comfort and joy

This Christmas does not feel particularly merry. While there is so much to be grateful for - friends, family, abundant provisions - there is also much to grieve over. We are grieving for our first Christmas without my grandmother, who brought so much joy to every family occasion. We are grieving for the tensions and discord in our nation, which have exploded into such ugly violence in the last few weeks. We are grieving with friends for whom Christmas is always a dark and difficult time. We are grieving for family members who are feeling the force of fallenness in their lives in one way or another. And so I am deeply grateful for reminders of true comfort and joy.
For this thoughtful reflection, which reminded me that the gospels tell a Christmas story that is all about suffering. The hardship of Mary and Joseph, who found no place to stay; the massacre of every baby in Bethlehem; the terror-stricken flight to Egypt; the warning to Mary that a sword of sorrow would break her heart. This is the story of an unlikely hope, appearing in the midst of great suffering.
For our visit to a small and struggling congregation yesterday, where the prayers included heartfelt prayer for those for whom Christmas is a distressing time.
For a beautiful performance of The Messiah by the Melbourne Philarmonic last night. Handel starts his oratorio in the right place: 'Comfort ye my people', says your God 'and cry unto her that her warfare is ended and her iniquity is pardoned'.
Have a comforting Christmas.

powers and submissions

Emily Dickinson said: 'If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.' I feel somewhat the same way about theology. And so I suspect I'm reading serious theology at the moment: Sarah Coakley's Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy and Gender. This is a really profound book. In short, she argues for 'an inalienable surrender ('submission') to God, that.... must remain the secret ground of even feminist 'empowerment'.' (prologue)

She writes 'The message here is not, of course, one of submission to the 'world' - in the various senses of 'worldly' power that we have already entertained. On the contrary, it is about a very subtle, and one might say sui generis , response to the divine allure that allows one to meet the ambiguous forms of 'worldly' power in a new dimension, neither decrying them in se nor being enslaved to them, but rather facing, embracing, resisting or deflecting them with discernment.' (p. xviii)

To make a strong and passionate case for wholehearted submission (even to God) is a daring move in feminist theology... so far she has me spellbound... I have my mouth open even when I'm shaking my head. The top of my head is taken off!

email embarrassment

I am usually very, very careful about how I email. On too many occasions I've been on email lists where people have composed very personal emails and then blithely hit reply-all.... I am scrupulous about checking who I have in the To: heading. Today I wasn't careful, and I really should have been.
I'd taken my courage in my hands and sent a copy of an article I'd written to a senior academic I really respect. I don't know her very well, but she had been kind enough to invite me to send something I'd written. I waited with bated breath (all this tragic postgraduate insecurity!) and this morning she wrote back and said nice things about it. Woohoo! I said to myself. 'Woohoo!' I wrote in an email to Andrew. Only it didn't go to Andrew, of course... I'd hit reply instead of forward.
'Woohoo!' Honestly!

good reading

I've had the pleasure recently of reading three quite different books that discuss issues across the boundaries of my personal/political/professional interests. They are all very good, so I thought I'd share about two of them today, and hopefully get to the third tomorrow.
The first is Living on the Boundaries: Evangelical Women, Feminism and the Theological Academy by Nicola Hoggard Creegan and Christine D. Pohl. What is so special about this book is that it is not primarily a prescriptive work, telling evangelical women how they should deal with the tensions that face them in relating to feminism and their place in theological institutions. Rather, it's a descriptive and analytic book, based on interviews that the authors conducted with a large group of academic women who considered themselves (or had once considered themselves) evangelical. It was in many ways a painful book to read, confronting me with the reality of many tensions I prefer to ignore, as I listened to other women say things I'd often thought. But it's a powerful and passionate book, and I found it a liberating read. Thanks to Stephen at Greenflame for recommending it!
Closer to my own field of evangelical history, a terrific new book by D. Bruce Hindmarsh, The Evangelical Conversion Narrative. Hindmarsh is dealing with all these fascinating questions that confront the evangelical historian: why does the genre of conversion narrative just explode in the eighteenth century, what does this trend do to the Christian understanding of self, how does that relate to evangelical culture as well as the broader cultural shifts that make up 'modernity'. He warms my heart (heh) by dealing closely and carefully and sensitively with the source material - hundreds of conversion narratives - and making fine and convincing distinctions between the conversion narratives that came out of the different cultures within eighteenth-century evangelicalism. He sets the bar high for the rest of us, bless him!

more narnia

Still on the Narnia theme, a couple of very different takes on the film from The Guardian.
Peter Bradshaw loves it; Polly Toynbee needed a sickbag.

music

I say that I don't listen to much 'Christian' music. But when my iPod throws up a succession of songs like 'Yahweh' (U2), 'Jesus Walks' (Kanye West), 'People Get Ready' (Eva Cassidy) and 'God drinks down at the Sandringham' (The Whitlams), I realise there's something of a theme! This morning, feeling short on wisdom and kind of desperate, I enjoyed Sixpence None the Richer's song, 'Sister, Mother'. Here are the lyrics...

My life is plagued
By mistakes, broken love, slaps in the face.
But I'm trying to care, to dare to embrace your face.

Hug him like a brother.
Kiss her like a sister.
Let it be my mother for now.

I want to find where the maid in the street
Is pouring her wine.
I heard she takes you in and gives you the words
You need said.

If you'll be her brother,
She'll kiss you like a sister.
She'll even be your mother for now.

Hug him like a brother.
Kiss her like a sister.
Let it be my mother.
Let it be my father.
I will be her brother.
Kiss her like a sister.
Come and be my mother forever.

stroll in the park

I went along yesterday to the Long Walk - a walk around Princes Park led by Aboriginal leader Michael Long, who last year walked to Canberra to draw attention to the plight of Aboriginal people. It was moving and encouraging to be part of a crowd of 10,000 people calling for change... but the real question is what comes next?

Narnia

The advertising frenzy in the US over the upcoming release of "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' has to be seen to be believed. I grew up on the Narnia books and they form an important part of my emotional furniture (heh!). I think I was 12 the last time I climbed into a wardrobe and hoped for some magic! And as an apologist C.S. Lewis was very influential on my early adult thinking about Christianity. I suspect, though, that many people share my experience of becoming increasingly uncomfortable with and unconvinced by certain aspects of his writing and argument. Most of what he writes about gender is just plain horrible, for example. So I really enjoyed reading this article about C.S. Lewis (courtesy of Greg) which is appreciative but thoughtfully critical. One bizarre element of the whole Christian obsession with C.S. Lewis (which this writer doesn't mention) is that an Anglo-Catholic who had no truck with penal substitution or the infallibility of Scripture and who believed in purgatory should be the darling of the most conservative (highbrow) sections of American evangelicalism!

doughnut update

Regarding my earlier predictions of excess doughnut consumption, I am surprised to report that I went to America for a week and didn't eat a single doughnut! This time I ended up eating enormous amounts of salad. I mean, really enormous amounts. And here's the thing: as someone who avoids salad, I was nevertheless convinced that salad-eaters were superior people. Their skin was shinier, their hair glossier, their personalities more pleasant. I thought that eating salad for a week would make me a better person. Instead, it seems to have had no effect at all. Another myth debunked.

