God’s activity, God’s address, some priority over human poetics. A good thing in my book.

I posted this essay a little too soon, so that both Fr. Knisley and John read a draft that still had some sharpness in it. As it stands now, most of that sharpness has been softened or removed. Stiil, I’m not inclined to back away from the primary argument I made. It isn’t true, as John supposes, that I have no idea of “the Scripture being the vehicle by which God addresses, calls, summons, actively engages, the creature.”