Rant On Proposition 8

At the same time as the presidential election, the state of California voted on Proposition 8 – whether or not to amend the state constitution by adding, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.” Doing so passed.

Now I recognize that this issue is quite contentious in my native Christian circles. The widely-respected Focus on the Family, (though even writing the name makes me cringe) using language like states being “vulnerable to pro-homosexual forces” and warning us that “the Senate in 1996 came within a single vote of passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would have wreaked havoc on American culture. This legislation would have made sexual orientation a protected class equivalent to racial minorities under federal civil rights laws.” That made me feel quite enraged, Mr. Dobson, if that’s what you want, but somehow not at the “homosexual activists”.

This reddit comment made a better point, but still not quite where I would place my views:

I am an evangelical Christian … Personally, I do believe that the practice of homosexuality is morally wrong. I also believe most abortions are wrong. At the same time, I do not believe that it is the government’s prerogative to legislate on these matters except insofar as there are scientific or otherwise objective (i.e. not moral or religious) grounds for said legislation. If demonstrable harm to society results from a certain practice, generally that’s a good reason to restrict or outlaw it. Until that is shown, however, I will not speak against the government recognizing civil unions between people regardless of what I believe the moral status of that union is. Marriage is indeed a religious institution and I believe that the government’s choice to recognize that institution as having civil ramifications is a good one. Who am I, and for that matter, who are religious organizations in general, to say that the government cannot or should not also recognize other unions in the same way?

However, I question this person’s assumptions that (1) the government acts, or ought to act objectively, and (2) the domain of religious organizations stops where government begins.

Rather, some observations:

• There are many generally accepted laws that fall short of enforcing Christian “values”. For instance, it is not illegal to conceive a child out of wedlock, although most Christians I know would say doing so is immoral.
• There is no one set of “values” that all Christians hold. For instance, according to the Pew Forum, even on the hot-button issue of abortion, 24% of evangelicals say abortion should be “legal in most cases”.
• I wish to challenge the concept of “values” altogether. I would define such as moral conclusions. Would not the route taken be of more interest? I also have a huge amount of pent-up distaste at groups such as those lead by Dobson, which use the concept to make it morally unacceptable to disagree.

I thus am not afraid to say I would have voted against Proposition 8, had I been a Californian.

My original train of thought would be that marraige ought to lie outside the state’s domain. However, there are things that only the state can provide that are beneficial to married life, such as visitation rights in hospitals.

Rather, I think that since the state needs to get involved, it ought not to care who marries. I pay taxes, regardless of whether I am Christian, Muslim or Hindu. I am allowed to use the roads, regardless of my gender or sexual orientation. In the same vein, if the marriage must be a state “service” (for lack of better word), it ought to be disinterested in who I am.

Also, I see no pragmatic reason the state should care. I don’t feel allowing homosexuals to marry would endanger marriage at all, especially in light that divorce is legal and common, even in evangelical circles, (13% are divorced, not including those who have remarried, according to the Pew Forum) which is by all accounts, incredibly destructive. Should I ever get married, (cue Ryan: ha ha-ha ha) I would find divorce much more “devaluing” (if indeed I was to care) than allowing a gay person to visit their partner when they are about to die.

Perhaps if people wanted something worthwhile to complain about, officially changing the spelling of “marriage” would help a lot more.

Something that annoyed me today

Over near where I live, there has been a national news story about a missing 15-year-old named Brandon Crisp. Apparently he ran away after a spat about his Xbox, which caused Microsoft to post reward money for his whereabouts. Despite very thorough searching, he managed to elude discovery. (though apparently unintentionally) The public around here has been very involved with the story.

Anyhow, today he was found dead. This has been given great weight in news coverage, and it disturbed many people considerably after it was told at school. There seems to be a sense of great tragedy attached to this whole incident, especially now as it has ended, in the words of the media, “in the worst way possible.”

In nearly unrelated news, about a month ago, buried among the rest of the inane and asinine States election coverage was this – where now President-elect Obama promised that “we will kill Bin Laden” during one of the debates, designed to woo voters.

So my question now is, what should make one person’s death such a tragedy as to make people related only by proximity tear up, while another’s would be celebrated?

I think that we have a perception that a runaway teenager is innocent, and victimized by their own poor decisions or context; on the other hand, we see bin-Laden as deserving of death because he is a terrorist.

As badly as this may come across, I do not think that this distinction is justified. Bin Laden, no matter what he may have orchestrated, isn’t any more deserving of death than someone perceived as an young, innocent victim of circumstance.

However, if there are any news stories at all about communities in mourning over bin Laden’s death, if he is caught and inevitably then executed, I shall be surprised to the utmost.

