Quote of the week:
"That is my worldview that you see. It still must be incorporated into a whole, so be careful where you step." ~Ignatius Reilly from "A Confederacy of Dunces"

Coopting Critique?

The Da Vinci Code came out this week to much critical disdain, decent box office numbers, and lame duck protests. Unlike some I don't consider this film a direct threat to the church rather I think that we have already down worse harm to our selves. It saddens me to think that our Christian education system is so paltry that we are not knowledgeable enouch about the coucil of Nicea (for example)to know that the accounts in the book are just plain wrong. Or another more absurd example is the contention that a gnostic form of Christianity would be some how more celebrative of physicality and women in particular. Christians should know enough about Christian history to know that the reason the gnostics wre rejected was precisely because they denied the importance of physical life. the entire biblical witness: from God proclaiming the Creation as good in Genesis, to the incarnation of Christ, to the renewal, not destruction, of creation in Revelation celebrates physicality.

If the evil church's goal was to eliminate Jesus' radical feminism and create disdain for the natural world they were just about the most incompetent conspirators in the world (one only has too note that one of the few details the four Easter accounts agree on was that Mary Magdalene was the first witness to the resurection). Enough of the rant.

The other day I read a fascinating piece in the "New Yorker" (there really is no way of saying that with out sounding pretentious is there?)about Sony's marketing strategy for the Da Vinci Code. Part of it was to create a website that encouraged point-counterpoint debate about the Da Vinici Code in order to convince Christians that it was part of there discipleship to see and discuss the movie. Sony realized that would attract more Christians by higlighting the movies controversy rather than underplaying it. Anyway read the article and tell me what you think.

Today was a good day...

This morning my dad and I dropped off our yard waste at the town compost pile (yes I live in a place with a town compost pile). However we were forced to take a less direct route by the mass of people known as the womens' society annual Waddle Fest (it involves duck racing)!

After that we took the recycling to the recycling center. I love the recycling center. It is essentially a shanty town with designated spots for plastic's 1-7 as well as almost anything else. My favorite part is that they have a junkyard peacock named PETE (get it?), PETE likes to forage. The great thing about the recycling center is that it brings ex-hippies, Prius driving soccer mom's, and me togethor. It's also nice to go places with your paretns where they know everyone's name.

Then I set about my goal of reading "How Soccer Explains the World: an Unlikely Theory of Globalization " by Franklin Foer. I reccomedn this book as a great read (especially if like me you know little about soccer). However if you know little about globalization it might be alittle confusing.

He uses case studies from soccer (corruption in brazil, American Culture wars, Glasgow protestant/catholic hooliganism) to explain characteristics of globablization. Te book is full excellent examples of archetypes of globablizations diferent effects.

As always anyone moved to by the book should get it here. Tell them that they you heard of it here and they...well care!

Somethng for Nothing

The other night while watching T.V. my mom and I saw a clip of a Barry Bonds' at bat. She remarked that no-one seems to be held accountable anymore. I initially agreed with her of course but on further reflection realized that this is precisely what both conservativism and liberalism in modern america are selling (What follows are essentially straw men of conservatism and liberalsim used to try to show a connection. I do not claim to grasp the whole of either ideology).

What passes for conservatism in taliking head american politics is essentially profit without consequences. We are taught that we can make more and have more without the consequences of environmental damage, alliances with corrupt third world dictators that ensure our easy access to resources and production, and the damage that affluence can do to our social and spiritual connections.

What passes for liberalism with it's "defend the sexual revolution at all cost" (Crunchy Con) ethos tells us that we will not have to deal with any consequences for removing sex from it's proper place (the marriage bed).

The problem is that neither one is a solution for each other. The exmeplar of poverty in America is the single mother. Both conservatism and liberalism are to be blaimed for this because we have an economy which has not only created ghetto's but now outsourced them. By making profit the ultimate goal of business we have allowed corporations to exist that feel more accountable to their shareholders than to their employees or the people providing the resources neccesary to do business. But, we have another problem because we allow a culture of sexual promiscuity which does not see a problem with meaningless sexual hook ups ewven if they do create life. Indeed the one night stand might be the perfect embodiment of late capitalism.