America

Back in Melbourne after a whirlwind week in the States. I had a great time! We spent the first four days at the AAR meeting in Philadelphia, then had a couple of days in the Big Apple. Highlights included:
- David Bebbington (one of the godfathers of evangelical history) coming to my paper and asking me lots of tough questions. Actually, that was mainly scary.
- meeting a scholar who had come to the same conclusions as me about early Methodist culture (but was safely out of my period!) - we had a frenzied half hour of comparing bibliographies - 'read this!', 'read that!'. Very encouraging!
- listening to the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek be entirely outrageous about chickens, belief, necrophilia and Marx.
- a very warm welcome from members of Duke Divinity School faculty
- a profound and moving discussion between Miroslav Volf, Sarah Coakley and Nicholas Wolterstorff about redeeming memories... only the second conference session I've ever been to that has made me weep.
- the book exhibitions... every publisher in Christendom, with 50% conference discounts. I actually hyperventilated! I have brought back a juicy stack of books to read, as well as lots of Christmas presents!
- watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (already out in the US) - not that good a movie, actually, but it was fun to be watching it ahead of schedule!
- the American Museum of Natural History. Dinosaur skeletons are so cool!
I'm very grateful for such a stimulating and (in spite of jetlag) refreshing week. Now to get back into routine and actually write something!

Off

Well, we're about to head to the airport. I'll try to post occasionally from the States, but I'm not sure what access I'll have to the internet. Hope your interview goes well, Francie!

changes afoot

'My' university has just unveiled a rather radical plan to adopt the US-style model of tertiary education in which students complete their first degree in a general area and follow it with a two-three year specialist qualification. Most Australian universities follow this model for medical degrees, but otherwise it's pretty unusual. I can see some positives - I think it would mean more students doing history (and other humanities) subjects, and working hard at them because they have a clear goal in mind that requires good grades. That would be great, and would also mean more jobs for postgrads and early career academics in the humanities! But the downside is that most of these specialist courses would only be available to full-fee-paying students. Not great.
I'm reminded of some toilet grafitti I read (stick with me here!) which debated the 'ownership' of universities. One participant in the debate was arguing that students had the right to determine university policy because they 'owned' the unis. The other participant responded that it was the academics who actually owned the universities, because they were doing the really important work. If I had fewer qualms about defacing property, I would have added a third opinion: universities belong to the community. I believe they exist to serve the community of which they are a part, and university policy-makers always need to ask questions about how policies will affect that community. I don't mean by that (obviously) that just because almost everybody I speak to at parties thinks my thesis topic is pointless (OK, maybe I'm just paranoid, but some people have come out and said it!) that I shouldn't be allowed to work on it at community expense. But I do think I have a responsibility to use my learning for the community's benefit, not just as a matter of personal development. And I don't think policies that encourage the university to perpetuate inequality (only people from wealthy families can become doctors/lawyers) are good for the community.
It will be interesting to see how this all pans out...

small things and small minds

As part of our trip to the States, Andrew is doing a work visit to Alabama. He is amusing himself (and me) by coming up with throwaway lines that will (he hopes) ingratiate him with the Southerners he is meeting with. When he has to differ with someone, for example , he plans to say 'Well, call me a rebel, but I disagree with you there' or 'I'm afraid I'll have to secede from you over that'. Oh how we laugh!
Another really, really cool small thing is the iPod shuffle Andrew gave me as an early birthday present. I listened to it on the train this morning, but I'd only saved six songs on to it (all Sufjan Stevens) so the shuffle wasn't as surprising as it could be!

P.S. I do preemtively apologise to any Southerners who have wandered on to this blog by mistake. Feel free to assume I own a crocodile farm and wear an akubra.

gripe

In the blink-and-you-missed-it category, I'd officially place feminism. Yesterday I was flicking through a copy of a women's magazine that a colleague had on her desk (for research purposes, of course!). They had one of those 'what to do/wear/see in your 20s/30s/40s' articles so I dutifully looked up the 30s to see what I was missing out on. Apparently the must-attend party for women in their 30s is the Playboy Mansion. I kid you not.
And if I see the phrase 'girl-power' used in conjunction with the Pussycat Dolls one more time (without the use of the words 'nothing to do with' involved) I may have to become some kind of violent weirdo who assassinates record company executives.

songs, suffering, sympathy

The paper I'm giving in Philadelphia (at the 'Liverpool Hope - Manchester University Seminar on Early Methodism' at the AAR) is called 'The suffering members sympathise': sympathy and its limits in the hymns of Charles Wesley. In this paper I'm looking at the construction of sympathy in the hymns of Charles Wesley, as a way of illuminating the complicated relationship between the culture of early Methodism and the 'culture of sympathy' in eighteenth-century England. If that doesn't make you fall asleep, read on...
Many historians have pointed out that eighteenth-century English culture placed an increasingly high value on sensibility or sympathy (broadly defined as an ability to identify with, and thus respond emotionally to/understand another person's situation). Influential philosophers like Adam Smith argued for sympathy as a natural 'moral sense' that could provide a firm basis for the moral society. Novelists like Samuel Richardson wrote 'sentimental' novels that used heart-wrenching descriptions of the trials of the protagonist to move readers to sympathy. Adapting these techniques, reformers published detailed descriptions of the sufferings of slaves or factory workers or prisoners to move their readers to sympathy and thus, hopefully, action.
The relationship between this 'culture of sympathy' (in itself a far more complex phenomenon than my brief description suggests) and the culture of early Methodism is a vexed question. Evangelicals used the language of sensibility to preach their message and call for reform. Methodism proclaimed itself a 'religion of the heart'. There was an underlying philosophical tension, however, between the idea that people were naturally sympathetic (and thus potentially moral) and the evangelical conviction that people needed rescuing from their natural selves. If treated as a moral guide, sympathy could lead the individual astray. Influential evangelicals like Hannah More attacked sensibility on these grounds.
The hymns of Charles Wesley provide a valuable resource for exploring this complicated relationship. Wesley's hymns were ubiquitous within early Methodist culture, and functioned as a spiritual tool through which emotions were evoked and shaped for spiritual benefit. They are also full of explorations of the meaning and significance of sympathy. I argue that Wesley developed a christological interpretation of sympathy that gave it enormous significance within Christian life and fellowship. The hymns construct the ideal Methodist as one who is profoundly sympathetic to the sufferings of others. I suggest that recognising this construction that may help illuminate the nature of early Methodist relationships, as well as Methodist responsiveness to reform campaigns that relied on the evocation of sympathy.
While sympathy is given great significance in Wesley's hymns, it is also given clear limits, which stem from its christological construction. Human sympathy must never be relied upon to provide those ultimate needs that only God can provide. Sympathy in the hymns may be humanitarian, but it can never be humanist.

The interesting question for me (which I won't address in my paper) is how all this relates to evangelical culture today. The question of sympathy is an underlying theme in many theological debates (the most obvious example is with relation to homosexuality - is sympathy for gay people a danger or a necessary step towards understanding? But also arguments about hell - how could a sympathetic God possibly allow people to be punished forever? And the preaching vs. social justice tussle). Maybe it will come up in the question time!