On Writing, Speech, and Meaning

I have been reading some articles on the relation of writing and speech of late. One concept seemed especially interesting/relevant.

• “arbitrariness of the sign” and arche-writing: written words don’t necessarily reference anything. If we try to trace what words mean, we need to use other words, so we never arrive at a definitive referent to a word. On a deeper level, this concerns the fundamental disconnect between subjective experiences in different subjects. This is discussed mostly by Derrida.

However, I find this doesn’t apply to speech. When speech is used, there is no concern that words have no referent, as the context of speech is always accessible, as it is imminent. If I am speaking, I can if necessary, produce physical examples of what I am talking about, if appropriate, and resolve ambiguities of that kind. I am accessible for my audience to ask me questions and clarify what I am talking about.

I see this happens because there is an overlap of context for the speaker and audience. The speaker is bringing their unique subjective experience, and communicating it into the context that the speaker and audience share. This doesn’t happen in writing because the audience’s exact context is inaccessible for the author, as the work can be given to groups with no relation to the text’s original intended audience.

So then it can be said that the relationship of the speaker and audience, by sharing their immediate context (at the very least), is what guarantees meaning to the words spoken.

I believe this can be exploited in literary interpretation to guarantee its meaning also, and I see this as already being done. By understanding the author’s context, the relationship established by such is re-established, is brought back alive, and meaning is given to the otherwise arbitrary, unresolvable symbols of writing.

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In a broader sense, I am seeing that:

• Subjectivity brings isolation
• For there to be meaning, this isolation must be defeated.
• Thus, subjectivity needs to die.
• This is not possible because (1) the subjective can’t just go away, and (2) we can only interface with the world through senses, which are inherently subjective.
• Another solution is to merge the subjectives of multiple people.
• It is thus in this sort of relationship that meaning is derived.

I have also found the two senses of ‘meaning’ to be very related:

• Meaning as in a referent to text in reality
• Meaning as in rationale for life (referent to metanarrative of reality)

This is evident especially in fields like Biblical hermeneutics, as such texts seek to explain the metanarrative while being texts themselves.

On Truth

At the most basic level, I think truth describes how a statement relates to reality. This has the basic assumption that reality can be known somehow, as the concept of truth is unnecessary and worthless otherwise. However, it is just as evident that reality is a difficult thing to grasp. Kant noticed that the “thing-in-itself” isn’t accessible to us except through our senses, and I am inclined to agree with him. This makes discerning what is true or not with the preceding definition rather difficult, as we can’t even know if our senses correspond at all to reality. Again, I assume that our senses are at least somewhat accurate, as a concept of truth is meaningless otherwise.

There are different senses of the word “truth”. I am less concerned here with logical truth as that which relates to belief. Asserting “Socrates is a man” may have a truth-value, but likely doesn’t concern anyone’s belief system much. These are related closely, but logical truth concerns epistemology, not my focus here of religion-type belief.

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I would like to propose that these sort of truths can be classified into two categories, depending on whether they can be verified personally or not. For instance, I can verify, to a reasonable degree, “All people die”, even without much effort. If I was a bit more evil, I could make even more certain. However, it is impossible to verify a statement like “there is an afterlife”, and still be able to contribute to the literature.

I would also propose that statements of religious truth come in coherent systems, rather than being scattered all over reality. It is rather useless if I hold, as a fundamental truth, “the sky is blue”, unless I believe other things that pertain, for instance, to the origin or nature of the sky which makes it so; truth isn’t valuable except as part of this sort of system. Such a thing has been called a ‘world-view’.

Because isolated truths aren’t worthwhile, truths are considered together in these world-views. Religions are comprised of coherent world-views containing many co-dependant truth-claims. While it is possible to adopt for oneself only part of one of these, any religion wanting to convince anyone of its truth-claims must show that it is thoroughly true, with both its verifiable and non-verifiable parts.

For instance, I don’t believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Before I would accept the FSM’s truth-claim that the Flying Spaghetti Monster created the world, which is non-verifiable, I would need a good reason as to how the Flying Spaghetti Monster predated the invention of spaghetti. Because I am unconvinced when I can verify its truth-claim, I find no reason to believe it about that which I cannot be certain of.

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The most applicable application(!) of this for me is Christianity. Christianity makes a number of truth-claims, often what I feel is too many, and believing that Christian truth is worthwhile and beneficial for everyone, I would like to see a Christian truth-claim that is convincing.

However, I think my own argument needs to be undermined when discussing Christian truth. I would like to argue the (admittedly speculative) point that Christians can’t claim truth in these sense at all.

