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Doubt Suspended in Confidence

Season seven, episode seven of the Fox series Bones features a nine-month pregnant Dr. Temperance Brennan wading through a crowded fight in the cafeteria of a men’s prison without a care in the world. Her anxious partner, Booth, begs her to have some sense and not over-exert herself, but she casually states that hurting a child is one of the biggest prison taboos, and carries on. And she is right; the prisoners catch sight of her immense belly and fall over themselves to get out of her way. Her path is miraculously cleared in the midst of tackling bodies, headlocks, and thrown punches. She is aware of something cognitively and she fearlessly applies it to her physical life without a second thought. She is confident in her own mind.

tenetsI hoard my favorite quotes in notebooks and look over them periodically like a miser counting gemstones. Several oft-read quotes are pulled from Nietzsche’s The Gay Science. At the risk of being thought delusional, I in all honesty find that Nietzsche, “God is dead” Nietzsche, provides me with as much affirmation in my faith as any Christian writer ever has, if not more. Particularly these lines: “When we hear the news that ‘the old god is dead,’ as if a new dawn shone on us; our heart overflows with gratitude, amazement, premonitions, expectation. At long last the horizon appears free to us again, even if it should not be bright; at long last our ships may venture out again, venture out to face any danger; all the daring of the lover of knowledge is permitted again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has never yet been such an ‘open sea.’” Let me explain. I enter the crowded fight between Nietzsche and God with the knowledge that God is not dead, not anymore. And the crowd parts before me. “The old god is dead,” yes, and the new God has risen, and a new dawn shines on us. We can venture out without fear of sin. We can grow in our knowledge, knowing that the open sea of God’s forgiveness lies before us. Few things I have read have given me more hope. Of course, I am blatantly projecting my own personal beliefs and convictions upon the undoubtedly unwilling Nietzsche. I am being rude, perhaps; I am blaspheming, even. I have a habit of gathering hope from typically barren places such as this. Is it a unique and valuable form of faith, or am I over-confident and foolish? In the wise words of our own Houghton alumnus Gordon Brown, “Bad self-esteem and inflated self-esteem are two sides of the same coin.”

In season eight, episode ten of Bones, Dr. Brennan enters a ballroom dancing competition while undercover with Booth. She has never danced before, but she observes the other dancers and says with the same assuredness as before that she can translate the same movements that they make to the corresponding parts of her own body. She then proceeds to do so… and is dreadful. She believes that she is mimicking their motions exactly, but she does not have the practice that they have, and in actuality has no idea what she herself looks like in action. This kind of misguided confidence is seen all too often in the efforts of various evangelizers. The desire to appear infallible and have all the answers repeatedly overwhelms the real need for earnest seeking and authenticity. There is a delicate balance here. My fiancé Andy Nelson writes, “We should question our faith. We should express our views with humility. But we should not adopt a state of constant uncertainty and doubt.” Too much, honesty is replaced by bravado; but just as much, assertiveness is degraded by a kind of shrugging denial of confidence. Neither approach is effective in excess.

There is a poem by Denise Levertov titled “Suspended” that reads, “The ‘everlasting arms’ my sister loved to remember/ Must have upheld my leaden weight/ From falling, even so,/ For though I claw at empty air and feel/ Nothing, no embrace,/ I have not plummeted.” Whether or not complete confidence in every aspect of faith is possible, certainly I can be confident in the fact that I am suspended, that I float on the level with the core tenets of my Christian faith. While some value doubt and others value confidence, each cannot exist without the other. Faith, more than anything else, is a satisfaction in the self. If I, like Dr. Brennan, have confidence in my own mind, then I can feel free to doubt and question, to test my boundaries, to move fearlessly. After all, I have not plummeted.

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A Case for Chocolate and Coffee

It doesn’t matter how much faith you have or for how long you’ve been around Christian community. There is hardly anything that makes you feel more uncomfortable and thrown aback than a stranger or a mere acquaintance coming up to you and asking, “Do you love God?”

