Crackling

"How did you and mom end up getting married?"
"Uh, she wanted to."
"You didn't?"
"Well I figured, 'what the hell?'"
"Were you ever sorry you married her?"
"All the time. Could've been worse."
"You must have been in love? At least at first?"
"Never came up."

That's the piece of dialogue that will launch my ship towards the cinema this week. Nebraska here I come.

Man of God, Man of Bloodshed

"After removing Saul, he made David their king. God testified concerning him: 'I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do." 

- Paul, Acts 13:22 

“Get out, get out, you man of bloodshed, and worthless fellow! The Lord has returned upon you all the bloodshed of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned; and the Lord has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. And behold, you are taken in your own evil, for you are a man of bloodshed!” 

- Shimei, 2 Samuel 16:7-8

 David - a man after God's heart, a man of bloodshed, or both?

There was an article in the Guardian recently about the tension between the work of artists - the art - and the artists themselves. It was written in the light of the court case involving the front-man of the Lostprophets, Ian Watkins, who has pleaded guilty to various forms of sexual abuse of children. HMV subsequently took Lostprophets' albums off their shelves (though they continue to stock Garry Glitter albums, apparently).

(As an aside, I couldn't agree less with Giles Fraser's response to the Ian Watkins case, in which he completely butchers the Christian tradition for the sake of sounding radically postmodern. To think that evil can be explained by the mechanisms of existence-in-history is not to deny evil any metaphysical value, but to make of it a positive component of metaphysics, a part of the totality. This is precisely what Christianity refuses to do.)

For a more theological example, Exhibit A is John Howard Yoder. There are some who cannot or will not read Yoder. The sins of the artist are visited upon the art.

What, then, of many of the Psalms? Are they tainted, because their author was a homicidal adulterer, a "man of bloodshed"? Or does Psalm 51 wipe the slate clean?

A critical reader of the Bible could be forgiven for thinking that David gets an easy ride, both from the Church and from the authors of the Bible itself. Consider the opening of 1 Kings, where the author sounds like an apologist for Bill Clinton by emphasising that David did not have sexual relations with that woman - the virgin they used to keep him warm. Are we supposed to say "Well done, David! See, he's not so bad."? A cynic might say that the reason he didn't have sex with her was not because of his new-found moral fortitude, but because, as we are told in the first verse, he was "very old".

Indeed such a sceptical view towards David gains further credence in the next chapter, as we hear David's final words. If 1 Kings 1 sounded like a snippet from the life of Bill Clinton, 1 Kings 2 sounds like a snippet from the life of Michael Corleone. David's last act is a hit list, given to his son and successor Solomon. To paraphrase the passage, David says to Solomon "I'm dying, and here's the people I'm taking with me!" One of those people, it should be noted, is Shimei, the man who had the temerity to call David a man of bloodshed. How dare he! David, of course, promised that he wouldn't kill Shimei. Since he is a man of his word, he does the decent thing and hires Solomon to do the dirty work for him.

This, remember, is David, the putative "man after God's own heart," and crafter of some exquisite Hebrew poetry and song.

I wonder, do those who cannot read Yoder find David equally problematic? Or perhaps those who do read Yoder find this man of bloodshed difficult to read? I have heard the "jar of clay" defence, which is a sort of riff on "hate the sin, love the sinner" except this time "hate the sin, read the sinner's work". Though not at all what Paul is talking about in 2 Corinthians, this may be a good way approaching the issue. Virtue does not always accompany the virtuoso. And who, after all, can cast the first stone? That may leave some people deeply unsatisfied, however. A forgiveness that amounts to business as usual appears to mock the victims by benefiting the vicious.  David's words are sung with gusto and piety; David's prey are forgotten, or used as pawns to illustrate the nature of a flawed genius. At present, I am not sure if I am one of the "unsatisfieds" number.

Criticising the Critics

The Invention of the Biblical Scholar by Stephen Moore and Yvonne Sherwood makes for tremendously fun reading. It is a critique of biblical criticism from within the world of biblical criticism, so it is informed and self-deprecating, pulling no critical punches. Here is a good example:

...our quarantining of the biblical-critical from the homiletical has not occurred without cost. Most obviously, our obsession with method has made for a mountainous excess of dull and dreary books, essays, and articles: here, first, in numbing dry detail is my method; now watch and be amazed while I apply it woodenly to this unsuspecting biblical text.

I would love to read a similar book, written instead from within the world of theology. Does any such book exist?

First and Foremost

This sentence uttered in Barack Obama's Thanksgiving speech demonstrates that the work of Stanley Hauerwas cannot be ignored by Christians. It is a sentence (and a sentiment) that Hauerwas has challenged throughout his life as a theological ethicist:

This tradition reminds us that no matter what our background or beliefs, no matter who we are or who we love, at our core we are first and foremost Americans.