USA, USA

It's only a week till we go to America! I've become slightly obsessed with the paper that I'll be presenting at the American Academy of Religion conference, and I'm tinkering madly with it. I don't usually fret about presentations, but this one will involve a few too many experts in the field. Apart from worrying about my paper, I'm looking forward to a week of interesting conversations and many doughnuts. Way too many doughnuts.

Serenity

Amidst a way-too-busy weekend (four parties in four days!) we managed to get to the cinema to see Joss Whedon's new movie, Serenity. For those who've missed the fuss (and there hasn't been much in Australia, though check out the fan websites!), Serenity follows on from the TV series Firefly, which lasted less than a season but gathered an obsessive fan base. Andrew and I have been watching Firefly on DVD for the last few weeks... perhaps a little too much Firefly, as I've found myself using Firefly lingo in all sorts of inappropriate contexts. (Goram thesis!)
Serenity is fun in the same way that Firefly is fun. Strong female characters, witty repartee, plot twists galore and lots of really scary baddies. It's a Western set in space, which is a surprisingly good idea! If you get a chance to see it, do.

God on Telly

I'm pleased to say that the installation of a TV card in our computer has not (yet) turned us into screen addicts. There's just not much on, and not much time to watch it! However I am going to make time for John Safran's latest offering, Speaking in Tongues John Safran is a very funny guy, with possibly the most annoying voice on TV, and a genuinely original take on reporting religion. What I loved about his earlier program, John Safran Vs. God, was that he really took religious people seriously. While pointing out how hilarious we are. Unlike most religious reporting, which treats religion as a weird minority interest to be handled with kid gloves, Safran starts from the assumption that most people, in most places, are religious. As he repeatedly points out to his audience, it is the cosmopolitan agnosticism of rich Australians that is unusual. In John Safran Vs. God he therefore plunges into the middle of the most diverse religious communities (fundamentalist Muslims, Mormons, Hindu gurus, Buddhist monks, Christian exorcists, gun-toting rabbis, the Klu Klux Klan) on the assumption that however odd someone's beliefs seem to you, they are probably not that different from you. Which means you can probably have a worthwhile conversation.

Speaking in Tongues sees the return of one of the most memorable characters from J S Vs. G, a Catholic priest named Father Maguire. He's from a parish here in Melbourne, and something of a renegade. In the episode from JS V. G, he has harsh things to say about both Mel Gibson and George Pell. Each week Father Maguire and John will have a chat about the news from a religious perspective. Should be funny (and painful).

pause

It's been a while since I blogged: my grandmother died last week, and between the sadness and the funeral I haven't had much energy for reflection. I hope to get back to regular posting later in the week. Bear with me, kind readers!

Missions and Empire

For those of you interested in the history of missions and/or the British Empire, I've posted a review of a recent book on the subject over at Think Tank. It's a great book - check it out.

church and state

Australian church leaders across the theological spectrum have come out over the last couple of weeks to criticise the Government's plan to 'reform' industrial relations legislation. Cue hostile response from the Government. The Age today contains a terrific editorial on the whole kerfuffle.

fuel

Earlier this year I realised that for a long time I had been running on fear. Fear of letting people down, fear of being hurt badly like I have been before, fear of things falling apart and it being my fault. Last week someone I really respect told me she felt like she was running on guilt. Fear and guilt, powerful fuels - they'll drive you a long, long way and keep you going when you feel like nothing else could. It's impossible to think how you'd survive without them - how could any other fuel be as effective? When I admitted that I was afraid to live without fear (heh!), my counsellor suggested 'love' might be as powerful as fear. I almost laughed. Love?? How could that drive me so far and so hard? Perhaps the answer is, it wouldn't.
We've been pushing ourselves too hard again lately, so this weekend we didn't do much. I slept. Watched a great movie. Sat under a tree and read the latest P D James novel. Didn't answer the phone. Today I feel like I'm actually looking at people, listening to what they're saying, caring what they feel. I've written some paragraphs and I like them. I've said no several times to the inner voice telling me to do things that aren't really necessary but add to my feeling of being useful to people. Running on love might be a bit like this.

listening, reading

Two exciting arrivals in yesterday's post.
Sufjan Steven's new album 'Come on and Feel the Illinoise' arrived from Asthmatic Kitty Records. It's been given rave reviews by the likes of Rolling Stone, and I'd say all the raving is justified. I've played it three times since it arrived, and it's exhilarating listening. And not just because of the prevalence of the banjo! It's about Illinois, which apparently is all about the spirit, death, serial killers, stepmothers, road trips and zombies. I can't possibly do it justice, but I look forward to telling the next generation that I listened to early Sufjan.

Another welcome arrival was the latest edition of Zadok. Having read a couple of similar publications from outside Australia, I'm convinced that Zadok publishes some of the more thoughtful and informed Christian writing around. This edition is on the environment, and also includes two views on the religious vilification laws and some interesting reviews. Though I have to disagree with the reviewer who thinks the latest Harry Potter is the best so far... surely not!

Kashmir

Like anyone with access to the news, my mind has been much on the disaster on the Indian subcontinent this week. Half my life ago, my family visited Kashmir in one of the very brief spells of relative peace that the region has experienced in decades of conflict. It was a long journey - my brothers and I travelling up from our boarding school in South India, my parents coming west from Bangladesh to meet us. Then another overnight train north to Srinagar.

I had been imbibing M M Kaye novels and arrived in Kashmir with the most inflated expectations of adventure and romance. For once, life surpassed imagination. We stayed in an ornately carved houseboat on the Dal Lake. I remember sitting on the roof, sipping chai, writing in my diary, with the snow-capped mountains reflected in the still water. Later we spent a few days in elaborate, wooden-floored tents up in the hills. The only place I've ever seen fields of flowers. Icy streams ran through carefully constructed stone channels, the force of the water turning tiny mill wheels. One day we went pony riding, and out on one of the roads we were passed by a Kashmiri man on horseback. He was the essence of M M Kaye's romantic heroes - bright blue eyes in a fierce olive face, a curved knife hanging from his belt, galloping past on a mountain pony. My thirteen-year-old heart nearly stopped!

After we left, the hostilities resumed. For years afterwards my parents received plaintive letters from tourist operators in Kashmir, whose livelihoods were being destroyed by the conflict. With kidnappings and bombings in the news, the houseboats on the lake and the tents in the hills were empty. And now this new horror. So much beauty, so much blood.

month of miyazaki

If you have not yet seen it, rush out and watch Howl's Moving Castle. It is Hayao Miyazaki's latest film, and just delightful. The storyline is a bit weak in places (particularly towards the end) but the animation is enchanting as always. Miyazaki is unusual among anime artists in having strong female characters, and this film is no exception. (I could rant here about the tendency among anime artists and science fiction authors to assume that the two defining characteristics of life in the future/parallel universes will be the extraordinary technology and the skimpiness of women's attire, but I will desist.) Along with the Miyazaki fest on SBS, this release makes for a month of quality viewing.

monday's Hot Tip

I share this tip for free, because I care:
If you are really hungry, and the only food you have in your desk is a large packet of wasabi peas, do not, I repeat DO NOT scoff three quarters of the packet in an attempt to stave off starvation.
Trust me on this.

