Friendly Heresies

Book Review - Chaos!

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 05:21:18 GMT

The Principia Discordia, Or, How I Found Goddess and What I Did to Her When I Found Her: The Magnum Opiate of Malaclypse the Younger

This sacred text of the Discordians is a must for anyone interested in the glorious power of Chaos! It might also be good to read if you just want help staying on Eris' good side. Making it through more than a few pages of this rather short book is greatly aided by having a sense of humor, a high tolerance for whimsy, and the capacity for a lot of nonlinear thinking.

The version I read can be found at this link: Principia Discordia, or How The West Was Lost. This version is in the JFK Archives, studied after the assassination, as apparently one of the authors knew Oswald.

comments

Labels

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 00:30:22 GMT

I adore labels. I play with them everyday, joyfully. It is so satisfying for me to uncover some new element of myself, and find the words to share this insight with another person. My history has been a journey of trying on and collecting labels and exploring them inside and out to see what they can mean to me.

Language itself is nothing but labels. Every word is a label. I am not the letter I - I'm much rounder than that! But when I say "I am ___", I am profoundly shaping my self and my world. As much as I love my name, I am not the word Elizabeth. But it means the world to me to hear my honey say it. We cannot help but use words to describe ourselves, and cannot help but put parts of ourselves into certain words. There's is a great deal of communication that cannot happen any other way. The more labels we have to describe our self, the more self-knowledge we have, and the more of our self we can share with others.

Labels slow down lightning long enough for us to look at it. Human beings are constantly shifting, constantly growing, constantly transforming our past into something new. Labels are photographs, capturing those moments between changes, so that we can look closer.

Labels can allow us to find community and kindred spirits. While no two people relate to any one word the same way, having hints of potential common ground reflected in labels can sometimes connect us to role models, to allies, to shared history, and to stories that may become sacred to us. Labels are a meeting point between us and other people.

There is great power in labels. Our lives will be filled with people who will have labels for us, and ask us to take them on, whether intentionally or unintentionally. It might be the parent who called us stupid, or the lover who calls us beautiful. Very often we might take these labels on ourselves, intentionally... or unintentionally. This may be for good, or ill. It is up to us to decide for ourselves what words we will give power to, which labels we will inhabit.

So, yeah, I love labels. I'm a label person.

comments

Book Review - McLaren's Generous Orthodoxy

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:23:10 GMT

Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN

There are so many different assumptions and worldviews that people bring to any discussion of Christian theology that finding common ground can range from challenging to impossible, even among those open to dialogue. Often, fundamentally different languages are being spoken... especially when we start talking about the difference between modern and postmodern theology. In this book, McLaren uses clear and accessible language (don't let the subtitle fool you!) to uncover many of the questions at the forefront of postmodern and emerging Christian theology. McLaren reaches across the misleading dichotomies that are touted today - liberal and conservative, Protestant and Catholic, high church vs. low church - and finds ways to forge common ground because of those differences, not in spite of them.

Theologian Phyllis Tickle has paralleled this book with Martin Luther's 95 theses, naming them both as concise reflections of the most pertinent questions during two tumultuous times. If you're not familiar with the emerging church and its theology, this is a damn good place to start. If you're not aware of how postmodern thinking is transforming Christian theology, this is a warm and invitational description of it.

As far as personal differences between myself and the author, McLaren comes from evangelical background. He values Christianity as more universal than I do, values proselytizing more than I, and has a vision of liberal Christianity that does not match mine. Many of his answers do not match mine. But he asks many of the questions that I find to be vital, and he does it in clear language, with faith and humility. I would enjoy bringing this book into a group discussion format.

comments

Friendly Heresies

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:48:46 GMT

I'll eventually post a review of Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy here; it's a book I believe (and hope) will be pivotal to shaping changes happening in the church. But before addressing the high quality of the entire book, I want to use one of McLaren's few missteps as a doorway into something near to my heart.

For years, I lived and worked in the progressive liberal milieu. I believed in the power of the social gospel to make life better for everyone, especially those devalued by structures of power in the world. The questions being asked in liberal churches were often my own most pressing questions. I was excited to be present as the "religious left" became a force to be reckoned with on the national political stage a few years back, and I was thrilled to see a non-fundamentalist definition of Christianity gaining visibility. I am a Texan, and loathed George W. Bush's accomplished works in my home state - so much so that I feared him deeply, and that fear only grew as he gained power and cultivated national fear from the White House. So I worked against him, in the only feasible way I saw. I kept faith that the political system was the only way to enact real, lasting, widespread change in our world. I believed nothing else held greater power.

McLaren speaks of progressive liberalism as one well-meaning but flawed perspective in the polarized field of public Christianity right now. I believe that to be true. But McLaren comes from a conservative perspective; liberal culture is foreign to him. In his analysis of liberalism in this book, I believe he falls prey to some of the propaganda that liberals have created for themselves... propaganda that my experience is directly refuting these days. McLaren believes that a liberal gift is the desire to question, and that they have erred in going too far in their willingness to question everything, including Jesus' historicity and existence. He sees this as a force that has eroded faith. While I don't doubt that progressive liberal churches have some weak spots in their spiritual life right now, I passionately disagree that too much questioning is one of them. There are taboos in progressive liberalism as well; they have carved out the heresies that offend them, the diversity not allowed, and the questions they will not ask and will not tolerate. I know because I'm feeling the effect of being outside acceptable diversity in those communities of friends and previous colleagues.

In a path that I'm sure I will spend lots of time unpacking in this journal, I've come to a perspective recently that embraces anarchism as a matter of living my faith in the world. I won't describe that much in this post, but I will name one of the unaskable questions in progressive liberal circles - what is the source of the deep faith we have placed in the political system to solve all our ills?

These days I find myself asking a lot of questions that people don't want to hear. Because of the circumstances of my recent life, I have doubtlessly done this with bitterness and resentment sometimes. While I don't believe my faults in engagement style invalidate the questions, it certainly makes them harder for others to engage with. I recognize that. One of my current personal grapplings is to find a way to respect my anger, and respect the power for positive change that it has, while not spilling the more wounded parts of it onto others.

So with the latest iterations of my questioning nature, I've become a minority within a minority within a minority (within minorities!) - a Christian anarchist body theologian (with membership in at least three alternate sexuality populations). I no longer find any community that shares the bulk of my values, which can be a lonely and comfortless place to be. However, I'm beginning to see a path forward, perhaps resembling one of the people I've often admired. They are often quiet and hospitable. They are in the community, but not quite of it. They are the loving troublemakers, offering a different view when asked, or when called. They are not everyone's cup of tea, but they offer themselves up authentically and serve a role that supports the health of communal life. I'm hoping to shape a role for myself sort of like that... something like a friendly heretic.

comments