Chocolate and CoffeeI realize that the uniquely warm and Christian environment of Houghton may give us the wrong impression that this is a completely normal small talk topic to demonstrate our love for one another; we call this sort of thing relating to our “brothers and sisters in Christ.” Here’s the catch though: siblings, even the kind in Christ, are generally not classified as strangers or acquaintances. Asking these sorts of questions among friends is one thing, but can any of us honestly say that we’d appreciate it if a stranger approached and asked, “Do you love your girlfriend?”, or “How’s your relationship with your boyfriend?” Sometimes I don’t even like my best friends asking me that, because I often don’t know whether what I feel is really love or something else! I mean, at times, my spiritual life feels like a long distance relationship with a girlfriend from another planet; I am told to write letters and leave voice mails but never get a direct reply. What makes it even harder is, I am supposed to believe that my partner still loves me much more than I could ever love her, because her holy ghostwriter said so in letters to strangers from thousands of years ago. So please ask yourself: “Do I love God? Is my spiritual life filled with love?” Now, can you really answer a resounding Yes to those questions? If you can’t, why would you ask a stranger?; or if you can, what are you trying to accomplish by asking a stranger?

My heart only mumbles when I hear those questions. I don’t know how to love God, at least the way the Church says I should. There are too many unanswered questions. I want to love my creator, and I desire to have a longing for Him, yet I do not think this means that I must become an unthinking disciple of culturally discordant Biblical statements. One of the Church issues I can’t find peace with is whether God really is a homophobic, wrathful condemner. Can a loving God subject a powerless man to an eternal suffering, just because he wants to show kindness, gentleness, meekness, patience, and love to another man until death do them apart? Do Christians have to go against the cultural current? Are the words worldly and secular really antithetic to godly? As we do not dine on the Word of God alone, but also on coffee and chocolate for clarity and energy –and sometimes happiness— isn’t it important for us worldly beings to consume and appreciate our culture alongside our Christian tradition?

I have no doubt the church will have a pamphlet with scripture quotes and simple answers for all the questions I’m asking. But Christians have been adapting to contemporary culture, and reinterpreting and reteaching the Bible since God-knows-when, and I really wish that this time, for once, the Church won’t be caught lagging behind everybody else. Just as we frown and wince at the thought of past days Christians quoting scripture to justify slavery or to oppose women’s rights, fifty years from now –or maybe even sooner– people may feel embarrassed to know that the Church at one point preached against homosexuality.

Way too often, during Christian youth seminars or camps, the keynote speakers preach about Christians setting themselves apart from the world; many of us have fooled ourselves into believing that Christians must stay immune to the effects of changing worldly values. I wish my opinionated 700 words could convey my hopes of bringing the Church and culture together. At the very least, I hope that my writing has made you feel agitated, because then you may be able to tell me what I’m missing. More than anything, though, I hope we all learn to be normal people living in 21st century America and keep our small talks, well, small.

So, reader, how’s the weather today?

 

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To Infinity and Beyond; Religious Plurality and Dialogue

We live in a religiously pluralistic society. We see it in manifested in our own faith tradition with tens of thousands of Christian denominations, and also outside in the realm of world religions, spanning Hinduism and Buddhism in the East, to Islam, Judaism, and beyond. Even in the evangelical Christian milieu of Houghton there is still a reasonably large spectrum of beliefs and experience. For Houghton, as a Christian institution, does this plurality merely represent our extensive mission field? Or does it perhaps provide us with the opportunity to understand our faith—as individuals and a community—more deeply?

monstersPractically speaking, it is necessary that we come to terms with our religious differences, both across the spectrum of Christianity (which we experience on campus) and across the spectrum of religions we see as “others”. Though our respective traditions may be directly opposing one another, faith remains essentially a human trait, something solid to provide a basis for successful interfaith dialogue. But how are we to go about this dialogue?

