[Dr. Mark Eckel is our blogger for the month of August. Mark is the V.P. of Academic Affairs, Director, Interdisciplinary Studies, Professor of O.T. Crossroads Bible College, Indianapolis, www.warpandwoof.org]

Preamble Film-going and movie-watching for Christians is fraught with promise and problem.  The intention of sharing movie reviews in the August blog for Society of Christian Psychology is for reflective believers to carefully consider ideas movies offer.  It would be impossible to adequately engage every single Christian interpretation or conviction.  These 4 August film reviews consider the ambiguities of life from a Christian point of view.  My personal hope is that we might engage the Cineplex as actively as we do our disciplines. 

Curtains are a character in Peacock.  To begin, one notices the window shades are drawn but used for peeking.  Revelation then allows them to be thrown open.  But by the end the curtains are closed for good.  The metaphor of a life could not be more obvious.  Do we allow ourselves to look upon a world we fear will not understand us?  What do we do when the recurring images of our past keep us from outside light?  When we secretly peer out of our confinement, what do we watch, for what do we yearn?  How do we cover ourselves so that no one else sees who we really are, who we have become?  To what lengths will we go to maintain our individual identity and community equilibrium while hiding a secret that, were we found out, would plunge us back into the darkness?

The curtains open upon John Skilpa.  Our character is a shy, diminutive recluse.  His life has an unusual self-imposed, self-preservation order.  As the movie unfolds we understand that Skilpa’s traumas originate in childhood.  Up until recently, John has compensated his social reticence because of his mother’s care.  A year after her death, he dons not only her clothes but vestiges of that personality.  Psychologists call what we see on screen “dissociative identity disorder.”  John is played by Cillian Murphy who has crossed gender boundaries before (Breakfast on Pluto).  Cillian’s human features are transformed easily from a shorn, Nebraska cornhusker to a lovely woman.  While the town thinks John and his family a bit strange, all are drawn to Emma Skilpa.  When I watched this film with a group, one young woman remarked as Murphy’s female persona shows up for the first time, “Oh, she’s pretty!” not knowing what she was seeing.  I’m sure Peacock’s makeup artists would take a bow.

And let the curtain rise on the cast and crew.  Ellen Page heads a strong supporting cast (Susan Sarandon, Keith Carradine, Josh Lucas, Melissa Leo).  Bill Pullman is uncanny in his quirky role as a bank manager.  The set design reminds us that places, even houses, can take on a personality all their own.  Cheers to the producers for getting this movie made.  And Michael Lander’s direction is superb.

Lander is proud that Peacock is a difficult movie to categorize.  The aura of Hitchcock’s Psycho hovers about, making one think we will see “mother” at any moment.  But Peacock is different.  The tension of another Hitchcock classic Rebecca threads its unsettling thriller disposition throughout.  But Peacock is different.  Melodramatic “what-will-this-town-do?” ideals remind the viewer of Orson Welles’ The Stranger. But Peacock is different.  Filmgoers might bring to mind character-driven plotlines that mark the best of cinema such as Anthony Hopkin’s role in Remains of the Day.  But Peacock is different.  As difficult as it is to categorize so Peacock is indescribable.  Yet, one of my young friends with whom I saw the film for a second time simply remarked, “It’s the most humane movie I have seen in a very long time.”  If you find yourself thinking about this film for days and weeks afterward you have experienced the power of Peacock. But if you find yourself obsessed with your curtains, you may want to look in the mirror.

Rated PG-13 for disturbing themes concerning children and some violence.

My appreciation to Kyle Roberts writing over at the Cultivare blog for reviewing my book The Authenticity of Faith and putting some of its ideas to good use.

The start of Kyle’s review:

In Richard Beck’s recent book, The Authenticity of Faith, he considers whether a truly authentic faith is possible. Freud had dealt a heavy blow to Christianity by offering up scientific explanations for what motivates religious belief. Believers are drawn to religion because it functions to repress our existential anxieties. Afraid of death? Don’t worry, there’s an afterlife. Need some meaning and purpose for your life? Christianity gives you plenty (God loves you and has a wonderful plan…). Feel insignificant in this big bad world? You are one of the elect! Struggling with the problem of evil and suffering? God’s in control and has a plan for everything. Christianity (and other religions too) helps you repress your fears and deal with your anxieties. That, said Freud, is the reason for religious belief.