For Those in Peril at the Shops

Today we are heading to a large local shopping centre. We go in some trepidation: large shopping centres are comparable to the lower circles of hell in my estimation. It has prompted me to think about writing a selection of really useful prayers for situations such as this, which clearly put one's soul in danger. (Other obvious examples would be For One about to Switch on the Television, For One Considering Drinking a Third Glass of Merlot, For all Those Writing their CVs and Tempted to Stretch the Truth). Anyway, here's a prayer For Those in Peril at the Shops.

Lord God Almighty, these shops and all that is in them are part of your creation: fallen, but not without the value that exists in all you have made. Be near us as we venture into them.

Deliver us from the worship of nice things; from the temptation to find our meaning in consumption; from the envy of supermodels; from the coveting of our neighbour's clothes, lounge suite, haircut or sound system.
Deliver us from the exhaustion of shopping; from unkindness towards shop assistants; from hatred of teenagers; from the over-consumption of mud cake in an attempt to cope with the endless walking around.

Give us clear purpose, strength of will, discernment, and charity towards others, even those people who waylay us to attempt to convince us to sign up for another credit card.

Remind us, amidst the bright promises of happiness that this place offers that yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

taking responsibility

Yesterday evening Andrew and I enjoyed a chat and a drink with one of our asylum seeker friends, who I have written about elsewhere. Our friend is living down the road from us in a house with a wonderful view of the water, so we sat on the verandah together and watched the sun go down. Mid-conversation, he collected the mail and discovered a letter from the Department of Immigration, addressed to him. Just seeing the envelope had an appalling effect on him. He was obviously terrified, tried to collect himself, but opening the letter was a fierce act of will. It was, thank God, about an unimportant matter. He tried to laugh about it.

I reflected on that experience this morning when I read that the report into the case of Vivian Alvarez Solon has been released. Ms Solon is an Australian citizen who was deported as an 'illegal immigrant', while extremely badly injured, to the Philippines. There she was abandoned to the care of a charity for years. Her case is only one example of the contempt, hostility and abuse that has characterised the Department of Immigration's treatment of those deemed 'illegal'. You might think that the Ministers in charge of this Department over the last few years would bear responsibility. But apparently not. Both the relevant Ministers have made it clear that they feel no responsibility whatsoever for what has happened. Neither will suffer any consequences for the misery that has been inflicted on our friend and thousands of others.

Here is the wonderful Michelle Grattan really losing her temper about it all.

mobible

Hot on the heels of the reader's digest Bible comes the news that you can now SMS the Bible (or little bits of it) courtesy of the Bible Society. It's not a bad idea, but I am reminded of C.S. Lewis's point that the less we Westerners read the Bible, the more we seem to publish it (or come up with new ways of disseminating it). Awfully handy for prooftexting, though.
This reminds me of Andrew's long-standing plan to start a pub called Religion and Politics. It will feature nice beer, comfy chairs and permission (possibly a requirement) to discuss interesting and controversial issues. The coasters will be printed with brief suggestions for discussion topics, such as "Free market or regulation?', 'Kim Beazley: visionary or deep disappointment?', 'The Pope?'
You can see how much fun it would be. Andrew wants to employ PhD students to serve the beer, and then if people get stuck on points of fact (what was the deal with the Reformation? what does the IMF do?) the PhD students can leap to their aid. The ability to SMS for a quick Bible text would be just the thing. Lots of in-depth exegesis over the beer, I'm sure.

change

I've been thinking about change. One of the organisations that Andrew has to do with has adopted the slogan 'Change is Goodness'. Yes, really. Change is Goodness. Change is Goodness. Change is Goodness. Whichever way you think about it, if you think about it at all, it is a ridiculous statement. And yet it represents a fairly powerful theme in much of postmodern culture. To be flexible, to be on the move, to be able to change anything you like about yourself or your situation... that is goodness. To be unable to adapt, to be tied down by commitments, to find yourself stuck with certain aspects of your personality or your circumstances... that is intolerable.

Oddly, that emphasis on the positive nature of change accompanies a fascination with traditions of all kinds that often have their roots in thousands of years of not changing, of doing the same thing again and again and again. So I regard my tradition with the deepest suspicion and contempt, while thinking longingly of the wisdom stored up by those Tibetan monks in their remote mountain monastery. Where, as John Safran showed us, you get beaten with a stick if you don't do things the same way everyone else does.

I don't say all that as the prequel to a diatribe about Young People These Days. I'm all for positive change, for flexibility, for openness to the perspective of the Other. But I'm really conscious of the stability that comes from not changing. My grandparents (who are very openminded, thoughtful, intellectually adventurous people) have lived in the same house and gone to the same church for over fifty years. That staying-still, that refusal to change just because change might be interesting or immediately attractive, has been a stable and restful centre for the family. I think that more and more, our society will be desperate for such centres.

Here's what I want. To put down roots, and to refuse to change just for the sake of it. To be open to new ideas, and to refuse to refuse change just for the sake of it. To work by a tentative slogan, such as 'Change might be Goodness'.

a little requiem

Yesterday morning we came into our office to discover that the tree outside our window had been cut down. I loved that tree! It sheltered us from the intrusive gaze of the engineers across the courtyard. It hosted a myriad of birds, who sang and squabbled in its branches for our entertainment. In autumn its leaves slowly caught fire, shrivelled in the flames and fell.

Now we are exposed to the engineers, bereft of the charm of the birds, detached from the slow rhythm of the seasons. And we strongly suspect it's in aid of the construction of more parking spaces.

O Lord, deliver us from the wanton destruction of trees, the sinful pursuit of parking space, and all such evils. Amen.

sons of korah

I don't listen to much explicitly 'Christian' music, but I do listen to Sons of Korah - a lot. They sing the Psalms - pretty much just the Psalms - and they focus on the lament psalms. Lyrics about anger, grief, longing, desire for revenge as well as hope, peace, celebration. They are serious musicians, and seriously thoughtful about what they do. If you haven't had the opportunity to hear them, you can download a couple of songs, read their commentaries, look at the artwork they use here.

They live down the road from us (well, 80km or so!) but are touring NSW and the US in the next few months. If you get a chance, go listen!

needing and reading

A few preliminary thoughts on a subject I've been pondering:

When I was in ministry (the other sort) we ran a course on small groups that began by asking the very important question: what are small groups for? The 'correct' answer was that small groups are for spiritual growth and that such growth is achieved primarily through the study of Scripture (with prayer, the formation of community, the support of each other growing out of that study). It was one version of the reformed evangelical concern to 'let the Bible set the agenda'. Biblical small groups were specifically contrasted with groups that start with 'human' agendas, with our problems or our ideas about what we need. Thus studies of books of the bible were inherently superior to topical studies, sharing times were inherently less important than bible study times, etc.

I don't want to dismiss that model of small group - I think it is wise to continually submit ourselves to lengthy swathes of the narrative and reasoning that make up Scripture as a way of training our minds to look beyond our own obsessions. Somebody wisely said that we shouldn't read the Bible passages that say what we want to hear; we should read the Bible passages that are addressed to people in our situation. That takes wide reading. And I'm sure it is right that groups can become focused on personal problems in ways that are selfish and self-desctructive. Even leaving aside, however, the postmodern question of whether 'our agendas' can so easily be dismissed, my experience leads me to question some of the assumptions behind this approach.