Last fall in my Judaism class, I read an article by the rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, (known popularly as “The Rav”) which I found to provide solid guidelines for interfaith dialogue. He stipulates that a confrontation (dialogue) between two faith communities is only possible if it is accompanied by a “clear assurance that both parties will enjoy equal rights and full religious freedom.” Additionally, both parties must have an assurance that they will be upheld in high respect, and not dragged through the mud, so to speak, when difficult issues or severe disagreements arise. In other words, if we neglect to provide a safe environment for these discussions, it is inevitable that neither party will come away with anything constructive, rather both sides will probably emerge somewhat insulted or discouraged.

Granted for the majority of us on campus it will be far easier to approach different denominations rather than entirely different religions; engaging a Catholic is quite different than engaging a Hindu, whose vocabulary, beliefs, and traditions are completely foreign for most of us. That being said, it is vitally important that we as a Christian institution strive to engage these very “other” communities. If we continue to avoid interacting with these other faiths, we risk allowing “monsters to grow in the silence,” as Dr. Case said, one of our world religions professors. I would define these “monsters” as our tendency to demonize or vilify any religion that opposes Christianity. This mindset only serves to further the disparity between our respective faith traditions, burning bridges rather than building them.

Thus these conversations should not be taken as opportunities to merely target non-Christians for conversion (or even to convert those outside the perimeters of our preferred denomination). In other words, our mission should not be to proselytize, but to establish relationships. These dialogues and relationships would help to destroy our unwarranted prejudices and misconceptions about other faiths, and aid us in being effective in a world that preaches tolerance. Constructive interfaith dialogue should force both sides to be open minded without requiring either side to sacrifice their beliefs to the other, helping foster conversations and relationships as opposed to mission fields.

This being said, we do have a “missionary mandate” as a Christian institution and church, and when all is said and done, even in these honest dialogues there remains an element of persuasion on each side. While conversion should not be our only aim, it is legitimate, but perhaps it is best pursued in the context of these relationships we establish through dialogue. After all, is our goal merely to increase numbers for the church or is it to welcome new members into the body of Christ? It’s at least my experience that the most successful evangelism is done within the context of real relationships, and when it comes to people of other faiths, we cannot hope for true relationships unless we are willing to engage in open dialogue.

Houghton appears to be heading toward becoming a more welcoming campus when it comes to interfaith matters. Dean Michael Jordan has said that the administration is on-board with increasing the diversity of speakers both in and outside of chapel. He mentioned that the Franciscan friars will be back, along with a couple speakers representing the Catholic and Presbyterian churches in the coming spring semester. This is a step in the right direction, providing the campus an opportunity to learn from and engage faiths that may be foreign to our own. Jordan also said that he is open to, and hopes to welcome, speakers outside of the Christian tradition on campus for panel events and discussions in later semesters. Presented with these opportunities, we have the potential to become a community of believers who are open and willing to engage in dialogue with the religious diversity in our own community and outside it.

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The Passion of Miley Cyrus

Miley

I am very sure that you are tired of hearing people talk about Miley Cyrus.  In the aftermath of the VMAs (the MTV Video Music Awards, a live performance in which Miley twerked on Robin Thicke (for the definition of twerking, please resort to your local Google machine (or not)), there was an outpouring of public response, both Christian and non-Christian.  The Christian responses were comprised mainly of tender claims of tears on Miley’s behalf, praying that she find her true self and cast off her sinful ways.  Her “true self,” they claim, can only be found in her eventual salvation. Blogger Rihanna Teixeira penned “A Letter to Miley Cyrus” that went viral soon after the VMAs.  Teixeira felt “sad” for Miley, expressing concern for her continuing rebellion and encouraging her, “I know that there is something deeper in that little heart of yours and that’s what the world wants to see.”  The prevailing sentiment in Christian reactions has been the poor Miley clearly has no idea what she is doing, she is not being true to herself, and some kind of dark outside force is pressuring her to do the things that she is doing.