Read the rest of Kyle’s review here. 

As for putting the ideas of the book to good use, Kyle wrote a fascinating post about the Olympics as existential narcotic.

Well, my family and I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight Rises.

Some theological thoughts on the movie.

(Some spoilers ahead.)

There’s been a lot of discussion on the Internet about the politics of The Dark Knight Rises with many arguing that TDKR espouses a conservative politics with a repudiation of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The evidence for this line of argument has to do with the actions and speeches of Bane, the antagonist of the movie. For example, one of Bane’s early targets in the movie is the Wall Street trading floor (or whatever Wall Street is in Gotham). In addition, Bane uses class warfare as warrant for his actions, actions that espouse a populist, anarchist vision of society.

It is true that TDKR has a fairly positive view of social institutions and the order they provide. For example, the Gotham police force are cast as heroes and protectors of law and order. We also long for a judiciary with integrity after witnessing the actions of “the people’s court” under Bane (the Scarecrow is back as judge!). In this sense–a high view of social institutions–TDKR has a conservative sensibility.

That said, I don’t think TDKR is a repudiation of the concerns of the 99%. Bane isn’t extolling class resentment, he’s exploiting it. Cynically so.

It seems clear to me that TDKR sees economic inequality as a problem. Catwoman, a sympathetic figure, sees it this way. Where she parts with Bane and begins to side with Batman isn’t in the diagnosis of the problem but in how the two propose to address the problem.

To be sure, Bruce Wayne our hero is a billionaire, a part of the 1%. But he’s repeatedly described as a “philanthropist.” We also find him acting in very non-capitalistic ways. We learn that he’s actually damaged his company by refusing to pursue technology that would be globally dangerous. We learn about his interest in investing in clean, sustainable energy. And at the end of the movie he gives Wayne Manor for the care of orphans.

The point being that Wayne has a strong social and global ethic guiding how he handles his wealth, and he seems more than willing to make financial sacrifices to promote the common good. All that looks sort of “liberal.” And that seems to be the ruling ethic of the movie. Wayne gives everything he has to save the city. Toward the end of the movie Catwoman asks Batman why he keeps giving to Gotham. Hasn’t he already given them everything? His response is that he has one last thing to give. His life. And he goes on to give it away so that Gotham might be saved. In this, he’s a sort of Christ figure.

TDKR is liberal in another sense as well–its view of humanity. Throughout the Dark Knight trilogy there is a running debate about human nature. The trilogy starts with the dim view of humanity offered by the League of Shadows and Ra’s al Ghul. This is the view that humanity–epitomized in the life and ways Gotham, a sort of Babylon–is depraved and beyond redemption. That view is continued in the second movie with the Joker, who cynically wants to demonstrate this to Batman by getting two ferrys of Gotham citizens to blow each other up. In the final movie Bane brings us back to the League of Shadows as the views of Ra’s al Ghul make a return.

In response TDKR articulates a more positive view of humanity. In the first movie Batman rejects the anthropology of Ra’s al Ghul. In the second movie the people of Gotham refute the Joker–they don’t blow each other up. In TDKR the themes are about collective hope and social trust. In short, the optimistic view of humanity espoused by liberalism is on display. The more pessimistic view of humanity espoused by conservatism is rejected.

But not completely. Again, when “the people” are left on their own in Bane’s anarchical experiment the outcome isn’t pleasant. Under Bane we long for social order and stable social institutions. These are conservative themes and values. So in my opinion, the series is a bit of a mixed bag on this score. The trilogy is a mix of both liberal and conservative themes–politically, economically, and anthropologically.

In the end, though, I think the final film isn’t about about liberalism or conservatism. I think the film is about love. That might be a bit too sentimental, but I think it’s a defensible point. At the end of the day, Wayne loves Gotham and is willing to give her everything. I think that’s the main theme of the movie, love and the sacrifices love requires. In a similar way, Alfred loves Bruce and is willing to risk everything, even their relationship, in order to save Bruce.