Claiming that one has ‘the truth’ is incredibly strong, and I firstly don’t think anyone can say this rightfully, and secondly think it more of a claim to superiority. I see it as an assertion my judgment is innately superior than yours, as you have chosen wrongly whereas I have not. Whatever I experienced to arrive at my conclusion is more important than however you got to yours.

I believe such claims can rather only rightfully be made by God himself.

One could object that since we have the Bible, given by God, we have The Truth accessible. However, the vast majority of the Bible is not so suitable as a book for quoting The Truth out of – the Bible is not a list of true statements, rules, or anything of the sort. Rather, it is a narrative, both in content and in overarching themes. This article by N.T. Wright (which deals with the related issue of Biblical authority, and is a very good read), put it nicely:

… How, for instance, can the book of Judges, or the book of Acts, be authoritative? It is one thing to go to your commanding officer first thing in the morning and have a string of commands barked at you. But what would you do if, instead, he began ‘Once upon a time…’?

I think God, by doing this, is rather relating his experience (if God has something of that sort), that of reality, to us. The truth is God’s, he alone can understand it, and he alone can give any comprehension of it. And going even further, I don’t think we can say truth even exists independent of relationship with God.

Therefore, I don’t think we can say to ourselves, or anyone else, that “I have the truth from God”. Rather, I think we ought to point people to relationship with God to find what knowledge of his truth he gives. However, this is not to say that other people can’t help one listen or interpret it.

Reflections on Sacrament

Today was Communion once a gain at church; I recently gained the privilege of participating in such.

In my readings of Catholic theologians in my look at Catholicism and RO, sacrament has a meaning for me perhaps beyond that mentioned in the Christian Reformed forms – sacrament is the place where the physical and transcendent are intermingled.

This mirrors the balance in the place of the church. The church gathers for things like prayer and sermons and Bible study, but needs also to be involved in meeting the physical needs of its surrounding community and elsewhere. With too much emphasis on either side, the church becomes warped.

And this, in turn, is like the peculiar makeup of human beings themselves, a mixture of transcendent and physical.

Thus, sacraments, especially Communion, emphasize the odd tensions in all of these. Communion is a remembrance of Christ’s death, a way of tangibly experiencing him physically, while he is in a transcendent place. It is an expression of union and solidarity with the church of all times in all places, as one Body of Christ that together celebrates the Sacrament. It also expresses the bond between people, as exists in both planes. It fulfills the participant’s inner need by being a very human activity, existing in both planes.

Quite interesting.

CRC Synod 2008: Agenda Part 2

This post is part of a summary of the Agenda. If you want to see what I have written about what has actually happened at Synod this week, please see the front page of this blog. I will keep these summaries updated throughout the week. The official CRCNA Synod page is here.

I finally finished reading the rest of the Agenda for Synod 2008, and here are my highlights: (not that the material left out is unimportant):

The Candidacy [for ministry] Committee examined the issue of the status of ministry associates. It was their understanding that being a ministry associate does not automatically allow one to preach, [167]  but is determined by the mandate of the position the MA fills. Synod 2007 decided that MAs can be called as solo pastors given that “economic need” is present and the other relevant Church Order articles could not be followed. [170] The Candidacy Commitee recommends dropping the “economic need” clause, [171] and adopting a guideline to give a standard for whether it is appropriate to call a MA. [171]

The Contemporary Testimony revision seems excellent. They revised the report to avoid cliches and keep the wording meaningful, also responding to new issues in our changed contemporary situation. Scriptural references are listed at the bottom with explanatory sentences rather than footnotes in the text, which turns out to be very nice. As they changed some of the thematic developments, the report discourages word-for-word comparison with the 1986 version. [211] I don’t have the patience to study the whole document, but it reads well and is clear and relevant, as is its goal.

The Faith Formation Comittee had in its mandate two issues of most interest: children’s communion and infant dedication. Children’s communion is studied intensively, but no recommendations are stated for this year; they plan to end up producing thorough documents about this. [241] They plan to organize communication about topics in this area: putting together a web site, sending discussion points to councils, and organizing representative correspondents. [239-240] They put forth an interesting recommendation that Synod hold a discussion about these matters in the form of a luncheon. [241]

There were a few overtures concerning the new hymnal, slated for release in 2013. Overtures 6 and 7 deal with some proposal not to include the confessions in the hymnal; I didn’t see anything about this (perhaps I just missed it). Overture 8 wishes to ensure there is a seperate Psalm section in the hymnal, as in all previous. I think this issue has sides that are about balanced – having a seperate Psalm section reinforces the importance of singing the Psalms, however it also makes them harder to find, discouraging their use.

