CCBlogs thinking critically, living faithfully

We observed the 30th Anniversary of the Jonestown Tragedy on Tuesday. I posted several pieces and noted that this tragedy hits close to home because People's Temple was a recognized Disciples of Christ congregation and Jim Jones had standing in the Northern California Region of our church. Although this was long ago and I was not yet a Disciple -- I was Foursquare and attending a Disciples-related school at the time.

In this Sightings piece, Brian Britt calls on the public to properly remember Jonestown. He calls for studies that would illuminate what happened and why. Most of all he decries the flippant use of the ubiquitous phrase "Drinking the Kool-Aid," which emerged from the Jonestown tragedy. Indeed, it may be that the phrase is the best known legacy of this event, and few if any realize this.

What Jonestown should raise in our consciousness is the issue of religious violence. Britt helps get this discussion started.

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Sightings 11/20/08


Drinking the Kool-Aid
-- Brian Britt

Thirty years have passed since the murder-suicide of over nine hundred members of Jim Jones's People's Temple, on November 18, 1978. A sign hanging in the pavilion of Jonestown at the time read, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Today there is still no consensus on how to understand or respond to Jonestown. Academics have produced dozens of theories in hundreds of publications (some point to Jones's charisma, others to his vulnerable followers, social control techniques, or utopian zeal), but these "cult studies" and biographies fail to explain how familiar people and ideas could yield such destruction. Meanwhile, Jonestown haunts American popular speech in a phrase that makes parody of disaster: "drinking the Kool-Aid."

While public memorials have been slow to appear and modest in scale, the widespread use of the phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" in American speech and writing marks a place for Jonestown in collective memory. A database search of recent news publications and broadcasts, along with such sites as the online Urban Dictionary, confirm the phrase's popularity. Used most often to describe irrational or blind support for a trend or leader, the term appears most frequently in political contexts. In August, for example, former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson said current Governor Jim Doyle was "drinking some Kool-Aid" when he predicted that Barack Obama would carry Wisconsin in the presidential election. As if to silence the voice of Jones, whose deadly preaching at the "white nights" can still be heard on recordings, "drinking the Kool-Aid" aims to reduce Jonestown to a soundbite and religious rhetoric to mere words.

According to Rebecca Moore, the trivializing phrase is symptomatic of cultural dissociation and amnesia. The prevalence of the term since 2001, when many commentators compared Osama bin Laden to Jim Jones, may point to a growing awareness of and discomfort with religious violence. According to David Chidester, this avoidance is itself religious in nature: "rituals of exclusion" were mobilized from the outset to isolate Jonestown from mainstream consciousness. Likewise, James W. Chesebro and David T. McMahan argue that coverage of Jonestown and other murder-suicides in The New York Times reduces these events to grotesque and burlesque formulas, keeping them safely distant from ordinary life.

For scholars of religion, Jonestown grimly demonstrates the relevance and complexity of their field. In 1982 Jonathan Z. Smith noted that religious studies had yet to grapple with the ecstatic experiences and utopian vision of what Jones called "revolutionary suicide." Smith called for careful comparative interpretations of Jonestown that acknowledge the humanity of Jones and his followers. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas went further, finding fault with the anti-religious prejudice of most responses: "We assume that being modern involves at least agreement that no one ought to take religion too seriously, especially if it is going to ask any real sacrifices from us…[W]e should take seriously what happened there as an act of revolutionary suicide that should initially be morally honored and respected."

Smith's and Hauerwas's challenges remain: Jonestown still makes no sense without rigorous analysis of "religion." Recent studies of Jonestown's aftermath and reception represent first steps toward a reckoning with the issue, yet considerable resistance remains. Homegrown religious violence, especially mixed as it was in the People's Temple with the politics of race and social change, creates deep discomfort. Despite all that has been written and learned since Septemer 11, 2001, the avoidance and trivialization of Jonestown indicate how far we have to go. The modern American movement called Pentacostalism, which was so violently appropriated by the People's Temple, now claims about a quarter of the world's Christians, and it is growing very quickly in Africa and Latin America. An understanding of this diverse and vibrant religious movement must attend to all its cultural and historical manifestations, including Jonestown.

Whether use of the phrase "drinking the Kool-Aid" opens a window on the American psyche, it certainly reflects a failure to think carefully about the categories of religion and secularity, memory and forgetting. Defenders and critics of religion alike tend to regard religion as a benevolent but limited feature of private life. The defensiveness of people of faith thus mirrors the dismissiveness of skeptics. The popularity of "drinking the Kool-Aid" asks for clearer thinking about the power of religion and the words spoken and written in its name. Such clarity is the first step toward acknowledging the humanity and familiarity of Jones and his followers.