Other love themes are also present. When Catwoman and Batman are fighting together he says, “no killing.” We see (Robin) John Blake, who will become the next Batman, kill two men in the movie. Disgust overwhelms him. We see in his face how he will adopt the “no killing” ethic in taking up the mantle of Batman. We also see Blake willing to sacrifice his life for a group of orphans. And as mentioned above, in the end Bruce Wayne gives Wayne Manor for the care of orphans. True and undefiled religion.

And in giving it all away we see a sort of death and resurrection played out in the movie. Batman gives everything to Gotham and he finds a sort of resurrection on the other side. Batman dies so that Bruce Wayne and Gotham might live.

At the end of the movie we see a statue of Batman unveiled in Gotham. A symbol of the soul and spirituality of a city reborn, a people rescued from chaos and death. A sign of one who gave his life so that others might live.

This is Installment #2 of my William Stringfellow Project where I read through all of William Stringfellow’s books in their first editions and in order of their publication.

The second book published by Stringfellow is a curious little book entitled Instead of Death. My picture of the cover of the first edition is seen here. Instead of Death was published by Seabury Press 1963. The back cover states that the book cost 95¢.

I say Instead of Death is curious as the first edition of the book is more like a pamphlet. It’s a short paperback that has staples for the binding. This is due to the fact that the book was initially published as a youth church study, aimed mainly at older high school and college-age students. The back of the book has a study guide–”Suggestions for Group Study”–that leaders and participants of the class can use for group discussion. The study guide was prepared by the Youth Division of the Department of Christian Education of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

Instead of Death was eventually republished (Amazon link here) with additional material making it more of a proper book. But we are going through first editions of Stringfellow’s books in chronological order. So we are starting with the first edition of Instead of Death where it was published to be used as a youth study.

Stringfellow opens the book with his standard argument that death is the great moral force at work in human affairs. The opening lines of the book:

This book is about death.

It consists of some essays about the specific reality of death in contemporary life: about the vitality of the presence and power of death over human existence and, indeed, over the whole creation. The suggestion here is that the power of death can be identified in American society–as well as elsewhere for that matter–as that which appears to be the decisive, reigning, ultimate power. Therefore, for an individual’s own little life–yours or mine or anybody’s–death is the reality that has the most immediate, personal. everyday significance. In this life, it seems as if everyone and everything find meaning, when we really come down to it, in death.

Can’t you just imagine the faces of the high school kids in the class? Too awesome. Flipping to the Study Guide at the back of the book we read under the heading “Recommended Age-Groups”:

This book can be used in a group comprising tenth-, eleventh-, and twelfth-graders. In its entirety it will probably be a bit steep for tenth-graders…

Come on high school sophomores, pick up your game! Yes, “this book is about death.” Put on your big-boy and big-girl pants and deal with it! And don’t be distracted by the cover. Yes–oh yes–we did put a skeleton–along skulls and crossbones–on the cover. What did you say? That’s not normal for youth bible study materials? Well, suck it up. This is Mr. Stringfellow’s sandbox and it’s existential time…

Honestly, I would have loved a study like this in high school. But I can’t imagine this going over too well with your typical teen, in 1963 or in 2012. Still, gotta love that skeleton cover. Are you seeing this Christian Book Industry?

More skeleton covers please.

Anyway, Stringfellow goes on in the book to discern the work of death across variety of issues of particular interest to young people in Christian communities. (Yes, masturbation is discussed.)

In the chapters of the book Stringfellow discusses loneliness, sex, work, and evangelism.

On loneliness…

Loneliness is the experience in which the fear of a man of his own personal death coincides with his fright of the death of everyone and everything else. Loneliness is not a unique or an isolated experience; on the contrary, it is the ordinary but still overwhelming anxiety that all relationships are lost…[L]oneliness so vividly anticipates the death of such other lives that they are of no sustenance or comfort to the life and being of the one who suffers loneliness. 

And yet…

You are not alone. Do not be so proud any more of your loneliness. It is only the shadow of your death, and your death, your loneliness, is like the death of every other person. But your death is overpowered in the patience of God’s love for you. Your fear that you are not loved does not negate the gift which God’s love is. Your loneliness does not avoid God’s love, it only repudiates His love for you. You cannot flee from God’s presence. You are not alone.

We know this because Christ descended into the death that is loneliness and in that event showed that God is present in loneliness and has taken that loneliness into God’s own life:

Unwelcome, misunderstood, despised, rejected, unloved and misloved, condemned, betrayed, deserted, helpless–He was delivered to death, as if He were alone.