But, according to Miley, she has never been more herself than she is now.  In interviews surrounding the release of her upcoming album, Miley has stated numerous times that she finally feels able to express herself artistically.  She told Billboard Magazine, “I want to start as a new artist… I actually found out more about who I am by making this music.”  Like it or not, Miley is not being anything but herself.  It is surprisingly hard news to conceptualize for many.  Miley used to be so innocent and no one can believe that she really turned out this way.  Christians in particular want to believe that if she came to follow Jesus, she would become a different person.

When Saul became Paul, he was in the midst of a Christian-slaying rampage.  He was angry, passionate, and stubborn.  Christians everywhere had heard of his rage and spoke the name Saul with fear.  He was a dangerous person and I am sure they all wished that his craze would cease.  He was quite literally on the warpath when he was stopped in his tracks and spoken to by Jesus, and came to follow Christ.  Thus he became the Paul that we know: prolific, articulate, confident, and, yes, angry, passionate, and stubborn.  Paul, in essence, did not change.  He stopped killing Christians.  But he himself did not change.

Miley Cyrus does not need to be saved.  That is, no more than anyone else.  Her actions may be grandiose, but her motives are no more so than any other average human being.  Saul did not need to be saved any more than anyone else either.  Saul was and Miley is on the same level of metaphysical priority as every other soul.  And I think it is safe to say that if Miley were to start following Jesus tomorrow, she would not change.  She would stop twerking, and posing nude, and singing about drugs, but she herself would not change.  Her personality would remain very much the same.

We were created with unique personalities.  The same characteristics that made Saul a great persecutor also made Paul a great evangelizer.  He believed in himself.  He had strong convictions.  He was convincing and powerful and a hard worker.  Those character traits were an intrinsic part of his self and his personality, and after he began following Jesus, those same traits that caused him to voraciously hunt Christians then caused him to be one of the greatest Christians in history, and the writer of a hefty chunk of the texts on which we base our faith.

Miley’s empire spreads far and wide.  Starting with Hannah Montana and continuing on through Party in the USA, her haircut, twerking, the VMAs, and Wrecking Ball, she has been one of the most talked-about celebrities in history.  Her personality is a large part of what has made that possible.  She is a workaholic; she told Sunday People, “I work so much, I’m always on the road so I eat healthily. I have to give my body what it needs to keep going.”  She’s passionate about what she does.  “I have just put this music first,” she told Billboard Magazine, and to MTV News, “I have had to fight for what I want on this record.”  Hard working, passionate, ambitious, prolific—Miley’s personality is something to be valued and not overlooked.   It is thoughtless to assume that everything Miley has strived for and thrown her energy into is but a façade and some kind of leftover scrap of teenage rebellion.  Yes, her actions are irresponsible and often in poor taste.  Saul’s actions could have been described as irresponsible (if slaughtering human beings can be described so lightly), but no one would ever doubt that he was doing them intentionally and of his own volition.

It is a fine distinction between thinking of being saved as a transformation and thinking of it as a repurposing, but it is an important distinction.  Talking about coming to Christ as being completely changed devalues the strengths and passions that we were born with and probably sounds, to those who are hearing the message of salvation for the first time, as if we must give up being ourselves in order to know Christ.  Salvation is not an erasure of the self.  Salvation is an acknowledgement of self-worth, and a strengthening of the natural personalities and gifts that God blessed us with in a way that brings glory to God.