Brian Britt is Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Virginia Tech, and currently a fellow at the Zentrum fur Literatur-und Kulturforschung Berlin. Emi Scott provided research assistance for this piece.


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This month in the Marty Center's Religion and Culture Web Forum, philosopher Jean-Luc Marion examines the concept of sacrifice. Drawing on conceptions of gift-giving and the relationships involved in such exchange, Marion formulates a framework for understanding sacrifice within modern philosophical discourse, but then seeks to apply this theory to a Biblical example, the account of Abraham's (incomplete but still effective) sacrifice of Isaac. His nuanced reading of this scriptural passage seeks to explain the seeming paradox of a sacrifice that eventually does not take place. Formal responses will be posted November 10 and 17 by Slavoj Zizek (The European Graduate School), Christian Gschwandtner (University of Scranton) and Jeremy Biles (Chicago, Illinois). http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/webforum/index.shtml

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

We're living in "no man's land." That is, we're living in the land where time is standing still. We have a lame duck President and a lame duck Congress. We have critical issues to resolve -- including what to do with the auto industry -- but we're left with a President who has no real credibility or even power. The only person who seems to have power is Hank Paulson. We have a Congress that is a hold over. The partisan margins are small, which means that the Democrats are still unable to get things moving without substantial GOP partnership and that doesn't seem to be in the offing.

President-Elect Barack Obama is moving full speed ahead on setting up an administration, one that looks to be quite strong (all those Clinton haters, get over it, where did you think he'd go to find staff in the middle of a crisis? Didn't you think he'd go looking for people with experience?). But, he's not the President. I'm sure he'd offer a different perspective on this crisis than the current administration, but he's not in that seat yet.

So, we sit there bickering, getting nothing done, and an industry that has been central to our country is on the brink of collapse.

I'd really love to see us turn this thing over now. I know it takes time to build an administration, but in this situation there is too much time between the election and the handing over of power. So, it's time to act!!!

Living in Metro Detroit gives you a different perspective on life. Right now the executives of the Ford, GM, and Chrysler, plus the head of UAW, are in Washington lobbying for help. They're not getting a very friendly reception. For the most part their hearing Congresspersons from both parties preen for the folks at home by lashing out at the decision to fly on separate corporate jets to Washington. Apparently they asked if the CEOs would work for a dollar a year (would they?). Now, there is much in all of this that is probably bad PR, but I think the congressional behavior is also a bit immature.

The facts are these, the American auto industry, which all together probably employs between 3-5 million people is in trouble. It's not just the Big 3, it's all automakers and their suppliers. If they go under, in fact, if just one goes under there could be catastrophic effects. But, interestingly enough GOP and Democrats seem to be coming together for different reasons to bash the Big 3.

The GOP want to bust the unions. The Dems want to attack CEO salaries. At the end of the day, neither of these tactics will solve anything. Right now, the automakers are in a bind, not because they produce poor products or that they're producing products that no one wants to buy, they're in a bind because no one can buy anything. When you're worried about having a job tomorrow you're not going to put down 15,000 or more on a car. Then there's the credit crunch. I have really good credit, but even I might have difficulty qualifying. We've also purchased three cars in the last few years, so, we're not in the market.

Finally, I need to speak out on quality. I regularly hear that Toyota and Honda make better cars than the US automakers. That has been true, but the US companies, especially Ford have closed that gap. Ford--I drive Fords has a number of new vehicles in the pipeline that are both more fuel efficient and high in quality. What they're asking for is simply some money to buy them time to weather a storm. Why is this such a bad thing? We pumped money into AIG -- 140 billion or so, what's 25 billion to rescue the auto industry?

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We hear a lot about the need to adapt to changing times, to make sure we're not beholden to the institutionalization of the church. But, this observation isn't necessarily a new one. Indeed, as you will see below, the founding pastor of the congregation I now pastor, a congregation that has a long lustrous history understood this to be true. So, consider this word from Dr. Edgar Dewitt Jones, late pastor of Central Woodward Christian Church and a president of the Federal Council of Churches.

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The Church and the new broom that sweeps clean

Can the average church appeal successfully to the average man? That depends. If the church has become institutionalized, bereft of spiritual charm, and in bondage to outworn and discredited methods, the average man will pass it by and find his inspirations and comradeships elsewhere. The old proverb that a new broom sweeps clean is fraught with wisdom. The first-century church met exigencies as they emerged and adopted methods suitable to the time and the need. Where there is spiritual vitality and intelligent leadership methods, policies, programs follow in due season.