Christ descended into hell: Christ is risen from death.

A great line from this section:

The secret of prayer is God affirming your life.

On sex…

The power of sin permeates the rituals of sex, in all their varieties–in marriage and out of marriage, among young or old, among male and female–just as it does for all other affairs in this world. Thus it becomes and is a tribute to death, a sign of the imminence of death in this life.

Concretely, of course, the vitality of sin in sex is seen in situations where manipulation, punishment, humiliation, or violation of one by another of one’s own self is made obvious because of physical or psychological coercion, or of willful enticement, or of false promises, or fraud, or the exchange of money or other consideration, or of lust or possessiveness.

And yet, the sacramental possibility of sex…

[T]he Christian more than recognizes the reality of sin in sex of all sorts. The Christian knows, beyond that, that this–sex–which is so full of death, may also become and be a sacrament of the redemption of human life from the power of sin which death is.

Take home point:

That which is sinful in a radical sense in sexual behavior is the failure, refusal, or incapacity to acknowledge and treat your own self or another or both as persons.

On work…

The legend, in America anyway, is that in either the product or the reward of work a person can find his or her life morally vindicated.

The great temptation:

Make work your monument, make it the reason for your life, and you will survive death in some way, until the monument itself is discarded or crumbles in some other way.

Work is the common means by which we seek and hope to justify our existence while we are alive and to sustain our existence, in a fashion, after we die.

And yet, the sacrament of work as service for the world…

For a person to be free in work or in non-work–free from merely working to death, free from enslavement to the principalities and powers–he or she must be set free from the bondage to death. It is the work of God in Christ for the world that frees us from this bondage and that enables any secular work to become and be a witness to the work of God.

In other words, where Christians take seriously the work of Christ for the world, the question of work is not simply or even essentially ethical, it is confessional. The problem is not the moral significance of the daily work of individuals in the world, but, instead, the meaning of the work of God for the common work of humanity.

On evangelism…

Evangelism is the act of proclaiming the presence of the Word of God in the life of another, the act of profoundly affirming that person’s essential identity and being. And such an affirmation given by one to another is love.

 On the vocation of the baptized (and the final paragraph of the book)…

Thus the vocation of the baptized person is a simple thing: it is to love from day to day, whatever that day brings, in this extraordinary unity, in this reconciliation with all people and all things, in this knowledge that death has no more power, in this truth of the Resurrection. It does not really matter what exactly a Christian does from day to day. What matters is that in whatever the Christian does it is done in honor of the triumph of Christ over death and, therefore, in honor of his or her own life, given by God and restored to each in Christ, and in honor of the life into which all people and all things are called. The only thing that really matters is to live in Christ instead of death.

During our family vacation Jana and I got to spend two nights at the monastery of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie. Incidentally, this is the home of Christian author Joan Chittister. Sister Chittister gave a public lecture the evening we were there, which was a real treat.

We weren’t there for a directed retreat with a program. We were simply on our own, enjoying the hospitality of the Benedictine sisters and left to fill the day for ourselves.

When you have that much time on your hands, along with being electronically unplugged, you can start to get bored. Or at least I can get bored. I’m not a natural contemplative. But the boredom made me think of something the author and theologian James Alison has written about worship in a violent world. At one point in his analysis Alison makes a point about why the Mass is boring (Alison is Catholic). He says this:

When people tell me that they find Mass boring, I want to say to them: it’s supposed to be boring, or at least seriously underwhelming. It’s a long term education in becoming un-excited… 

Alison is making the argument that the world tends to function as a Nuremberg rally where everything around us–from political discourse to advertising to social media–is trying to whip us up into a frenzy. A frenzy that, more often than not, is directed against others. Cable news, talk radio and political blogging are basically a Nuremberg rally, an attempt to anger us and excite us with propaganda. In the face of all this excitement and frenzy Christian worship, according to Alison, should function as a sort of counter-propaganda, a place where we can become unexcited. Where others are whipped into an anxious or angry frenzy Christians should be bored.