Here's what I've found: The times when I have really listened and learned from Scripture in life-transforming ways have been the times when great need or disaster has made me desperate to hear God say something. That's when I come to God's word hungry, searching, serious. I don't think my need necessarily distorts my reading any more than my indifference at other times might. I think it sharpens my spiritual senses.

How odd, then, that in our small groups and our church services we often explicitly try to remove that sense of need. I've heard so many prayers at the beginning of such meetings that say 'Please help us to clear our minds of our worries, our concerns, the things that press in on us... and help us to focus on what you have to say to us today.'

I think it would be great if we prayed differently - if we prayed in ways that recognise those needs and fears, recognise that they matter to God, recognise that if he has something important to say about our lives at all, it's something that impacts on those needs and fears. We don't need our minds 'cleared' so we can hear, we need to hear so our minds can be transformed. And the transformation will almost certainly be a matter of those very needs and fears that are part of us.

good books

I finished a very rough draft of chapter 5 of my thesis on Friday! The conclusion was in dot points, which is NOT a good sign, but Friday was my last possible deadline, so I handed it in as it was. That freed me up to read some non-work-related books, including (in order of weight!):

Alexander McCall Smith, Friends, Lovers, Chocolate - the second in his series about Isabel Dalhousie, a philosophical Edinburgh sleuth. I don't think this series is his best (compared to the Ladies Detective Agency, von Igelfeld or Scotland Street books) but it's still very good. Favorite line: 'From the perspective of the cheese counter, Schopenhauer seemed very far away'.

I went to hear McCall Smith at the Melbourne Writers Festival a month or so ago, and he was even more delightful than his books. He told very funny stories with an entirely straight face until he got to the punch line, when he would dissolve in fits of giggles.

James Brabazon, Dorothy L. Sayers - I really enjoy the Peter Wimsey mysteries, even though I have to suppress certain loud inner protests against the terrible snobbery of it all. Harriet Vane is the real star of the books for me, and DLS comes across in this biography as sharing most of her good qualities: courage, intelligence, loyalty, a passionate devotion to ideas and scholarship. She does not seem to have been a comfortable person at all, however, and it's hard not to feel sorry for the illegitimate son who she sent off to her cousin and only took notice of when he became 'interesting'.

David McCracken, The Scandal of the Gospels: Jesus, Story and Offense - I'm reading this on the train on the rare occasion that I get a seat, so I'm moving slowly! So far, I've really appreciated his thoughtful treatment of the story from Matt 15: 21-28, where Jesus describes the Canaanite woman as one of the 'dogs under the table'. As McCracken says, this is a deeply offensive thing to say! I recently heard a sermon on this passage that said Jesus was being affectionate, but that seems entirely unconvincing to me. He calls her a bitch! McCracken places it in the broader context of Matthew's narrative, where the theme of Jesus as offence is important. The woman - unlike the Pharisees in the preceding passage - is not offended by Jesus, but presses on and gets what she desires. 'Blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me' says Jesus in Matthew 11. It's a profound challenge to the way we see Jesus, I think.

Now I need to stop reading (and blogging) and start editing chapter five!

footy fever

This may not mean much to those of you who haven't experienced Melbourne's love affair with Australian Rules, but I realised on Friday that I had no idea who was playing in the Grand Final this weekend. Quite an achievement in a city (and a department) full of footy fans. One of my fellow postgrads is even doing his PhD on football fan-dom as religious devotion. I remained blissfully unaware of the details until this morning. Swans beat Eagles by 4 points, apparently.

more on religion and reform

As a historian of evangelicalism with an evangelical heritage, I take what I study fairly personally. Much of it leaves me quite ambivalent. For example, I've just been re-reading Roy Porter's book English Society in the Eighteenth Century - an excellent little introduction to the period. Porter has lots to say about the evangelicals, which is appropriate given how significant they were in England during the eighteenth century. He chronicles lots of things that make me wince. For example, in 1800 the Evangelical Magazine published a "Spiritual Barometer" that allowed you to measure your spiritual state (presumably against the spiritual state of others). Down at the bottom end near 'perdition' were such behaviours as 'Parties of pleasure on the Lord's Day', 'Love of novels, etc', 'levity in conversation' and 'family worship only on Sunday evenings'. How handy! In 1793 the same magazine assured its readers that 'Novels generally speaking are instruments of abomination and ruin. A fond attachment to them is irrefragable evidence of a mind contaminated and totally unfitted for the serious pursuits of study, or the delightful exercises and enjoyments of religion.' (p.309)

More serious, to my mind, was the paternalism of the evangelical reformers - their concern for the poor seemed so infected by a sense of their own superiority and a desire to control. As one reformer wrote: 'The labouring poor demand our constant attention. To inform their minds, to repress their vices, to assist their labours, to invigorate their activity and to improve their comfort - these are the noblest offices of enlightened minds in superior stations'. (p.292)

I am profoundly uncomfortable with the moralism and paternalism of my evangelical forebears. And I am profoundly uncomfortable with the extent to which the flaws in their approach to reform are swept under the carpet by modern hagiography. We must be able to analyse and critique them if we are not to repeat their mistakes. The self-righteous Christians in I heart Huckabees (whom I discussed in an earlier post) are the descendants of these evangelicals, and it is no coincidence that George W. is a Methodist. And yet, as Porter concludes:

'For all the self-congratulatory rationalism of the Enlightenment, it was Christian zealots who were the selfless reformers of abuses... What first galvanised large sections of the workforce into self-help and self-respect were not polite letters, Enlightenment rationalism or Deism, but Methodism and New Dissent.' (p. 183-184)

And for that, I am proud of my heritage.

Pub Aid

Cheery little article in The Age today about a pub in Abbotsford that sells 'guilt-free beer' (who would have thought there was guilt attached to beer-drinking in Australia?) as a way of supporting Cambodian charities. And has a free theatre space, no pokies and lots of community spirit.
Wish there was a pub like this near my house!

Methodism

I have just written a review of this book for the history journal I help edit. It was my first review, so I felt the need to be professionally restrained. What I wanted to write was an extended rave along the lines of: This is the best book on Methodism that has ever been written. It is magnificent! It is sparkling, erudite, thoughtful and enlightening. It will transform the way Methodism is studied. David Hempton should be crowned with laurel and cheered around the academe. etc. etc.

Really, it is very good. If you are at all interested in the history of modern Christianity, you should read this. Methodism, which two hundred years of institutionalising and academic study has managed to make boring, emerges here as the fascinating, diverse, energetic movement that it was. How it grew! From a handful of followers in the 1730s, to the largest Protestant denomination in the US by the eve of the Civil War. If you include Pentecostal believers among the heirs of this movement, Methodism looks even more significant, with some scholars suggesting that there will be more than a billion Pentecostals before 2050. Methodists were involved in converting individuals, planting churches, sending missionaries and establishing educational and charitable institutions by the hundred. They have been an enormously significant cultural force in the North and South.