Edgar Dewitt Jones, Blundering into Paradise, (Harper & Brothers, 1932), pp. 85-86

Today is the 30th Anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy, a moment in time when nearly a thousand lives were lost -- most as part of a mass murder/suicide. How many knew what was in the Koolaide, can never be known. But most of those residing in Guyana died. They left behind friends and family -- some members of the church still living in California. These are the people who most remember this event. They feel the loss most keenly. Among those still living is Jones' own son, Stephan. Although most articles that detail this event do not mention the connection between Jones and my denomination, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), it is something we must own. It is the dark side of a polity committed to freedom. We are survivors of that day as well and we dare not forget. The November issue of Disciples World carries an essay by Graham Kislingbury of Albany, Oregon. In it he remembers his sister Sharon, who at the time would have been 22. She was a social worker to be, a person full of life and compassion. She came from a good family, yet was drawn into Peoples Temple because of its work on the behalf of the poor. She had gone to Guyana and seemed taken in by the work of Jones. She was among the 910 that died in Jonestown, having taken -- willingly or not -- the poison laced Koolaide. Kislingbury has been taking this message of remembrance to all who would hear, knowing that this is something we dare not forget. And so, we remember those whose lives were lost and the families and loved ones left behind. May they find peace on this 30th anniversary. May we commit ourselves to pursuing a faith that embraces life and not destroys it.

What to do? What to do when the privilege of having one's monument stand alone in the park is threatened by another group that wants theirs in the park too? The reason why the Founders sought to put in a line/wall/fence of separation between church and state is that ultimately someone has to decide on the borders. Well, the Supreme Court, which is charged with legal not theological issues has been given a most interesting case. In the town of Pleasant Grove, Utah the primacy of the Ten Commandments is being threatened by the Seven Aphorisms of the Church of Summum. Now, you may never have heard of this group. If you haven't, you're not alone. Until I last week I'd never heard about them either -- I learned about this group from an NPR report on this Supreme Court Trial. So, what do we do with religiously oriented monuments? How do we decide which ones get to stay and which don't? Or should we just ban all of them? How will the Court decide? Martin Marty tackles this question today with his usual wit!
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Sightings 11/17/08


Ten Commandments versus Seven Aphorisms-- Martin E. Marty
After the year of campaign-bred obsession with the Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government, the Judicial bade for attention this week in ways that Sightings cannot fail to see or choose to neglect. "Justices Grapple..," began a New York Times headline above an article by Adam Liptak (November 13). The Wall Street Journal the same day published Jess Gravin on "10 Commandments vs. 7 Aphorisms: A New Religion Covets Legitimacy." USA Today and all the rest also covered the first and certain to be among the biggest religion cases this cycle. Oh, back to the Liptak piece, the headline ended: "…with Question of Church Monument as Free Speech Issue." All reports on the controversy, which reached the Supreme Court, included comment on how complex and emotion-inducing this case and such cases are. When young, and before I learned of the security provided by academic tenure, I think I thought that a chair at the Supreme Court would be the best furniture from which to view the world and enjoy life for years. The more I got into studies of the history of the judiciary, the more clear it became that judging "religion" cases would always be an occasion for taking risks, experiencing teeterings, and living with ambiguities. At least the justices I admire live with ambiguities and are not too sure of themselves and their decisions. The current case is illustrative. The Eagles, Fraternal Order of this species, decades ago donated an ugly stone sculpture of one version of the Ten Commandments to Pleasant Grove Park in Pleasant Grove, Utah. The city fathers accepted it. So far so good. Now a group named the Church of Summum wants to challenge the monopoly of that religious symbol on public prophecy, and to erect also its "Seven Aphorisms." Given space and time and reader curiosity, we could entertain or inform by describing the history, beliefs, and practices of the group. Let others do that. Suffice it to say that Pleasant Grovers find them and the religion for which the sculpture stands to be bizarre and offensive. They may well be, but the Court will not engage in text-criticism or in becoming phenomenologists of religion in this exotic case. Its members are not credentialed as scholars of religion but as interpreters of the Constitution. What to do? How to decide? Both "sides" have good and bad cases. Will the Ten Commandments people win over the Seven Aphorisms folk by squatters' rights, with "We were here first!" and "We belong and you don't!" claims? Whether either or both of these sides should have the show to themselves will be debated by legal experts and the judges until the ruling comes, most likely in June, and probably to the satisfaction of few. James Madison & Co., the original drafters of the Constitution, did not oppose religion or irreligiosity, but Madison especially wanted to make sure that no religious group was given privilege. Having park employees mow grass around your donated art shows preference and endows privilege, the Madisonian no-no. The choices? a) Removing privilege and Constitutional brinkmanship by asking the Eagles to go fly; or b) purifying and extending the reaches of religious displays until the park has no grass to walk on; or c) reaching to extend privileges in order to honor the Eagles, the military veterans being celebrated, and the bragging rights of those who say "We were here first, and we're bigger than you are:" or d) hoping it will all go away until next month's crisis comes. You can decode them while the justices grapple.
Martin E. Marty's biography, current projects, upcoming events, publications, and contact information can be found at www.illuminos.com.
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This month in the Marty Center's Religion and Culture Web Forum, philosopher Jean-Luc Marion examines the concept of sacrifice. Drawing on conceptions of gift-giving and the relationships involved in such exchange, Marion formulates a framework for understanding sacrifice within modern philosophical discourse, but then seeks to apply this theory to a Biblical example, the account of Abraham's (incomplete but still effective) sacrifice of Isaac. His nuanced reading of this scriptural passage seeks to explain the seeming paradox of a sacrifice that eventually does not take place. Formal responses will be posted November 10 and 17 by Slavoj Zizek (The European Graduate School), Christian Gschwandtner (University of Scranton) and Jeremy Biles (Chicago, Illinois). http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/webforum/index.shtml ---------- Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Tomorrow will mark the 30th anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy. On November 18, 1978 918 people died in Guyana, most of them residents of the People's Temple compound in Jonestown. I was in college at the time, attending Northwest Christian College (now Northwest Christian University). NCC is a Disciples related college, and I remember the President of our college reading a statement that attempted to disassociate the Disciples from Jones. Although there was tension between Disciples regional leaders in Northern California and the church there was little that could be done, especially after Jones had left the San Francisco Bay area and settled in Guyana.