The Hunger Games

That post-film analysis involved an analogy with the Dawson-Joey-Pacey love triangle is cause for concern. Indeed if I had to see another conflicted "teenager" steal a kiss I may have been left with no choice but to throw my eye balls at the giant screen in a hopeless act of defiance against "the system". Instead, I left the cinema feeling that most strangest of things: satisfaction.

Perhaps the "difficult" films I watched in the last week set me up nicely for a good ol' adventure. Nicholas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives was, as the title suggests, unmerciful. I had to look away from something that is supposed to be looked at more often than I'd like. Shane Carruth - dubbed by Peter Bradshaw as "the materialist Terrence Malick" - also released an unmerciful film this year - Upstream Color - though it is unmerciful for different reasons. In short, I would struggle to muster up the will to watch either film again. Not so with Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

Not since Princesas Rojas have I been as caught up in a story. It is surely no coincidence that both films are centred on a female character embedded in a revolution. Throw in a lazy, smart-mouthed, barely-sober Woody Harrelson - or, just Woody Harrelson - a dastardly Donald Sutherland and the considerable talents of Stanley Tucci and Philip Seymour Hoffman (who can even make a Mission Impossible film look good) and you have a recipe for success. And in front of this backdrop of veterans there are the youngsters, led by the effortlessly charming Jennifer Lawrence.

The film is nearly two and a half hours long, and still I was sorry to see it end. It left me satisfied, but also eager for the final part...which of course has been split up into two films in order to increase profits do justice to the novel. I'm not sure what Harry Potter fans think, but I thought the first part of the final film was dreadfully boring and therefore unnecessary. But then it is the only Harry Potter film that I've seen, so I'm not exactly a qualified judge on the matter. Oh, and I haven't read the books either [watches credibility vanish away...].

Anyway, this is a good film. It's stellar ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic don't lie. I was pleasantly surprised by the first film. I was engrossed by the second. I am now perfectly primed for disappointment, and so are you.

Critiquing Hauerwas

In a provocative essay that is a response to Richard Hays, Stanley Hauerwas addresses Hays's suggestion that Hauerwas's "hermeneutical position" requires him to become a Roman Catholic. This is a perfectly reasonable suggestion for anyone who has read Unleashing the Scriptures to make. In response, Hauerwas says that he cannot become a Roman Catholic because "that would mean that I would belong to a church that holds positions on major ethical issues such as war and the role of women that are at odds with my commitment to Christian nonviolence and my support of the ordination of women."

With such a response Hauerwas falls on his own sword, so to speak. Can I only belong to a church if that church is committed to nonviolence? Surely that leaves me with little choice but to join a Quaker meeting house. What's more, in Unleashing the Scriptures Hauerwas is firm in his conviction that the church is the only community in which the Bible can be read rightly. If nonviolence is so central to Hauerwas's faith that he will not join a church that is not committed to it, then one has to wonder what church Hauerwas is talking about when he talks about the church being the place where Scripture is rightly read. Clearly he cannot be talking about the majority of churches in the history of Christianity, which have not read the Bible in such a way that makes nonviolence necessary, and have thus not read the Bible rightly.

All of this leaves Hauerwas to be a "high church Mennonite" - a humorous moniker that exposes a flaw in Hauerwas's theology - it leaves one to be a member of a church that doesn't exist, an invisible church that always lives up to my own commitments and positions. Of course in a place like America, or Europe's version of America, Northern Ireland, there is a decent chance of finding a local church that lives up to our ideals. Or if not, we can start one. Or just go to an Ikon event every 3 months. But I think that is to miss the point of church.

I grew up in a church that had nothing to say about Christian nonviolence, and that ordained neither men nor women! It was, quite simply, the church I was given. Hauerwas's response to Hays would be far more in line with his own "commitments" if he said that he was not a Catholic because that is not the particular community he was given. The problems arise when we bring choice into the equation. Arranged church membership, anyone?

Hannah Arendt

I watched a film about Hannah Arendt, called Hannah Arendt. (Head of the Film-Naming Committee for the project: "So I guess that means we're breaking early for lunch, then...?") It is an apologia for a philosopher who wrote something that caused many of her friends and peers to turn their backs on her. Indeed the central quote of the film comes from Heidegger: "Thinking is a lonely business." Yet if there is a moral to the story, it is that thinking is the sine qua non of morality itself. Eichmann's evil, according to Arendt, is to be located in his failure to think and thus his abdication of his humanness.

A film about a philosopher - or, more precisely, about a philosopher's dangerous idea - treads on thin ice. We read books in order to engage with philosophical ideas. We watch films in order to engage with a story. Narrative and philosophy are not inherently opposed, however. Far from it, as another disciple of Heidegger, Terrence Malick, continues to show us. Yet narrative depictions of "ideas" often make for poor narratives and poor ideas. Hannah Arendt successfully avoids this pitfall by placing everything within the context of friendship. If there is another central quote in the film it is this:

I’ve never loved any people. Why should I love the Jews? I only love my friends. That’s the only love I’m capable of.