This line of argument reminded me of a recent article I read by Carl McColman entitled “A Contemplative Revolution.” McColman makes the argument that contemplation can be a form of resistance, a way to fight against the principalities and powers. The idea here is similar to the one Alison makes, a “dropping out” of the frenzy:

[C]ontemplation represents a way to disengage from the toxicity of our current world order, not in terms of supporting violent revolution, but in an opposite move: by embracing a revolution of humility and love. We cannot beat the greedy, violent, unjust enemy-that-is-us with weapons or military might. Only by “dropping out” of the system can we hope to overcome it with a new way of living. What is this new way? A way of reconciliation rather than violence, of shared resources rather than enforced inequity, a way of simply and quietly living rather than getting caught up in the ever-increasing frenzy of acquisition and competition. Such values are the fruit of contemplation. They are the values that monasteries embody, if imperfectly. They are the values of resistance.

Along these same lines, I also recently read Eric Anglada’s article for Jesus Radicals entitled “A Contemplative Anarchism: Re-Introducing Gustav Landauer.” I don’t know Landauer, but I found Eric’s description of a “contemplative anarchy” to be very interesting. Eric writes,

Landauer did not believe that we need to wait for ‘The Revolution’ to topple ‘The System.’ Instead, it is something we can begin now by “relating to one another differently.” Rather than ‘smashing the state,’ Landauer sought to ‘opt out’—that is, refuse to give any positive energy to the state through voting, lobbying, or paying taxes.

Whatever you think about refusing to vote or not paying taxes, the part that interests me is the notion of opting out and refusing to give any positive energy to the system, all in the effort of relating to others more humanely. This contemplative “opting out” is similar to McColman’s contemplative “dropping out” and Alison’s liturgical boredom. And each is described as resistance, anarchism, or as counter-propaganda.

So in light of all this I’m thinking about being a part of a boredom revolution. This election year, as Nuremberg-levels of propaganda and mass hysteria escalate, I’m working on cultivating “the values of resistance”–opting out, dropping out, and expressing boredom with it all.

[Dr. Mark Eckel is our blogger for the month of August. Mark is the V.P. of Academic Affairs, Director, Interdisciplinary Studies, Professor of O.T. Crossroads Bible College, Indianapolis, www.warpandwoof.org]

Preamble Film-going and movie-watching for Christians is fraught with promise and problem.  The intention of sharing movie reviews in the August blog for Society of Christian Psychology is for reflective believers to carefully consider ideas movies offer.  It would be impossible to adequately engage every single Christian interpretation or conviction.  These 4 August film reviews consider the ambiguities of life from a Christian point of view.  My personal hope is that we might engage the Cineplex as actively as we do our disciplines.  

Why do we make things harder than they have to be?  Some people tend to be so introspective that they have trouble living life.  Jennifer Westfeldt (also writer and producer) delivers Abby as the exact opposite: one who seemingly finds delight in every person and situation.  To the viewer, Abby is a “one-of-a-kind” loveable saint who communicates kindness to muggers and hugs check out clerks at Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  Who wouldn’t love to love Abby?  Well, that would be Ira.

Chris Messina as Ira is a better introspective self-hater than Woody Allen.  His characterization sizzles on screen.  Tone and delivery create the self-absorbed Manhattenite.  For those who consistently second guess themselves, watching Messina act is like looking in the mirror.  Ira loves Abby, well, most of the time.  The movie’s plot and tension revolves around not “will they get together?” but “will they stay together?”

Two single people meet, discover true love, and are married within 24 hours.  Can it happen?  Why not?!  But then there are the parents, the past, and the psychiatrists.  Abby’s parents suggest the perfect marriage, imprinting their daughter with the possibility of marital fulfillment, until attraction becomes a distraction.  Ira’s parents’ “stick-it-out-as-a-role-model” philosophy is anything but wedded bliss obviously creating baggage for their son.  Abby has her own subtle deceptions (“Didn’t I mention my two ex-husbands?”).  In contrast, Ira carries his own incompletion problems which surface again and again in psychotherapy.  Human foibles have never been both so funny and so sad.

A strong subtext layers Ira & Abby: why do we depend on psychiatrists to resolve human issues?  Psychiatrists have their own problems, have their own agenda (read “psychological model”), and screw up just as much as the rest of us.  While everyone will comment on the final circle scene when all the characters converge in roundtable discussion, short takes throughout the film expose those flimsy layers.  From the bored to tears, twelve year veteran analyst of Ira’s unfinished life to Jason Alexander’s “how does that make you feel?” routine, to the deadpan delivery of Chris Parnell, one wonders if renting this DVD will mean a little less business for all those “shingles” hanging out there.