The November issue of Disciples World covers this tragedy, because at the time of this tragedy People's Temple was a Disciples of Christ congregation. In 1978 it listed between 2000 to 3000 members and contributed about $35,000 to Disciples units and causes in 1977. That was in 1978 dollars, so the amount was huge. It was an interracial congregation -- though predominantly black.

The Disciples, my denomination has struggled with with what to do in cases like this. Congregations have extraordinary autonomy. Clergy can be denied standing in the denomination, but congregations are not required to call clergy with standing. It is part of our frontier ethos, our commitment to freedom.

Katherine Willis Pershey has written an excellent article entitled: "Jim Jones and the Disciples: Could it happen again?" Katherine, a Disciples clergyperson herself, tells the story of Jones' early ministry and how this charismatic person drew together a church and impressed outsiders with his commitment to social justice. In the end, however, the story moved in a very different direction, as he came to believe not in God but in himself. Tragedy followed and the denomination was left not knowing what to do. It considered developing policies that would discipline or remove congregations, but did not act upon them. They did, however, seek to implement ways of keeping better tabs on clergy -- both before ordination and after.

Katherine concludes with this statement:

Could it happen again?

There will never be another Jim Jones. There will never be another Jonestown. It was a perfect storm of demonic proportions that lead to the largest loss of American civilians in a non-natural disaster until the events of September 11, 2001.

Yet one thing hasn’t changed in 30 years: The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is still rendered vulnerable by the very freedom it cherishes.

This is the question we ask at a number of levels. The whole debate over the Patriot Act is similar to this one. How do we balance freedom and safety? Katherine concludes that we Disciples remain vulnerable. But is this a bad place to be in? What would the solution be?

I will post some more tomorrow, but this is an anniversary that needs to be taken seriously.

I've never been in the military. I don't know what it feels like to return from war. I had students that served in Gulf War 1 and they told me of the difficulties it presented to them. War brings with it many consequences, consequences that often persist for the rest of one's life. These consequences could be physical -- a lost limb or loss of hearing -- or it could be psychological. Over the last year we heard how many of our military and veterans hospitals were below proper standards. That is a travesty -- whether you support a war or not, the young men and women who are sent into a war zone and come back injured should be given proper care.

Recently I was contacted and asked to post for a group called Survivor Corps. I hadn't heard about them, but they are a group seeking to right this wrong. You ought to check them out.