Arendt is accused during the film of being all cleverness and no feeling. It is this accusation that the film intends to challenge. Arendt is portrayed as being a deeply emotional being, yet she refuses to separate the act of thinking from the act of feeling. By the end of the story it is easy to be convinced that this is a noble, if not easy, refusal.

The Whole

The is a wonderful idiom that I have only heard during football analysis - it speaks of "the whole being greater than the sum of its parts." This captures the essence of what the word "team" or "community" is all about. It is about the collective, to such an extent that the individual parts can no longer be understood if divorced from the whole. This is a glorious truth that "competitions" such as the Ballon d'Or are intent on destroying.

For those who have the fortune of being unaware of the Ballon d'Or, it is an award given to an individual player in football who is thought to be "the best" in a given year. Votes from coaches, captains, and journalists are totted up in what is at best a quasi-democratic system. But it is not the voting system I have a problem with. It is the very concept of the thing, which is little more than a marketing ploy that corrupts the imaginations of young children all over the world, and sparks interminable debates among grown-ups who still think like children. I, regretfully, have been among their number.

To illustrate the corrupting power of this absurd competition, there was an argument put forward a few years ago that said that "Messi is only as good as he looks because he plays with Xav and Iniesta." In other words, the collaboration between Messi, Xavi, and Iniesta is something of a disguise. The "true" Messi is the one that is in complete isolation from his team. Or to put the matter more generally, the real worth of a player can only measured when he is seen as a lone individual. It should go without saying - though unfortunately it doesn't - that such a notion is detrimental to the sport of football.

The competition also produces other absurdities. For example, Messi's most "successful" individual seasons have produced Barcelona's least successful seasons in recent years. This, I dare say, is not a coincidence. It is what happens when an individual transcends a collective. The part - by some made-up criteria - may improve, but the team diminishes. The moment it became clear that Messi was not reliant on Xavi and Iniesta for his greatness was also the moment that Barcelona ceased to be a great team. That Messi was never able to reproduce his form for Argentina should never have been a stick with which to beat him. It should have made us realise that it is the team is what matters, and that the most talented players are at their best when their part functions in a whole.

Of course, when the whole is ignored then it is the individual components that matter the most. But that goes against the ethos of a team sport. Moreover, it usually means that you don't win anything. The days of the lone individual dragging his team to victory are gone, if they ever existed at all. At the highest level, the sum of parts that is greater than the whole will lose to the whole that is greater than the some of its parts. Atletico Madrid's recent victories over Real Madrid are examples of this truth.

One final problem with the Ballon d'Or is the criteria employed. Is it goals that matter? If so, then surely Van Nistelrooy should have been a Ballon d'Or winner in 2003. Is it trophies? Then surely one of Inter's players should have won it in 2010. Is it the level of excitement a player causes when he has the ball at his feet? Then how did Cannavaro win it in 2006? The competition is rife with inconsistency.

The Barcelona of 2009-2012 will go down in history as one of the best teams ever to play the sport. Pedro was a vital component of that team. He was never shortlisted for the Ballon d'Or (as far as I'm aware). He certainly never finished above Ronaldo. Yet it is more than arguable to suggest that Barcelona would have been an inferior team if they had Ronaldo instead of Pedro. The sum of their parts would have been greater, perhaps, but the whole would have been lessened. Pedro's tactical discipline, his pressing, his movement, and his defensive diligence were what was required of him. In no universe is Pedro considered a "better" player than Ronaldo, but that just shows you the unreasonableness of judging individuals as isolated individuals.

The only individuals who should be judged as individuals in football are the managers. It is their responsibility to create a team, to form a whole that transcends its parts. That few accomplish this is a great shame.


* If you care to read a much more reasoned defence of this position, take a look at a Jonathan Wilson article from the beginning of this year, from which I have stolen most of my thoughts.

Fallibly Infallible

The following two quotations appear in the same document (The Interpretation of Dogma, penned by the wonderfully titled The International Theological Commission), so they can obviously peacefully co-exist. I am unsure exactly how that is the case, however, so if someone could tell me that would be great!

...the Church condemns anyone who sets that meaning aside under the pretext and in the name of superior knowledge or because of advances in science, or because of some alleged more profound interpretation of the existing formula, or a refinement in the scientific approach to the matter (DS 3020, 3043). Such an irreversible stance and the denial of the possibility of fundamental change is implied in the doctrine of the infallibility of the Church as guided by the Holy Spirit, with particular reference to the role of the Pope in matters of faith and morals (DS 3074). This is based on the fact that the Church, through the Holy Spirit, shares in Gods truthfulness, which cannot deceive us any more than it can be self-deceptive in God himself ("qui nee falli nec fallere potest", DS 3008).

The Church is holy, but at the same time a Church of sinners, and for that reason human traditions can slip in which diminish the one apostolic tradition in the case where the nucleus is violated by a certain exaggeration of certain aspects. And that is why the Church always feels the need for purification, penance and renewal with regard to the traditions in her (LG 8). The criteria for judging such a "discernment of spirits" flow from the very nature of Tradition.