Why Methodism grew (and why it declined in the twentieth century); why it spread (and why it failed to take root in some places); who Methodism attracted (and who it offended) - these are the questions that Hempton explores. He thinks, for example, about the tensions within Methodism, the competition between Methodism and other movements, the way money was spent by Methodists, the relationship between Methodism and those on the margins of society. He emphasises throughout one of the most interesting aspects of Methodism - the majority presence of women in the movement. His call for more study of how this shaped Methodism is one I hope to respond to in my future work.

Anyway, read the book. It's terrific.

Miyazaki

The TV card is vindicated! News just in is that SBS is showing a series of films by the anime director Miyazaki. Miyazaki is probably most famous in the West for his Academy Award-winning film Spirited Away, but he's made plenty of others. The ones I've seen have been thoughtful, amusing, original films.

On Wednesday, 28 September, SBS screens Ghibli: The Miyazaki Temple. This documentary looks at the growth of Japanese animated cinema through the world of Miyazaki and his Ghibli studio. The documentary will be followed by the Miyazaki film Porco Rosso. Throughout October, four Miyazaki films will screen on SBS including Laputa:Castle in the Sky, 10pm Wednesday 2 October; Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, 10pm Wednesday 9 October; Kiki's Delivery Service, 10pm Wednesday 16 October; and Spirited Away 10pm Wednesday 23October.

speaking kingdom

I've been having a conversation with a wise friend, Graham, about trying to find new words or frameworks within which to understand and explain my faith. I don't doubt that Jesus is worth following or that 'in him we live and move and have our being', but the words I have learned to use in speaking about that to myself and others have become increasingly unconvincing. Graham wrote that the ministry he was involved with early in his Christian life was:

'... so focussed on salvation but I wasn't entirely sure exactly why we were alive - at least I didn't have the words to articulate it or the sense to live it. Having the source of life, and yet not feeling that this is life"to the full" somehow is maddening and doubt inspiring. I think it added to my philosophy when I crashed to "try every ill to find a cure" like an undergrad Kerouc fan looking for "authentic" experience. What we all need is something that bridges the high ideals of growing the kingdom and it's justice with the earthy pleasures and satisfaction of work/life that are so indisputably true (and the profound pain that goes with each) it doesn't need to be sophisticated, it just needs to be there and alive..'

Graham isn't just talking about language, but language seems crucial to me. The odd thing is that the Bible gives us a language for that kind of living. If you could somehow learn the language of Proverbs and Romans, of John and Song of Solomon, of the Psalms and Revelation, you would be able to speak both idealistically and realistically, of both the sublime and the street-level. Jesus speaks that language in the gospels! Learning that language must be like learning any language - immersion, practice, a willingness to make an idiot of yourself, love for the nuances and idiosyncracies, a deep desire to communicate. Instead, most of the time we seem to be like people who take a phrase book around with them and point to the words we think most approximate what we 'really' mean.

marvellous melbourne and the masterful Dutch.

I have just spent the weekend 'seeing' Melbourne with a couple of friends visiting from Queensland. Predictably, the only time I seem to get out and explore this wonderful city is when I'm showing people around! We only had two days together, so we really packed it in. We went to the Dutch Masters Exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, had lunch at Federation Square, went shopping at Bridge Road, had a drink at the Gin Palace, ate dinner in Chinatown and listened to jazz in Bennett's Lane... and that was just Saturday! Yesterday we went to the Vic Markets and had coffee in Lygon Street before church. I'm completely exhausted, which probably explains why I usually spend my weekends on the couch with a book!

The Dutch Masters Exhibition was fascinating. In my Anglo arrogance, I was surprised to discover how significant the Netherlands was (were?) in seventeenth-century Europe. Most of what I know about this period comes from Neil Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy, a rollicking series of novels set in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The novels are about alchemy, slavery, Barbary corsairs, Isaac Newton, royalty, philosophy, religion, forgery and lots of other interesting things. Andrew and I read them out loud to each other, which took a long time but was lots of fun. In the series, Amsterdam is a centre of trade and (relative) religious tolerance and that does seem to have been the historical situation if the exhibition is to be trusted. Certainly, though Amsterdam had a Calvinist history, it was a much better place to be a Jew than almost anywhere else in Europe. And as a number of quotes at the exhibition emphasised, in keeping with the success of Dutch trade, the values of frugality, temperance, reliability were highly prized. Max Weber, come on down. Having said that, a large proportion of the artefacts on display were elaborately designed vessels used in drinking games!

I'm not sure if I should be at all concerned by the fact that even though I'm a 'professional' historian, I'm developing my understanding of this period on the basis of a few novels and an art exhibition....

demon on the desktop

Life in Crankersville changed forever last night: we got TV. After nearly four years of a TV-less marriage, Andrew inherited a TV card from a generous friend and has spent the last week or so getting it working. We can watch TV on our computer! A technical triumph, but I fear for our sanity and our marriage. To celebrate our possession we watched the late-night news on SBS - it took me two minutes before I was shouting at the screen. Tony Abbott (yes, him of 'as dead as John Brogden's career' infamy) taunting the Opposition with the information that at least on his side of the House they were friends. Somehow watching people's faces brings home the whole empty horror of politicking in a way that reading the papers does not. Print provides a buffer between me and my elected representatives that I would like to hang on to. Watching them I might have to leave to the more spiritually and emotionally mature.

narrative, character and community

I've been reading Stanley Hauerwas's book The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics. It's a challenging read, intellectually and personally. Particularly for someone funded by the military-industrial complex, given that non-violence is central to his entire scheme of ethics. I can't do justice to the complexity of his overall argument here, but one aspect I have appreciated is his emphasis on the importance of character in ethical decision-making. He argues that the kind of character a person has formed determines the nature of the decisions they face. To use one of his examples, a person who has developed a non-violent character, when confronted with violence towards him or herself, is faced with a number of options but by virtue of his or her character those options do not include violence. This is not a matter of abstract principle, but a matter of the very person they have become. To quote Stanley himself:

`Once we resist the temptation to abstract "situations" and "cases" from their narrative context, we can begin to appreciate the testimony of many, both Christians and non-Christians, that in matters of significance even involving the "hardest choices" there was no "decision" to be made. Rather, the decision makes itself if we know who we are and what is required of us.' (129)

What I like about this approach is that it puts the emphasis not on those 'hardest choices' but on the day-by-day decisions that form our characters. These decisions, as Hauerwas argues, are not made in a vaccuum, but in a community that gives us a meaningful story by which to make sense of our lives. Either we make decisions that are true to that story, or we make decisions that reject that story and the meaning it offers. The gospel is one such story, and Hauerwas emphasises that it IS a story, not simply a set of propositions. The church offers us a community in which that story is continued. Our life within that community expresses the story and its meanings to others. Narrative, character, community - I think he's right.

getting emotional

My research is (broadly) into the way eighteenth-century Methodists constructed the experience of suffering. It continually brings me into contact with stories that both horrify and perplex. This is one of them:

In July 1758 Charles Wesley, Methodist preacher and poet, was sent a description of a mastectomy recently performed upon a Methodist laywoman. The description, entitled 'An account of Mrs Davis behaviour during the operation of her breast being cut out', was written by a woman who had been present during the operation. She wrote of Mrs Davis,

'While the inside of her breast was taken out she ask'd, if they had done cutting: I answer'd yes, and some thread being call'd for, she immediately said there is some in my work basket on the table: while they sew'd up the blood vessel, she said this pain is very great, she call'd on the lord to strengthen her and said I'm faint, and while she was going to receive some drops from the hands of a friend: I fainted away.'