In neither of these political streams is the discussion based around the needs of society or our neighbors. The goal is profit and expansion not health. The goal is satisfaction and freedom not, well, health. We have somehow believed we have modernized ourselves into individuality were
we only have to be concerned about how our actions effect us.

What needs to change is where our reasnoning starts from. Our thought process should begin with the Kingdom of God with a desire to see the world as such a place where each person, plant, and animal is respected and cared for. In a religiously pluralist society we can call this the commonwealth. We should conduct our business and our sexuality with a desire to create a culture and economy which is most generous and healty for all.

I sometimes think that we trick ourselves into thinking that we can't do more. We think that global poverty and deteriorating sexual mores are beyond any help and this isn't so. If you are concerned about how consumerism teaches us to view people as disposable asssets; marry and a raise a family. If you are angry about the high rate of divorce and children born out of wedlock; then invest in companies which will stay in one place long term and provide stability for a community.

Ultimately it leads to making a choice, a choice that no political leader on the right or the left would ever ask us to make, choosing to sacrifice.

"The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and less wasteful" ~Wendell Berry

Now there are two things on Beliefnet that I like

The first is of course the inane quizzes that tell me that I am a George H.W. Bush kind of Christian and which Harry Potter character I am.

The second is the "Crunchy Con" blog. I find myself agreeing with a fair amount of what he says and provoked (in a good way) by the other stuff.

http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/crunchycon/

Shaving as Focal Practice

Ok Andy Crouch has convinced me
http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2006/002/12.26.html

if only I can find my dad's old kit

The Commonwealth

By the commonwealth I mean the world in which we find ourselve. It is constituted by the sharing of the earth between plants, animals, rock, trees and people. A neo-calvinist would call it the created order of society and ecology (maybe). Wendell Berry would call it the membership and the economy. I call it the commonwealth.

One reason i like this term is its implication of shared wealth. By thinking of things in terms of their commonwealth we remove ourselves from the center and instead consider how are actions benefit others.

Secondly, it is the simple recognition that all true w(h)ealth is common. What is truly best for each of us indivdually is best for others and the rest of creation.

Thirdly, it is an inherantly politicl term. It reminds me that politics (the way humans choose to live togethor) is economics is conservation.

This (like my description yesterday of what I mean by patriot)is a frail skeleton that I hope to slowly put flesh, sinew, and muscle on. But, here I stand a patriot of the commonwealth

Another new name?!

Yes I am a finniky one when it comes to blog names. My original title (the Susquehanna Review) captured a good mix of pretentiousness and a desire to be a somewhat "local" writer. The second one (Dirt, Flesh and Stone)was supposedly the thematic structure of the book I am allegaldy writing. But, in the end it sounded more like the title of a tour video for some weird agrarian goth band which likes to mix druid mythology with unsettling orclike symbolism. So, that wouldn't work either.

My new title has been kicking around in my head for quite sometime now. And i have slowly been developing a logic for the title which inevitably will include Wendell Berry and my understanding of what it means to be an american protestant. For now I offer this quote from the book Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton which was graciously loaned to me by the Ellis-Hennesy's my second favorite married couple to which I am not related too.

"A man longs for this world before he begins to ask if it is nice to belong to it. He has fought for the flag, and often won heroic vicotries for the flag long before he has ever enlisted. To put shortly what seems the essential matter, he has a loyality long before he has any admiration...My acceptance of the universe is not optimism it is patriotism. It is a matter of primary loyality."

tomorrow the commonwealth!

everyone should read this
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0501-30.htm

I'm going to try to post more, especialy things that may actually have something to do with my book.

"I would suggest that it is not only permissabel for those who care about animals to eat meat; they have a duty to do so. If meat eating should ever become confined to those who don't care about animal suffering, then compasionate farming would cease. Where there are conscientious carnivores, there is a motive to raise animals kindly. Morever, conscientious carnivores show their depraved contemporaries that there is a right and wrong way to eat. Duty requires us, there fore, to eat our friends." ~Roger Scurtton from Harpers