Multiple character bits—from the subway mugger to the ex-husbands—play as if they were leading roles.  The tartly repartee pops on screen.  Viewers will find themselves smiling in spite of themselves.  Fred Willard, Robert Klein, Judith Light, and Frances Conroy all deserve special attention as the couples’ parents, perfectly playing their roles.  Musical composition by Marcelo Zarvos exactly matches the direction of Robert Cary.

Can finding love be as easy as meeting-to-nuptials in 24 hours?  Can love overcome all the obstacles humans set for themselves?  Can people create relationships dependent upon talking with each other rather than psychotherapy?  Ira & Abby answers “yes.”

Rated R for language and sexual situations.

I was talking with a friend last week about all the dust up regarding Chick-Fil-A and the Christian response to it. Specifically, we were talking about the big Christian turnout for Mike Hukabee’s Chick-Fil-A “Appreciation Day” and Matthew Paul Turner’s post about how the church failed that day.

Matthew talks about hate in that post, which brought to my friend’s mind my review/response to Bradley Wright’s book Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…And Other Lies You’ve Been Told.

I’m reposting (slightly edited) that review/response here as some of what is discussed–particularly the section toward the end about Christian attitudes about gay persons–seems relevant to the events that unfolded around Chikc-Fil-A over the last few weeks.

One of the most discussed posts I’ve written on this blog was The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity.

That post was a meditation on how we tend to use “religion” as a replacement for being a more decent human being. We’d rather have “quiet time with God” or “get into the word” than forgive our enemies or spend time working at a homeless shelter. In making that observation I made this sweeping statement:

“Christianity” has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed “spiritual” substitute.

I stand by that statement. As would, I think, most of the Old Testament prophets. And Jesus.

But maybe I’m wrong.

I say that because I found myself quoted at the start of Chapter 7–”Do Christians Love Others?”–in Bradley Wright’s book Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…And Other Lies You’ve Been Told.

Bradley is a sociologist from the University of Connecticut who blogs over at Black, White and Gray. Bradley’s book Christians Are… was, I think, somewhat in response to the book unChristian, which used survey research to describe how Christians behave, well, unChristianly. Bradley’s book seeks to take a second look and wants to correct some of the exaggerations and negative stereotypes regarding Christians, particularly Evangelical Christians. Hence the title “Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…And Other Lies You’ve Been Told.”

Toward that end, at the start of each chapter of Christians Are… Bradley begins with quotations selected to illustrate a negative stereotype about Christians. A stereotype that is, presumably, a “lie.” Starting with those quotes/”lies” Bradley goes on to review data, mainly survey data from the General Social Survey (GSS), to evaluate these negative stereotypes/”lies.” As you might guess from the title of the book, after surveying the data in each chapter these stereotypes come to be seen as exaggerated, overblown or outright wrong–the “lies” from the title. Chapter titles include “Are We Losing our Young People?” and “Have Christians Gone Wild?” And one of the chapters is entitled “Do Christians Love Others?”

And that’s where my quote comes in. At the start of Chapter 7 in Christians Are… you read, with two quotes from others, my assessment that “‘Christianity’ has essentially become a mechanism for allowing millions of people to replace being a decent human being with something else, an endorsed ‘spiritual’ substitute.”

As you might imagine, I was, in turn, startled, flattered and then worried to find my quote at the start of the chapter. Everyone likes to be quoted. But not in this manner! I’ve never met Bradley and hadn’t known he had selected my quote as an illustrative “lie.” So after my surprise I was a bit anxious and keen to read the chapter.

Maybe I’d overstated my case. Had I lied?

What I want to do, for the rest of this post, is to walk through the evidence Bradley cites in the chapter “Do Christians Love Others?” to see how my quotation fares. I’m going to break my analysis down by the Chapter 7 subheadings.