 

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What Malcom X Taught a Black Christian

Courtesy of http://lifeofablackgirl.wordpress.com/
Courtesy of http://lifeofablackgirl.wordpress.com/

I believed the lie.  For most of my life I, like many of you, saw Malcolm X as the violent and less-successful opponent of the docile MLK.  There he stood, angrily signifying, indicting white America for the ill-treatment of its darker brothers and sisters.  Malcolm said that black was beautiful and that white society possessed no divine standard by which the black community needed to measure itself.  Malcolm’s analysis troubled me.  His palpable anger made me uncomfortable.  The white society that he described, infused through and through with the philosophy of white superiority, sounded nothing like my bevy of white friends at my college preparatory high school in downtown Chicago.  He was divisive.  He was arrogant.  He was nothing like our good Baptist saint MLK.  And most importantly, he wasn’t a Christian – he was a Muslim.  Appraising his ideology and religious affiliation as less than stellar, I had respect for Malcolm but no need for him.  Or so I thought.

In October of my junior year at Houghton, I obtained a copy of the best-selling Autobiography of Malcolm X in the college library and committed myself to reading the entire memoir.  Commitment gave way to utter captivation as I consumed the entire book with an almost sacred delight.  Upon finishing the book, I read and watched everything that I could find about Malcolm.  Consequently, I came to see that I had been mistaken – flat-out wrong – in my premature interpretation of Malcolm X.  Malcolm was no violent, victim-playing vigilante.  He was courageous enough to speak the unmitigated truth to American society about the horrors of the black American experience.  He hated no one, but he loved black people too much to dilute the reality of their condition.  Getting to know the real Malcolm X changed my life, sparking within me an interfaith dialogue that left me more Christian than ever.

Malcolm taught me that I must have a Christianity that addressed me totally – including my blackness.  It is not secret that Evangelical Christianity has largely been interpreted in Euro-centric perspective, often devaluing, intentionally and unintentionally, Afro-centric religious presentations.  Seeing a theology that justified white superiority, Malcolm saw American Christianity as an aid in enslaving the black conscience.  As a devout Christian and lover of history, I take issue with Malcolm.  It was also the black church that had the greatest purveyor of black dignity.  Black Christianity was in and of itself liberating.

However, I could not dismiss Malcolm’s contention.  Too often black Christians have espoused a Christianity that ignores their blackness instead of appreciating and speaking to it.  Even I had been guilty of this, tricked by the illusion.  Malcolm reminded me that though I am at Houghton – a predominantly white institution – that I am black, and that my faith would have to be able to work outside of the safe confines of this community and speak to the violence and poverty of the largely black and brown Chicago community from which I come.  My faith would have to speak to me wholly.

Malcolm was loud and honest about black injustice.  Possessing a swift silver-tongue and a keen intellect, he was able to communicate what Dr. Cornel West terms, “black rage” like no other.  Even MLK, who purposely avoided such rhetoric in an attempt to avert inciting violent reaction, comes second to Malcolm in this respect.  Malcolm was upfront about black frustration with American racism, and as a result he is scary.  He was a prophetic voice, issuing the clarion call in a strange and desolate land.  Malcolm proved to me that empowerment and reconciliation sometimes means being honest about the horrors of oppression.

Too often, in the interest of cheap, rapid reconciliation, we are encouraged to forgive and forget; to be silent about the atrocities of abuse.  Malcolm said that it was OK, in fact, morally obligatory, to be angered by injustice.  True reconciliation is impossible without an acknowledgement of and repentance from the wrongs committed.  Some dismiss Malcolm as divisive and unhelpful for his honesty.  He showed me that “crying aloud” means “sparing not”, even when the truth is hard and painful to hear.

Perhaps one of the greatest lessons I learned from Malcolm X was taught to me not by his strengths, but by a weakness of his.  While Malcolm’s ability to communicate black beauty, self-reliance, and rage is unparalleled, his early methodology for handling the issues of the black experience was limited, even tenuous.  Thus, he is a compelling reminder that communicating the plight of the oppressed is a means to an end, not an end in itself.

