Theology will kick your ass.
[Yes, I haven't posted in a while. We're bracketing that concern.]
So, I was told by numerous people in college that my mania for theological conversations and concerns and overtones was nonsense. "It's too heady!" they told me. "No one cares about that stuff! It has no relevance whatsoever to daily life, or what people actually care about!"
And, silly me. I listened for a while. Right up until I got some of that wonderful thing termed Life Experience and decided that these people were Full of Crap.
Theology, actually, is what the stuff of daily life is made of. Whoever said we couldn't talk about religion and politics was really smart. There is, in fact, nothing else to talk about.
To prove this statement, I offer the following examples.
Example #1: Ultra-orthodox Judaism in Israel!
According to Ha'aretz the other day, the election of a more conservative Orthodox party to the Chief Rabbinate has been causing some problems in the agricultural industry. Due to a Levitical law that calls for the land to rest and lie fallow every seventh year, technically the crops now being produced cannot be licensed as kosher by the Chief Rabbinate, which threatens the economy of Israel severely, since it heavily relies on a steady influx of locally grown kosher food. So: religious law and politics causes economic crisis, to the point where more moderate rabbis have formed a splinter rabbinate, in order to certify food. (Kind of a back-alley kosher thing. Oh, the jokes that could proceed.)
Now, here's where it gets interesting. Formerly, the law was dealt with through a provision in halakha (Jewish law) that allowed the land to be ritually sold to a non-Jew for the year. Kind of a loophole written into the law. However, being that this is a new regime, they aren't fans of that kind of reach-around, and won't license ritually bought/sold food.
But that leads to my point. The assumption built into the law, and its halakic interpretation is that of co-habitation with the stranger, which is all but lost today (hence a whole 'nother set of problems for Israel.) Dude. Of course you're going to starve if you let your land sit for an entire year. You're going to have to get pretty friendly with your neighbors, and this assumes you have some, and that they are growing food. The midrash goes a step farther and assumes that they are friendly enough to help out, and ritually buy your field from you, even if they do odd things like mangle the pronunciation of the glottal stops in your language, and enjoy the taste of matzoh way too much. But you know, they try.
Example #2: House of Bishops!!
Ok, so from far-off Israel, we come back to my own One, Holy and much Press-Released Church. If you've been following the press releases, then you know there's been some excitement as of late in the HoB. Yes, minions, it was like a school dance. Progressives on one side, conservatives on the other, and the ABC travelled all the way from Lambeth to stand in the middle and try to play tempting music for the dancing. ('In your Eyes', Rowan! Works every time! Why do they never listen?!)
Anyway, the statement they released was an interesting exercise in the crafting of a statement. For a really, really good wrap of....pretty much everything, go here. Occasionally, she even has some slightly snarky commentary, which, as we all know, can only help.
And what is my take? Because, for all the people now voicing their opinions to the highest heavens, surely I want to add fuel to that infero right?
Hmmmm.
Here is my initial thought: Read it several times, because it is theology, and theology is hard to understand, and dense.
Have you seen the US version of 'The Office?' Watch season two, the episode where Dwight has to give a speech. Jim tells him that in order to give a good one, he should be true to himself. Therefore, he should bang his fists, and wave his arms in the air, many times. He also attempts to be 'helpful' by giving him several speeches of history's great Facist dictators. Thus, the result is that Dwight gives a rendition of the Workers of the World, Unite! speech aimed towards paper salesmen and -women of Northeastern Pennsylvania, with randomly banging fists and wildly flailing arms, in complete discordance with his context and surroundings. (...You just have to see it. Trust me. BitTorrent it or something.)
I think the statement from the HoB is like that, somehow. There are randomly banging fists and flailing arms, and the sense that we're trying really REALLY hard, and really believe what we're saying, but it...doesn't...fit.
It doesn't fit to say at the beginning of a statement that you will withhold consent from the consecration from a particular group of people, but they are full members of the church just the same. It doesn't fit to say that a group is entitled to full civil rights, but not full ecclesiastical right, or the right to public union.
It's just an uneven statement; but at the same time, it's a true statement. The truth is that's where we are as a national church; struggle as we might, and come as far as we have. Anyone really think that if a gay or lesbian candidate gets elected to be bishop tomorrow that it won't be an issue before the Standing Committees? The bishops don't have power on their own to change it, though they might want to go back or forth (and though they get to tack on language to bitch-slap the foreign primates a bit, and good on them for that.)
And, honestly, all the unevenness and the contradiction and the frantic arm-waving implicit in the statement makes me having a grudging respect for it. (That, and the fact that seemingly no one in the secular media can figure what the hell we did. Hee.) I guess it's the equivalent of the Church writing some sort of adolescent diary entry, then sending it to the primates, then all holding hands and hoping that they don't hate us too too much when they read it. (Though, let's face it folks, some of those guys were foregone conclusions, right? Take the poster of Akinola off the wall, girls. Dreamy he may be, but he's not coming home.)
Next time: I explain what kind of music you should listen to!