Overture 9 asks Synod to establish an “Environmental Policy Task Force”, to write up a list of guidelines for those that wish to live environmentally responsibly. I would have thought this should fall outside of Synod’s juristiction, however it is painfully obvious even at my own church this is needed, as people do not all see environmental responsibility as the important moral issue that it is. I strongly urge Synod to adopt the recommendation in this overture.

If I forgot anything important, be sure to let me know!

Suburban Ministry, Part 2 – Stuck In A Little Box

I decided to go on a trek into the local subdivision to see what I may. I went on foot, an increasingly unpopular means of transportation.

In about two hours there, I saw maybe ten people. Perhaps this is because of it being a Sunday afternoon, but I find their ability to hide more than a little impressive.

I noticed there were there churches in the area; all were evangelical and of some size. Two were right beside each other. The other was a five-minute drive away, with no sidewalk leading to it. How is that for fostering a sense of Christian unity? Last time I checked, a car ride is just inviting meeting new people. (sarcasm intended).

But I see what the first issue is. Somehow all these people need to be convinced to get out of their little boxes.

Forget me nots and second thoughts
Live in isolation
Heads or tails and fairytales in my mind
Are we, we are,
Are we, we are the waiting unknown
The rage and love,
The story of my life
The Jesus of Suburbia is a lie.

–Green Day, Are We the Waiting

Très Riches Heures – Job Mocked By His Friends

Hunting around for some examples of Gothic art (inspired by James Smith’s post about why he loves Gothic architecture), I stumbled upon the incredibly beautiful Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (the Very Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry for those who don’t speak French). I have used the pictures of the crucifixion and resurrection in previous posts; but I would like to post one of my favourite pictures in there (many of the other stunning pictures are on Wikimedia Commons).

This entire piece is one great work of contrast. Foremost, Job is naked and half-buried in mud, whereas his friends are richly robed. The house behind Job is made of mud and falling apart, but right beside it is a castle, complete with moat (and curiously a fence that is partially knocked down). In the frame, there are skeletons, and smaller pictures of a grave-digging and a funeral processon, but the frame itself is intact and finely detailed.

But notice also that the “tone” of the picture is not extremely somber, like it seems the subject matter demands. The very bright colours, and especially the bright and clear sky in all the pictures, gives a vivid contrast to the pit of despair that Job is in.

But to me this is where the illustrator “hides” his message. It exposes the disconnect between circumstance and the hope we know we have. In both Job’s situation and in ours, despair is met with and is even present in despair.

Isaiah on Easter

How beautiful upon the mountains
are the feet of him who brings good news,
who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness,
who publishes salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.”

At Easter we celebrate the coming of this messenger. For the women visiting the grave, this was the angels by the tomb. For the disciples, this was the women. For the people, it was the disciples. For us, this is the written Gospel.

For great indeed is this news. There is peace between God and mankind, we are set free from the condemnation of death – our salvation is made real. For today the God of Zion has shown that he reigns over death. And on this day it becomes ours!

The voice of your watchmen – they lift up their voice;
together they sing for joy;
for eye to eye they see
the return of the LORD to Zion.

When Solomon built the first temple, when the Ark of the Covenant was brought inside, “a cloud filled the house of the LORD, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD.” (1 Ki 8:10-11 ESV)

In Ezekiel 10, Ezekiel sees this glory of the LORD leave the temple in a vision because of the idolatry of the people. In a later vision, that of the perfect temple and land, he came again to his residence in his city – “And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was coming from the east. And the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters, and the earth shone with his glory.” (Ez 43:2 ESV)

The glory of the LORD has taken up his residence now inside the temple of each of our hearts. This we can see firsthand in ourselves, as watchpersons, “eye to eye”. The Easter event facilitated the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost; the Spirit, at our conversion and throughout our Christian lives, orchestrates the “dying away of the old self” and the “coming to life of the new”. (Heidelberg Catechism QA 88) In this way the Easter event is yet ongoing inside each of us.

Break forth together into singing,
you waste places of Jerusalem,
for the LORD has comforted his people;
he has redeemed Jerusalem.
The LORD has bared his holy arm
before the eyes of all the nations,
and all the ends of the earth shall see
the salvation of our God.

In the resurrection of Christ and the hearts of his chosen, the LORD shows his power. The LORD showed again the “mighty hand and outstretched arm” (cf. Dt 26:8) with which he brought the people out of Egypt with; he showed his power now over the evil and death which are intrinsic to our world. For his power reached even the “waste places”, where this evil and death is seen the most. Are we not “waste places” also? Then may we “break forth together into singing”, be driven to praise, because of the peace and redemption the LORD has brought to us troubled people. And may we be the examples of “the salvation of our God” which “the ends of the earth shall see”.