Here is information about this group:

US Program: Operation Survivor

Since October 2001, more than 1.6 million Americans have served in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 30,000 have returned with physical wounds, but many more return with invisible injuries, including an estimated 620,000 men and women with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), and/or major depressive disorder. Recent reports also suggest an increase in rates of alcoholism, substance abuse, domestic violence, homelessness and suicide among returning servicemen and women. These traumatic effects of war, left unaddressed, will have far-reaching negative consequences for service members, their families, and their communities.

Survivor Corps launched Operation Survivor in 2008 to help American service members returning home from war. This program enables these brave men and women to overcome the debilitating effects of trauma and to reintegrate into their families and communities.

Operation Survivor currently includes three initiatives:

* Community-based Partnerships in Peer Support –We are training organizations to connect those affected by war so that they may better overcome trauma and injury, reconnect with their families, and contribute to their communities. This approach, known as peer support, is based on the understanding that the best help comes from someone who has been through a similar experience.

* SurvivorNet – We are building an online community of support that will connect service members to peers with a shared experience, using survivor hosted blogs, innovative social networking, and links to additional resources.

* Convene Government, Business, and Nonprofit Institutions– No single organization can fully address the homecoming of so many. A collaborative approach is needed. Survivor Corps is bringing together, for the first time, leaders from across sectors to work together on a better approach to the healthy reintegration of returning troops. Learn More.


For more insight into the difficult process of reintegration after war, read Before and after Iraq by Micheal Hastings for the L.A. Times.

Send a message of support to returning troops and their families.


Contact Information

Scott Quilty
Survivor Corps U.S. Program Manager
2100 M St. NW Suite 302
Washington DC 20037
Ph: 202.250.3946
F: 202.464.0011
squilty@survivorcorps.org

William Barclay, the late Scottish biblical scholar best known for his New Testament commentary series -- The Daily Study Bible. In his autobiography Barclay describes why he decided that universalism was the most faithful understanding of the Christian faith. I find much of what he says here convincing.

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I AM A CONVINCED UNIVERSALIST by William Barclay

Professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism at Glasgow University and the author of many Biblical commentaries and books, including a translation of the New Testament, "Barclay New Testament," and "The Daily Study Bible Series."

I am a convinced universalist. I believe that in the end all men will be gathered into the love of God. In the early days Origen was the great name connected with universalism. I would believe with Origen that universalism is no easy thing. Origen believed that after death there were many who would need prolonged instruction, the sternest discipline, even the severest punishment before they were fit for the presence of God. Origen did not eliminate hell; he believed that some people would have to go to heaven via hell. He believed that even at the end of the day there would be some on whom the scars remained. He did not believe in eternal punishment, but he did see the possibility of eternal penalty. And so the choice is whether we accept God's offer and invitation willingly, or take the long and terrible way round through ages of purification.

Gregory of Nyssa offered three reasons why he believed in universalism. First, he believed in it because of the character of God. "Being good, God entertains pity for fallen man; being wise, he is not ignorant of the means for his recovery." Second, he believed in it because of the nature of evil. Evil must in the end be moved out of existence, "so that the absolutely non-existent should cease to be at all." Evil is essentially negative and doomed to non-existence. Third, he believed in it because of the purpose of punishment. The purpose of punishment is always remedial. Its aim is "to get the good separated from the evil and to attract it into the communion of blessedness." Punishment will hurt, but it is like the fire which separates the alloy from the gold; it is like the surgery which removes the diseased thing; it is like the cautery which burns out that which cannot be removed any other way.

But I want to set down not the arguments of others but the thoughts which have persuaded me personally of universal salvation.

First, there is the fact that there are things in the New Testament which more than justify this belief. Jesus said: "I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself" (John 12:32). Paul writes to the Romans: "God has consigned all men to disobedience that he may have mercy on all" (Rom. 11:32). He writes to the Corinthians: "As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:22); and he looks to the final total triumph when God will be everything to everyone (1 Cor. 15:28). In the First Letter to Timothy we read of God "who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," and of Christ Jesus "who gave himself as a ransom for all" (1 Tim 2:4-6). The New Testament itself is not in the least afraid of the word all.

Second, one of the key passages is Matthew 25:46 where it is said that the rejected go away to eternal punishment, and the righteous to eternal life. The Greek word for punishment is kolasis, which was not originally an ethical word at all. It originally meant the pruning of trees to make them grow better. I think it is true to say that in all Greek secular literature kolasis is never used of anything but remedial punishment. The word for eternal is aionios. It means more than everlasting, for Plato - who may have invented the word - plainly says that a thing may be everlasting and still not be aionios. The simplest way to out it is that aionios cannot be used properly of anyone but God; it is the word uniquely, as Plato saw it, of God. Eternal punishment is then literally that kind of remedial punishment which it befits God to give and which only God can give.