Summary:
The first section of the chapter is entitled “Do Christians Love Others?” In this section data is reviewed from the GSS about how religious groups responded to two questions: 1) how often the respondent feels a selfless caring for others and 2) how often the respondent accepts others when others do things the respondent thinks are wrong. Overall, “Black Protestants, especially, and Evangelical Christians score highest on these measures, with about 40% or more agreeing that they selflessly care for and accept others. In contrast, only about 25% of the religiously unaffiliated report doing so.”

The section goes on to look at other items on the GSS assessing “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me” and “When I see someone being taken advantage of, I feel kind of protective toward them.” Again, Evangelicals score high on these self-assessments: “Eighty percent of the Evangelical respondents reported being concerned for those less fortunate, and 86% reported feeling protective toward those taken advantage of. In contrast, the religiously unaffiliated group registered the lowest scores, with 68% reporting concern and 75% feeling protective.”

The section also reviews three other GSS questions similar to the ones above and the results come out the same: Evangelicals rate themselves higher than others.

Analysis:
So, what can we say about this? Hard to say, right? This could be good news or bad news depending upon behavior. Particularly when the label hypocrisy is in play. It’s clear that Evangelicals see themselves as loving and caring. But are they? If they are, this is all good news. But if they aren’t this is very, very bad news. In fact, this would be the news I delivered in my chapter-leading quote: religion is making Christians feel better about themselves at the expense of actually being better.

So is this a case of self-description or self-deception? For my part, to pick one example, I have some serious reservations about Evangelicals rating themselves so high (the highest!) on accepting people who are doing something Evangelicals think is wrong. Seriously? Evangelicals are the most accepting people when, say, they are dealing with a woman getting an abortion or gay marriage? There’s not a wee bit of self-deception in play here?

Summary: Acts of Charity
In this section we move away from self-assessment to behavior (though even these “behaviors” are still self-reported survey items on the GSS and, thus, still prone to bias). The GSS asks two charity-related items: During the last twelve months how often have you “given food or money to a homeless person?” and “done volunteer work for a charity?” (Bradley focuses on those who said they have done either of these at least twice a year.)

The results for the first question: “Forty-eight percent of Evangelical respondents had given food or money to the homeless twice or more in the previous year. This put them at the low end of the observed range, for 60% of the Black Protestants gave to the homeless as did slightly over half the Catholics and members of other religions. The Evangelical rate of giving is similar to the 44% of Mainline Protestants and religiously unaffiliated.”

The news was a little better for Evangelicals on the question about volunteering for a charity (does teaching Sunday School count here?): “Mainline Protestants were the most likely to volunteer (43%), followed closely behind by Evangelicals (37%), members of other religions (35%), Catholics (33%), Black Protestants (31%), and, lastly, the religiously unaffiliated (25%).”

Analysis:
Hmmmm. So let’s get this straight. Evangelicals see themselves as very loving. And yet, when it comes to, you know, helping homeless people they aren’t any different from the religiously unaffiliated (a group that could include, say, Satanists). This isn’t good news for a group claiming to follow a Lord who taught:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

So I’m wondering. Might this disjoint between self-assessment and behavior be the thing that’s grating outsiders about Evangelicals?

Summary: Small Acts of Kindness
This section of the chapter goes on to discuss GSS items that assess more workaday acts of kindness: How often in the past year have you “looked after a person’s plants, mail, or pets while they were away”; “offered your seat on a bus or in a public place to a stranger who was standing”; or “carried a stranger’s belongings, like groceries, a suitcase, or a shopping bag?”

For my part, as huge advocate of kindness, I’m very interested in this sort of behavior. The results: “When it comes to looking after other people’s stuff, Mainline Protestants and Evangelicals were the most likely to do so (52% and 46% respectively). But with offering a seat to others or helping them carry their stuff, on the other hand, Evangelicals and Mainline Protestants scored low. Members of other religions are the most likely to do both (35% and 40% respectively).”

Analysis:
This seems pretty damning. Looking after people’s stuff is a nice gesture. But it doesn’t assess acts of kindness to strangers, a key teaching for Christians: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” But on this key criterion, kindness to strangers, other religions and the irreligious do better than Evangelical Christians.

In this section Bradley turns to attitudes about social groups: social class, race, and sexual orientation. I’ll summarize each in turn.