Depart, depart, go out from there;
touch no unclean thing;
go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves,
you who bear the vessels of the LORD.
For you shall not go out in haste,
and you shall not go in flight,
for the LORD will go before you,
and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.

(Is 52:7-12 ESV)

This passage alludes to the (then yet to come) return of the people and vessels to Jerusalem from exile. The Persian king Cyrus told the people to return and rebuild the temple, giving them back the vessels (cups, bowls, and such) used in the temple. (Ez 1) The LORD would facilitate this by protecting his people from harm, as a guard.

Yet God brought his people back from a greater exile, that of his condemnation, through the resurrection of Christ. Upon his death, the curtain in the temple separating the holiness of an inaccessible God from mankind was torn. (Mt 27:51) This is the great accomplishment of Easter. He still protects us by remaining near us (and in us), that we may not have fear.

And in the journey back from this exile, we carry the vessels of our bodies, as our instruments of worship. May they be used as such therefore, in special Easter praise, and in showing through ourselves always how great the good news we have received is.

Emerging Church Case Study: Evergreen Community, Portland

I have attempted to research the movement known as the emerging church. This movement seeks to create a church that is relevant and engaging in our postmodern society, eschewing the traditional paradigms of what a church is. In my searches, I found an example of such church in Portland. It is called the Evergreen Community.

Like most churches, they meet every Sunday morning. Unlike many churches (some of which might be horrified at this concept), they meet in a pub. They explain that this location is indeed central to their mission:(link)

Why do you meet in a pub? Well, it’s pretty cheap :) Honestly, our desire was to do our worship gatherings in a place that was both affordable and that fit with our philosophy of involvement in the life of the city of Portland. Also, being accessible to those we are trying to integrate into our community was pretty high on the list… And the pub does all that. It really breaks down barriers for people who wouldn’t think about walking into a more traditional church building. It has the added benefit of tending to keep away those who probably wouldn’t fit with our community anyway and might feel more at home in a more “traditional” community.

They describe what typically goes on therein:

A welcome by someone wherein we talk about an aspect of the community- one of our core values or something we are trying to do or be.

We’ll have a few moments of quiet, centering prayer… often accompanied by a reading (usually the whole group, in unison) of a Psalm.

After that, the fun begins…

We generally work through books of the Bible, but occasionally spend some time focusing on different topics. But even when we’re covering a topic, we tend to base it on a section of Scripture- we tend to work verse by verse through the whole passage.

And we talk a lot. For us, the sermon is (at least this is the ideal) the work of the community. We are teaching each other. Whoever is leading that morning still has a role in keeping things on track, doing the majority of the talking, but we do our darndest to get others talking to each other as well. In this way, as a community, we wrestle with the Scriptures.

We prefer this dialogical approach over the more traditional monologue of one person speaking sermons and feel it helps people learn and stay involved better.

However, they emphasize that their Sunday worship is definitely not the extent of their church. They have a set of core values listed, which make their priorities clear. If I can attempt to summarize these:

1.  Mission – The church is set up to be a mission to others – “we are here for the church which is here for the world”.
2. Justice – “The Evergreen Community aims to be a group of people who honor God the way that He wants to be honored, not necessarily in the way that is most comfortable or convenient for us. And that means actually doing something for the poor, because that’s what God wants, even if it pulls us far outside of our comfort zones.”
3. Community – The church “experience” is to move in a progression. Only at the beginning are we to be necessarily concerned with whether the church is something for us; it is imperative that progress beyond that to being something for other people.
4. Hope – “Drawing a picture for those we meet of who they could be, of the person God created them to be… and rather than pushing them towards that out of guilt or obligation, pulling them towards it out a sense of love and hope.”
5. History – “We also want to see ourselves not as a disconnected community, but as a group of people who stand in the stream of something much larger than ourselves: the Church down through history. As a result, we want to look back to that history and draw inspiration, resources and role models from it, while recognizing that we aren’t necessarily bound by it.”

And their community is fostered by their smaller size (I think about 130 people). They reflect this attitude like this:

Will you become a mega church and sell out? Our vision from the beginning has been to remain small as a community but grow through multiplication. Our goal is not to build one large church dynasty because it becomes impossible to remain personal and non-programmatic. Therefore, we seek to remain small enough as a community to where we can know and take care of one another, but at the same time we seek to grow through continually starting new communities where more people can gather and seek to love and serve each other and the neighborhood in which we meet and live.

The Emerging Church is something that interests me greatly; I shall in this too continue my research.