Third, I believe that it is impossible to set limits to the grace of God. I believe that not only in this world, but in any other world there may be, the grace of God is still effective, still operative, still at work. I do not believe that the operation of the grace of God is limited to this world. I believe that the grace of God is as wide as the universe.

Fourth, I believe implicitly in the ultimate and complete triumph of God, the time when all things will be subject to him, and when God will be everything to everyone (1 Cor. 15:24-28). For me this has certain consequences. If one man remains outside the love of God at the end of time, it means that that one man has defeated the love of God - and that is impossible. Further, there is only one way in which we can think of the triumph of God. If God was no more than a King or Judge, then it would be possible to speak of his triumph, if his enemies were agonizing in hell or were totally and completely obliterated and wiped out. But God is not only King and Judge, God is Father - he is indeed Father more than anything else. No father could be happy while there were members of his family for ever in agony. No father would count it a triumph to obliterate the disobedient members of his family. The only triumph a father can know is to have all his family back home. The only victory love can enjoy is the day when its offer of love is answered by the return of love. The only possible final triumph is a universe loved by and in love with God.

[Quoted from William Barclay: A Spiritual Autobiography, pg 65-67, William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, 1977.]

To say that God will reconcile all of creation is not to say that Jesus' death means nothing or that sin means nothing. If we take the passages that speak of judgment and condemnation and see them as God's pronouncement that evil must not reign does not mean that we cannot affirm God's intention to bring all of creation into a relationship that is healing and restorative.

To say that there is truth to be found in other faith traditions does not mean that each is simply a different road to salvation -- in fact for a Buddhist the Christian understanding of salvation makes little sense -- it's talking about apples and oranges. Each of our religious traditions, the Christian one included, stand under God's judgment. Our practices as Christians are not always in line with the teachings of Jesus. We have done much to betray him. But that does not mean that there is nothing good in my faith tradition.

I do believe that "God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself" and that God is "entrusting the message of reconciliation to us" (2 Corinthians 5:19).

This passage of scripture has been central to my faith for many years. I continue to look to it for guidance and seek to better understand its meaning. This passage may not be explicitly universal, but I believe that in Paul's statement that God desires to make all things new, that includes each of us.

Paul makes clear that this act of reconciliation is costly for God. Indeed, it is the biblical witness that God's act of redemption, the act of bringing humanity back into relationship involved God's own act of suffering in Christ on the Cross. But, again, this act of reconciliation need not be limited, any more than God's costly grace needs to be limited.

It's been threatening all day, but now it looks as if we're about to get our first significant snow fall. Winter is here!

A commenter to an earlier post asked what could be done to help this monastery be rebuilt. It's too early to tell, but an article at the Diocesan website suggests that they intend to rebuild. The losses, especially in art and books goes into the millions.

The good news is that everyone connected to the monastery are safe -- and apparently taking refuge at St. Mary's Retreat House, which is behind the Santa Barbara Mission.

Here is a link to the article on the diocesan website.

With the number of fires increasing daily, the number of homes destroyed, families displaced, lives in danger and possibly lost, I join in this prayer for a region I once called home.

God of compassion, you watch our waysand weave out of terrible happenings wonders of goodness and grace.Surround those who have been shaken by tragedy with a sense of your present love, and hold them in faith.Though they are lost in grief, may they find you and be comforted;through Jesus Christ, who was dead, but lives,and rules this world with you. Amen(Chalice Worship, #466)

Fire is capricious -- kind of like a tornado. It hits some spots and leaves others untouched. Across Rattlesnake Canyon from Mt. Calvary Monastery is St. Mary's Seminary. One is destroyed and the other spared. Had the fire veered differently a different retreat center would have been lost. This doorway is all that remains of Mt. Calvary. Many times I've entered through these doors. Now they stand as stark reminder of nature's devastating power.

Our prayers continue to be with those in Santa Barbara, the Sylmar area, and other places in Southern California battling fire and wind.

I've seen a number of pictures from this fire, especially night ones, and it is eerie and threatening. Significant damage has been done to homes and structures throughout the area. I've mentioned Mt. Calvary Monastery earlier and Westmont College has been especially hard hit (about 14 faculty homes apparently have been destroyed along with several dorms and class rooms). This thing is not over by any stretch of imagination. It's late in the afternoon now and typically this is when the winds kick up. As you can see by the map, this is a dangerous fire for the Santa Barabara area.