For me, even the thought of the pain that Mrs Davis must have experienced is almost unbearable. This terse account and the emotional response is engenders raises an immediate question: how did eighteenth-century men and women endure suffering such as this? This is, in some ways, the central question that drives my research. But there are other equally interesting questions that this story raises. Later in this account the writer professes herself unable to understand why she fainted given that throughout the operation, she was at peace and 'entirely happy'. Her self-perception points to one of the many problems that the historian of emotions encounters. I struggle to believe that anyone could be 'entirely happy' while watching a friend suffer under the knife. But my struggle (and my immediate reading of her collapse as a physical response to unimaginable stress) is not necessarily a guide to the 'truth' of her emotional state, unless you believe that Freud's theories represent absolutes. Is it, in fact, possible or desirable to access such a 'truth' when reading about the experience of someone in the past? To put it more broadly, to what extent are emotions universal and to what extent are they socially constructed?

These are the kind of questions I'm reflecting on as I try to collect my thoughts on emotion for an article I'm planning to write. I still have a way to go before I'm coherent! Historians of emotion have considered these questions in more theoretical terms - I want to consider how they apply to the history of suffering in particular. Eighteenth-century Methodists conceptualised suffering in ways that modern historians have dismissed (or psychoanalysed) as unhealthy or unbelievable. I'd like to suggest that we take them more seriously on their own terms. But I also want to hold to my conviction that not everything is socially constructed - that we can identify with, sympathise with, understand other human beings across centuries as well as across distances, races, classes.

birds, bread, petals

This morning I walked to the station. I was walking and reading at the same time - a practice that has caused me trouble several times before! Halfway to the station, I passed a garden that contained the most beautiful blossom tree. I find blossom trees very moving - the contrast between the stark brown branches and the clouds of delicate pink petals. Beneath the tree stood an old lady, who was jerkily throwing handfuls of bread onto the lawn. Birds were darting in from every direction, fluttering and pecking, wheeling away to perch on the branches of the tree or the roof of the house.

At that moment, my eyes had just fallen on these words on the page I was reading.
Wind of God, blow far from us
all dark despair,
all deep distress,
all groundless fears,
all sinful desires,
all Satan's snares,
all false values,
all selfish wishes,
all wasteful worries.

Blow into us
your holy presence,
your living love,
your healing touch,
your splendid courage,
your mighty strength,
your perfect peace,
your caring concern,
your divine grace,
your boundless joy.

Wind of God,
blow strong,
blow fresh,
blow now.

The prayer, the darting of the birds, the kindness of the bread, the beauty of the petals undid me. I wanted to stand on the street and weep aloud for my dying grandmother, for my friends who suffer and yet have courage, for the carnage and horror in the news. So much dark despair and deep distress.

Wind of God. Your holy presence, your perfect peace, your boundless joy.

rough week

I'm having a rough week and don't really feel collected enough to write anything sensible about it. So here's my current favorite piece of graffiti (courtesy of the university toilet walls and in the face of some fairly serious competition):

What if the Hokey Pokey IS what it's all about?

fierce religion

I've been thinking about 'fierce religion' after reading an opinion piece by Pamela Bone in The Age (www.theage.com.au). Her basic argument is that good religion is the sort where the adherents 'politely ignore' the less palatable parts of their scriptures. Bad religion is the sort that has people passionately believing absurdities. She continues her argument with some statistics showing that formal adherence to religion seems to drop as prosperity and education increase, suggesting that improving all people's lives would put an end to religion altogether. She concludes that religion has its uses, but 'be grateful most people don't believe too fiercely'.

Today's letters page includes (of course) a couple of rejoinders - one of the 'I'm a passionate believer and I'm not a bad person' sort. This seems to me fairly unhelpful - none of us should be naive about the depths of our own propensity to violence, or the possibility that we will harness our own convictions to base causes. A couple of other responses occur to me.

Firstly, it is terribly sloppy thinking to equate fierce or passionate conviction with 'bad' religion. Without making grand statements about myself (who knows how I might use my convictions to damage others?) there are some useful historical contexts for considering this. Martin Gilbert's book The Righteous is a study of Europeans who protected Jews during the Holocaust. What is clear from his work is that Catholic teachings on the Jews contributed to popular anti-semitism and allowed a culture where the Holocaust could occur. Bad religion. What is also clear is that the majority of people who protected or saved Jews (at incredible risk to themselves and their families, usually with no desire for reward) did so out of religious conviction. Incredibly fierce conviction about the value of human life and the love of God for the persecuted sustained most of these'Righteous' Gentiles. Surely that's good religion.

I am reminded of the statement of a philosopher when she visited the site of Auschwitz. As she walked through those terrible gates she said 'I never want to be as certain of anything as the people were who built this place.' How inane. Only those who were that certain could possibly have confronted the powerful forces that built those gates. Only those who were that certain did. Of course religion is not the only possible source of such certainty. But I would argue that historically it very often has been.

Secondly, the suggestion that most believers cope with the uncomfortable parts of their scriptures by politely ignoring them suggests to me that Pamela Bone hasn't been in conversation with many believers lately. Thousands of years of thought, prayer, discussion and debate on such passages reduced to 'politely ignor[ing]' them. Sigh. It's hard not to find the underlying assumption that believers are mindless or heartless frustrating!

Thirdly, Bone's statement about secular societies obviously requires further investigation. The second response to her article published by The Age took issue with this statement by giving examples of 'secular' societies that were/are human rights disasters - the USSR, China etc. Again, this is not entirely convincing because these societies are not strictly secular - they are atheistic. If Bone is arguing that secular societies (ie. societies that protect the right to religious expression and practice but separate church and state) are 'best', she of course needs to explain what she means by 'best'. 'Happiness indicators' such as suicide statistics would not necessarily support her argument. Even assuming that she is right, however, she immediately finds herself in debt to those pesky 'fierce religionists' who passionately argued for the separation of church and state on the basis of religious conviction. All of this is of course discussed in the wide literature on the history of secularisation.

It would be encouraging to think that we could analyse and condemn the horrors of religious bigotry and violence without resorting to such sloppy distinctions between those who are serious (and therefore loonies) and those who are secular humanists who have adopted a bit of religion as a sentimental trimming. We Christians are, of course, capable of just such stereotyping!

snicker

Ship of Fools (www.shipoffools.com) has just closed its offensive religious humour competition. If you're into jokes about randy priests, you'll love it. I gave up after the first few, but salvaged this semi-precious gem:

A priest, a rabbi and an imam walk into a bar.
The barman looks up and says "What is this? Some kind of joke?"

two good things

So far my blogging has been rather bleak. To balance that, here are two (completely unrelated) good things that I have encountered in the last 24 hours:

1) Today is Daffodil Day, so there are bright yellow clumps of daffodils (and daffodil-related paraphernalia) being sold all over the place. As I walked in the university gates this morning, there was a girl in front of me carrying a bunch of daffodils. She was being followed, at about head height, by an absolutely enormous bumble bee! It was just buzzing along cheerfully, presumably following the scent (sight? what kind of senses do bees have?) of the daffodils. Wonderful!