----------------
Now playing: Rilo Kiley - Picture Of Success
via FoxyTunes
So, I was told by numerous people in college that my mania for theological conversations and concerns and overtones was nonsense. "It's too heady!" they told me. "No one cares about that stuff! It has no relevance whatsoever to daily life, or what people actually care about!"
And, silly me. I listened for a while. Right up until I got some of that wonderful thing termed Life Experience and decided that these people were Full of Crap.
Theology, actually, is what the stuff of daily life is made of. Whoever said we couldn't talk about religion and politics was really smart. There is, in fact, nothing else to talk about.
To prove this statement, I offer the following examples.
Example #1: Ultra-orthodox Judaism in Israel!
According to Ha'aretz the other day, the election of a more conservative Orthodox party to the Chief Rabbinate has been causing some problems in the agricultural industry. Due to a Levitical law that calls for the land to rest and lie fallow every seventh year, technically the crops now being produced cannot be licensed as kosher by the Chief Rabbinate, which threatens the economy of Israel severely, since it heavily relies on a steady influx of locally grown kosher food. So: religious law and politics causes economic crisis, to the point where more moderate rabbis have formed a splinter rabbinate, in order to certify food. (Kind of a back-alley kosher thing. Oh, the jokes that could proceed.)
Now, here's where it gets interesting. Formerly, the law was dealt with through a provision in halakha (Jewish law) that allowed the land to be ritually sold to a non-Jew for the year. Kind of a loophole written into the law. However, being that this is a new regime, they aren't fans of that kind of reach-around, and won't license ritually bought/sold food.
But that leads to my point. The assumption built into the law, and its halakic interpretation is that of co-habitation with the stranger, which is all but lost today (hence a whole 'nother set of problems for Israel.) Dude. Of course you're going to starve if you let your land sit for an entire year. You're going to have to get pretty friendly with your neighbors, and this assumes you have some, and that they are growing food. The midrash goes a step farther and assumes that they are friendly enough to help out, and ritually buy your field from you, even if they do odd things like mangle the pronunciation of the glottal stops in your language, and enjoy the taste of matzoh way too much. But you know, they try.
Example #2: House of Bishops!!
Ok, so from far-off Israel, we come back to my own One, Holy and much Press-Released Church. If you've been following the press releases, then you know there's been some excitement as of late in the HoB. Yes, minions, it was like a school dance. Progressives on one side, conservatives on the other, and the ABC travelled all the way from Lambeth to stand in the middle and try to play tempting music for the dancing. ('In your Eyes', Rowan! Works every time! Why do they never listen?!)
Anyway, the statement they released was an interesting exercise in the crafting of a statement. For a really, really good wrap of....pretty much everything, go here. Occasionally, she even has some slightly snarky commentary, which, as we all know, can only help.
And what is my take? Because, for all the people now voicing their opinions to the highest heavens, surely I want to add fuel to that infero right?
Hmmmm.
Here is my initial thought: Read it several times, because it is theology, and theology is hard to understand, and dense.
Have you seen the US version of 'The Office?' Watch season two, the episode where Dwight has to give a speech. Jim tells him that in order to give a good one, he should be true to himself. Therefore, he should bang his fists, and wave his arms in the air, many times. He also attempts to be 'helpful' by giving him several speeches of history's great Facist dictators. Thus, the result is that Dwight gives a rendition of the Workers of the World, Unite! speech aimed towards paper salesmen and -women of Northeastern Pennsylvania, with randomly banging fists and wildly flailing arms, in complete discordance with his context and surroundings. (...You just have to see it. Trust me. BitTorrent it or something.)
I think the statement from the HoB is like that, somehow. There are randomly banging fists and flailing arms, and the sense that we're trying really REALLY hard, and really believe what we're saying, but it...doesn't...fit.
It doesn't fit to say at the beginning of a statement that you will withhold consent from the consecration from a particular group of people, but they are full members of the church just the same. It doesn't fit to say that a group is entitled to full civil rights, but not full ecclesiastical right, or the right to public union.
It's just an uneven statement; but at the same time, it's a true statement. The truth is that's where we are as a national church; struggle as we might, and come as far as we have. Anyone really think that if a gay or lesbian candidate gets elected to be bishop tomorrow that it won't be an issue before the Standing Committees? The bishops don't have power on their own to change it, though they might want to go back or forth (and though they get to tack on language to bitch-slap the foreign primates a bit, and good on them for that.)
And, honestly, all the unevenness and the contradiction and the frantic arm-waving implicit in the statement makes me having a grudging respect for it. (That, and the fact that seemingly no one in the secular media can figure what the hell we did. Hee.) I guess it's the equivalent of the Church writing some sort of adolescent diary entry, then sending it to the primates, then all holding hands and hoping that they don't hate us too too much when they read it. (Though, let's face it folks, some of those guys were foregone conclusions, right? Take the poster of Akinola off the wall, girls. Dreamy he may be, but he's not coming home.)
Next time: I explain what kind of music you should listen to!
----------------
Now playing: Rilo Kiley - Picture Of Success
via FoxyTunes
posted by Dajjimeg at
5:02 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home