View Larger Map

Again, our thoughts and prayers are with my former neighbors.

I will admit up front that there are numerous texts within Scripture, including words that emerge from the lips of Jesus that speak of judgment and the wrath of God. That being noted, I have come to the conclusion that the ultimate purpose of God is to reconcile all creation to himself. If God is by definition love and if love is by definition unconditional (agape), then God cannot rest until all of creation is at peace with God.

There are numerous passages that speak of God's universal intent to reconcile all things and to save all of God's people. Yes there are references to narrow paths, but there must be more. Consider this passage from Colossians 1:15-20

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. 17He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. 19For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Now in the verses that follow, Paul does offer a caveat, all of this is true if one continues "securely established and steadfast in the faith . . ." (vs. 22-23). But I find that first paragraph an exceptionally fruitful statement of God's gracious intent for humanity -- indeed for all of creation. How this happens, I do not know, but I trust in God's gracious love for all. In the mean time, I am called simply to give testimony to what God has done in me. Is that not sufficient?

One of my favorite spots in Santa Barbara was Mt. Calvary Retreat Center. It was, until last night, an Episcopal monastery sitting on a point high above the city. You could see up and down the coastline. I loved to take visitors up there because it had one of the best views around. It was also a wonderful place to spend a retreat day -- to enjoy a wonderful library, bookstore, gardens and more. I enjoyed sharing in the noon Eucharist and then lunch. I remember receiving spiritual direction from Brother Robert. It was a special place to me these past ten years.

It apparently has been caught in the Tea Fire. Hearing this, something I feared might happen knowing its location, deeply saddens me, for it was both a hidden treasure and a spiritual blessing.

For the second time since we left Santa Barbara, our home for the previous ten years, fire is threatening the community. The last fire, in July, threatened the area to the west of our former home -- in Goleta. Now what is known as the Tea Fire is threatening Montecito and the east side of the community. My wife's school, where she taught for nearly a decade is in the evacuation zone. Apparently 100 homes, many of them mansions have been destroyed. At least two buildings were destroyed when fire ripped through Westmont College.

Our prayers go out to our friends and all of those caught in this fire storm. I know what Santa Ana winds can do, how they can whip up a small fire and turn it into a maelstrom. No matter where you're living, you will be effected by smoke and ash.

So, once again, our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of this region.

The election of Barack Obama has, of course, historic importance. The questions that must now be raised, since this has now occurred, have to do with the implications for us as a nation and as a world. Cooper Harriss, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago raises this issue in an intriguing way -- that is, how does Obama's presidency reflect the two sides of the national motto -- "E Pluribus Unum." Is he an expression of the oneness or the the many? This question is raised in the context of Lincoln's life and message and in the context of another influence -- Ralph Ellison.

Take a read and offer your thoughts:

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Sightings 11/13/08

E Pluribus Obama

-- M. Cooper Harriss

In the November 6th New York Times, photographer Matt Mendelsohn describes a restlessness that overcame him on election night, leading him to drive across the Potomac to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, "expecting to find a crowd and some news." Instead he found roughly twenty-five people huddled around a transistor radio, a crowd so relatively small and quiet that they were unmolested by camera crews who, like Mendelsohn, expected numbers and bombast more in keeping with the throng in Grant Park, Chicago, not quite forty-score miles away.

Mendelsohn's instincts upon the election of our first president of color resound for evident reasons (Lincoln as "Great Emancipator" and the Memorial's steps as the location of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech). They also respond to signals manufactured by Obama's campaign, ranging from the announcement of his candidacy at the site of Lincoln's "House Divided" speech, to his invocation of the man and his words last Tuesday night. But to ascribe this rhetoric simply to matters of race overlooks a broader religious move that the President-elect and his handlers appear to understand, and which surely has contributed to their success.

Abraham Lincoln is the patron saint of the American civil religion, a category that Robert Bellah codified in 1967 as "a genuine apprehension of universal and transcendent religious reality as seen in or…as revealed through the experience of the American people." That Bellah's definition coincided with discernible fractures in a singular American mythology is significant. Commentators including our own Martin Marty have noted that the past four decades have witnessed a shift from "the one" to "the many" in national discourse. Marty's formulation in the third volume of Modern American Religion marks a movement from "centripetal" to "centrifugal," from a strong, centrally unified national identity to one thrust away from a center, multivalent. Within this context, "Americanness" has become a competitive hermeneutic, recently evident in the debates surrounding the nature of patriotism and the responsibilities of liberty and citizenship.