This is where Malcolm is most weak in the first years of his career (1959-1962), and I believe that he knew this.  It is clear following his departure from the Nation of Islam (NOI) in 1964 that he, no longer bound by the exclusionary policies of the NOI, sought to implement a program of political liberation for black people – Black Nationalism.  Meaning, as he said, that black people “should control the politics of [their] own community.”  Malcolm came to see that talking about black dissatisfaction with the system was only effective when coupled with activism to bring about sustainable change.  He “gets” this by 1964, but is unfortunately killed before his maturing revelation can come to fruition.  Malcolm reminds us all that powerful prophetic voices also seek to be solution-finding voices.

Malcolm X wasn’t supposed to teach me anything.  My education and earliest exposure to him sought to assure this.  Malcolm is dangerous.  His dedication to communicating the woes of the marginalized and his appeals to self-reliance pose a threat to the maintenance of the status quo.  I found in Malcolm a challenge to be realistic and intentional about dealing with justice and a renewed dedication to Christian methodology in the fight for human dignity.  My hope is that the entire community will seek to learn more about him.  Allowing his prophetic voice and spirit to motivates us to speak-up and act out.  Let us not believe the lie – Malcolm has something to say and it is worth hearing “by any means necessary.”

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Houghton Students Attend Calvin Conference

Fifteen Houghton students and two professors attended the eighth-annual Faith and International Development Conference at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, last weekend.
The conference, subtitled “From Here to Shalom: Participating in God’s Plan for Universal Flourishing,” was intended to inform students of current development issues around the world, and to supply them with new perspectives on how to address them. For conference attendees it was also an opportunity to interact with potential employers.

Courtesy of Derek Schwabe
Courtesy of Derek Schwabe

“It was a great chance to network with NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), some that I would possibly like to work with in the future,” said Moeun Sun, sophomore.
Approximately three hundred and thirty students from thirty colleges and universities attended the conference. It was organized by Calvin students with the assistance of their International Development Studies faculty, and featured representatives from twenty-five different NGOs. It lasted four days, during which attendees were able to enjoy the full extent of Calvin’s snow-covered campus and ventured into Grand Rapids.

The conference was constructed around a number of general plenaries for all to attend, which were interspersed with smaller sessions, in which representatives of various NGOs gave presentations on the nature and goals of their organizations. These presentations ranged the full spectrum of developmental issues, including peacemaking, healthcare, advocacy, and the environment.

Sun said, “I was pleasantly surprised at how many different kinds of FBOs (Faith-Based Organizations) were represented there.” The individual NGOs held smaller sessions to discuss general ideas or issues and the means by which the NGO seeks to address them.

Senior Andrea Pacheco said, “As someone who has attended the conference for two years now, I found it to be very instrumental in learning about the field of international development, and what it involves.” “This year there were key speakers, such as Steve Radelet, that I think added much more academic and professional credibility to the conference,” Pacheco continued, pointing out that many of the NGOs present have high-minded goals while not necessarily having the necessary expertise.

The conference was not simply a collaboration of NGOs from different fields, but also from multiple denominations. Among the speakers and leaders were Mennonite, Reformed, and Episcopalian Christians. Readers who know Church history might appreciate the ecumenical development exemplified at the conference.

While the conference was overall a success, the information which was presented tended to be fairly basic. There is an inherent difficulty in organizing such a conference, as the attendees all come from different backgrounds. While some might find the information to be basic, it might be entirely novel to others, who are more recent to the topic. This diversity shows up even among the Houghton students who went.

Freshman Matthew Munkittrick said, “I went because I am studying International Development and wanted to get to know a bit more about what I am going to be studying.”

Additionally, the speakers generally focused on their own experiences and contextual situations. Pacheco says, “I’d like to see some more presentations on concrete, current research of the field.” The attendance of Dr. Radelet was a step in that direction, but the vast majority of the speakers were still anecdotal.

Despite the criticisms some of the Houghton students had, they all enjoyed the conference, and everyone got more from it than they had anticipated. In the words of Munkittrick, “Overall, it was definitely worth the twelve-hour bus ride!”