2) I have been reading Walter Brueggemann on the Psalms, in preparation for talks that I am giving in Brisbane next weekend. He has very good things to say. Here's one of them:

'I think that serious religious use of the lament psalms has been minimal because we have believed that faith does not mean to acknowledge and embrace negativity. We have thought that acknowledgement of negativity was somehow an act of unfaith, as though the very speech about it conceded too much about God's 'loss of control'.'
(Brueggemann, The Message of the Psalms (Augsburg: Minneapolis, 1984), 52)

Which is also wonderful, and leads me to sneak in a third good thing - yesterday I got the program for the conference I am presenting at in the States in November (the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, www.aarweb.org ). Walter Brueggemann (and Mark Noll, Miroslav Volf and Stanley Hauerwas) will also be speaking! I'm feeling much more enthusiastic about the conference as a result.

slavery and sympathy

After writing yesterday about the moral questions raised by 'I heart Huckabees', I sat down to read a number of journal articles about the eighteenth-century movement for the abolition of slavery. The historical development these articles are concerned with is this:
'An unprecedented wave of humanitarian reform sentiment swept through the societies of Western Europe, England, and North America in the hundred years following 1750. Among the movements spawned by this new sensibility, the most spectacular was that to abolish slavery. Although its morality was often qustioned before 1750, slavery was routinely defended and hardly ever condemned outright, even by the most scrupulous moralists.' (Thomas Haskell, 'Capitalism and the Origin of Humanitarian Sensibility, Part I', The American Historical Review Vol. 90, No. 2 (Apr., 1985), 339.)
There are two main questions that this development of 'sensibility' raises for me (and the authors of the articles I'm reading). Firstly, where did this new sensibility - in a sense, a new moral parameter - come from? Secondly, why was it so selective? That is, why did humanitarian reformers, for the most part, expend enormous amounts of energy on the abolition of slavery, the reform of prisons and asylums, the improved treatment of indigenous peoples, while largely ignoring (or even worsening) the situation of the working poor in Britain itself?

There are a number of reductionistic answers to these questions. The hagiography that developed around the humanitarian reformers portrayed them as moral giants who were motivated by a new vision of compassion that came entirely from some source external to their historical context - either a new understanding of the gospel (for the evangelical reformers) or their own moral character (for the utilitarians and others). This hagiography failed to explain the selective nature of the reformers' compassion and was thoroughly attacked in the revisionist accounts of Marxists and others. In many of the revisionist accounts, the reformers acted primarily as agents for social control. As members of the growing middle class, they used the moral authority gained through the reform movements to establish social and cultural hegemony. Simultaneously, they supported the establishment of ever-tighter legal and social restrictions on the working poor. (Foucault, of course, argues that the humanitarian reform movements themselves acted to create these restrictions). In such accounts the reformers are either profoundly hypocritical or entirely self-deceived as to their own motives.

The articles that I am reading attempt to provide more balanced explanations of the reform movements that take both the economic, social and cultural context and the compassionate urges of the reformers seriously. This makes for better history than either the hagiographical or revisionist extremes. But it doesn't make for simple explanations! How easy to 'do good' within the parameters of our own understanding. How difficult to see the motives that drive us or the consequences that ensue.

I heart Huckabees!

I really do! After standing in the video shop for half an hour, feeling mounting frustration over the endless amounts of pointless rubbish that Hollywood churns out, it was a delight to watch a film that is actually about something. The quality is not entirely consistent, but at least they tried! The central idea - of 'existential detectives' who can be hired to spy on their client so as to discover the meaning behind his or her life - is gold. The efforts of the two American detectives (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) to help their clients find meaning are constantly threatened by their French counterpart (Isabelle Huppert), who is devoted to guiding her clients into the truth that life is cruel and meaningless. It's a philosophical morality play!

The scene that has really lingered in my mind, however, is the one in which two main characters - Tommy and Albert - have dinner with a middle-class Christian family. Tommy is a disillusioned firefighter, obsessed with the 'petroleum problem', while Albert is an idealistic greenie and dreadful poet. They are invited to dinner with the Christian family because of their interest in a Sudanese orphan the family is fostering. The family is carefully and caustically portrayed - secure in their self-righteousness as 'good people' (they've adopted an orphan from Africa, after all!), convinced that the American way of life is inherently good, immediately threatened by any suggestion that they have contributed to the broader problems of the world. When Tommy suggests that suburban sprawl and thoughtless consumption of petrol has contributed to the kind of war and violence that left the Sudanese boy orphaned, the teenage daughter announces with great anxiety that 'Jesus isn't angry with us if we accept him in our hearts'. Tommy responds: 'Yes he is, I'm sorry, yes he really is'.

A neat portrayal of the moral dead-end of much of modern evangelicalism. Not, of course, fair to the many western Christians (including evangelicals) who have a broader perspective. But the temptation to bolster our own righteousness by doing sentimental good on a small scale while developing theological justifications for ignoring the broader forces of evil at work - so recognisable! Have mercy on us, O Lord.

AZADI

Most Thursday mornings for the past two years I have been in detention. With a couple of friends I've made my way past the high fences, barbed wire and security guards outside Maribyrnong Detention Centre. We've sat in the gloomy visitors' room with a series of confused, angry and desperate people who have been locked up without a trial and without sentence being passed. We've heard stories about torture and fear, about separation from loved ones, about night journeys over mountains and across the ocean. We've learned about food and customs and languages and religions. We've laughed a lot at the detention centre and cried occasionally at home.

This Thursday was different. This Thursday, a man who had been in detention for four and a half years - the friend who we've been visiting for the longest - came to visit us. He got out of detention two weeks ago and today we showed him around the university. He was walking around the streets of Melbourne with us! We had breakfast in a funky little Carlton cafe, and we explored the nooks and crannies of this campus together. Things I'd never noticed: Across the court from the library, the garden beds are full of papyrus. One of the doors to the university carpark was moved here from a street in Dublin, Eire. There is a chunk of stone from the gates of the Port Arthur settlement in the middle of one of the university gardens.

Throughout the morning, I kept wanting to stop and grab his arm and say 'You got out! You're free! You're here with us!' I was overwhelmed by the experience of walking through the streets with him, finally away from that terrible place of guards and high gates. But what would he have said to me, if I had expressed my joy? At lunch we toasted 'Azadi' - 'freedom'. Freedom for him is a life without his daughter, a life of depression medication and chain smoking, a life without work or self-respect. A ruined and precarious life. My government did this, and while I am so glad my friend is free, I am deeply ashamed of what we have done to him. Will there be justice for him?

photo

I'm experimenting with uploading photos. This is me at a recent conference.. presenting a poster on 'Singing about Smallpox'. 'Eh?' you may understandably ask.

First Blog

I mainly created this blog because I thought the name was so cool. Why has no other Jo (or Joe) Blogger used it? Perhaps because it's not as amusing as I thought...