Similarly, Abraham Lincoln finds himself created, like Albert Schweitzer said of Jesus, by "each individual…in accordance with his own character." Consequently, how should we read the Obama candidacy and these earliest phases of his presidency? Is "change" skin deep or does it extend further? Might we also read a return to a centripetal orientation of American national identity, a new validation of a civil religion lost for nearly two generations? Should we even aspire for a sense of "one" over the pluralistic diversity of "the many," given the very real hegemonic potential that such a homogenous orientation raises? These are questions to bear in mind, and questions to which we shall, no doubt, return.

But in the hopeful interim, we might remember Ralph Ellison, another antecedent of the president-elect. In a recent article for The New Republic, David Samuels remarks on the evident influence Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) exerts on Obama's autobiography Dreams from My Father (1995) and, thereby, "as a major influence on his personal evolution." I would argue that another portion of Ellison's work resonates with Obama's candidacy—especially with his centripetal understanding of American civil religion: the second novel that Ellison wrote from 1952 until his death in 1994 and never completed, though excerpts were published as Juneteenth in 1999. In Juneteenth we find Adam Sunraider, a race-baiting white New England senator, engaged in deathbed conversations with Reverend Hickman, an African-American preacher. The reader learns that Sunraider was once known as "Bliss," a child of ambiguous racial origins who, though he could pass for white, was adopted by Hickman, raised and loved by his congregants, and trained in the homiletical arts of the black church. Indeed, Sunraider's hateful "white" eloquence was fostered by Bliss's "black" rhetorical apprenticeship—evincing Ellison's profound understanding of the irony of American history.

At a pivotal moment in the novel's disjointed chronology, Hickman stands at the Lincoln Memorial, considering "some cord of kinship stronger and deeper than blood, hate or heartbreak." His admiration for Lincoln conflates with Bliss's betrayal. Yet, ironically, it is the racist Sunraider, speaking on the Senate floor, who invokes the one and the many: "[H]istory has put to us three fatal questions, has written them across our sky in accents of accusation…How can the many be as one? How can the future deny the Past? And How can the light deny the dark?"

Now that the remarkable feat that many believed they would not live to see is accomplished, these questions, which invoke the mystery of American faith, should occupy our concern, and the new president's. May we rejoice in this remarkable moment, yet not blind ourselves in tragic self-satisfaction to the challenges and complexities of what lies ahead.

References:

Read Matt Mendlesohn in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/opinion/06mendelsohn.html

Read David Samuels, on Obama and Invisible Man, in The New Republic: http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=5c263e1d-d75d-4af9-a1d7-5cb761500092

Read Robert Bellah on American civil religion: http://www.robertbellah.com/articles_5.htm

M. Cooper Harriss, a junior fellow in the Martin Marty Center, is a PhD candidate in Religion and Literature at the University of Chicago Divinity School and managing editor of the journal Ethics, published by the University of Chicago Press.

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This month in the Marty Center's Religion and Culture Web Forum, philosopher Jean-Luc Marion examines the concept of sacrifice. Drawing on conceptions of gift-giving and the relationships involved in such exchange, Marion formulates a framework for understanding sacrifice within modern philosophical discourse, but then seeks to apply this theory to a Biblical example, the account of Abraham's (incomplete but still effective) sacrifice of Isaac. His nuanced reading of this scriptural passage seeks to explain the seeming paradox of a sacrifice that eventually does not take place.

Formal responses will be posted November 10 and 17 by Slavoj Zizek (The European Graduate School), Christian Gschwandtner (University of Scranton) and Jeremy Biles (Chicago, Illinois). http://divinity.uchicago.edu/martycenter/publications/webforum/index.shtml

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Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School.

I hadn't yet watched the Keith Olberman response to Prop 8. Finally did today. I do believe it is a powerful statement. Even if you don't like Olberman (he can be a bit over the top at times) and even if you do not approve of homosexuality or gay marriage, he offers what I think is one of the most powerful statements on this issue that I've heard. It's about love of neighbor, about doing to the other what you would have them do to you.

One of the key points here has to do with so called "re-definitions of marriage." He notes two instances in our own history where we have done just that. One relates to slavery, where slaves were prevented from legally marrying because they were property. The other with interracial marriage. When Barack Obama, our future President, was born in 1961 the marriage between his parents was deemed illegal in at least 16 states.

So, watch, consider, and put yourself in the place of fellow citizens seeking only one thing -- a bit of happiness and companionship in a difficult world.





H/T to Mike Leaptrott