Summary: Attitudes toward Rich and Poor
Bradley remarks that he couldn’t find a good measure of attitudes regarding justice-related issues. As he notes, positive or negative feelings about a government program aimed at helping the poor conflate “a concern for the poor with attitudes toward government involvement in social programs.” Still, I would really like to see the numbers on this. If care of the poor is a top priority wouldn’t you feel more, rather than less, positively about your tax dollars being spent in this way? If Christians don’t mind the government building bombs why would they mind it building, say, schools or health care clinics?

Bradley eventually settled on two “feeling thermometer” (1 to 100) ratings about the rich and poor from the 2006 Social Capital Community Study. The results aren’t all that interesting, likely due to the measure: “Each of the four religious groups [Protestants, Catholics, Other Religions, Unaffiliated] stated warmer feelings toward the poor than the rich…In terms of the gap between poor and rich ratings, there wasn’t a lot of difference between groups.”

Analysis:
The rich can’t catch a break! It’s nice to see the preferential option for the poor found among just about everyone.

Summary: Attitudes about Race
The actual title for this subsection is “A Disappointing Discovery About Race.” Bradley only looks here at data for White respondents. His opening salvo: “The analyses that I present here constitute, in my opinion, bad news for Evangelical Christians…”

The analysis starts with data from a 1-8 point “feeling thermometer”: “In general, how warm or cool do you feel feel toward Whites, Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics.” Every religious group liked themselves (fellow Whites) the best. The data on those Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics: “There is some variation in feelings toward minorities, however, with members of other religions having the overall warmest feelings toward Blacks, Asians, and Hispanics.” The highest ratings came from Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated. The lowest ratings? Evangelicals.

Bradley goes on to look at another question: Would these religious groups hold race against a political candidate? The results: “A full 19% of Protestant respondents would hold a Hispanic candidate’s ethnicity against them, as would 11% of Catholics and about 9% of members of other religions and the religiously unaffiliated. Similar proportions hold for Black candidates, albeit at substantially reduced levels. Seven percent of Protestants would be less likely to vote for a Black candidate, compared to 6% of Catholics and 3% of the religiously unaffiliated and members of other religions.” For some reason, the Protestant group here wasn’t broken down to reveal the particular feelings of Evangelicals. But as Protestants they are the religious group most likely to hold race against a person running for political office.

The final question examined in this section had to do with attitudes toward inter-racial marriage within the family. The question: How do you feel about “having a close relative or family member marry a ____ person?” with the blank being filled in with Black, Asian-American, or Hispanic-American. The results: “According to the survey, opposition to marrying a non-White person varies widely by religion, and, overall, Evangelicals were the most opposed to it.” Guess who were most accepting? You guessed it. The religiously unaffiliated.

Analysis:
To start, let’s be clear that most Evangelicals are not racist. But based on this data Evangelicals are more likely to be racist compared to all the other religious groups, including the irreligious. And that’s just embarrassing. Beyond embarrassing. When non-Christians are more Christ-like we have a problem.

Summary: Attitudes about Gays
No surprise that Evangelicals don’t approve of gay sexual relations. This is expected given their views that this activity is sinful. But what about the “love the sinner, hate the sin” dynamic? And let’s remember the finding from above: Evangelicals report being the most accepting of people (compared to other religious groups), even when those people are doing things they disagree with. So, do Evangelicals separate their feelings about gay behavior from their feelings about gay persons? The results from another “feeling thermometer”: Of all the religious groups Evangelicals score the lowest with the most negative feelings toward gays as people.

What about a GSS question regarding freedom of speech and Constitutional liberty: “If an openly gay man wanted to make a speech in your community, should he be allowed to?” As Bradley says, “Denying anyone the right of free speech seems particularly harsh.” So how do Christian groups fare? Bradley’s summary: “Evangelical Christians show relatively high levels of this form of intolerance.” Higher than all other religious groups, including the irreligious.

Analysis:
Not surprisingly, Evangelicals are the most rejecting of gay persons. Willing, even, to scrap the Constitution and First Amendment rights.

The chapter does end with some better news pointing to more positive trends among younger Evangelicals and among the most church going Evangelicals.

Overall Conclusions: Did I Tell A Lie?
So, what are we to make of all this? Are Christians hate-filled hypocrites? And what about the status of my quote in light of all the data?

Let’s start with the label hypocrite. I take this label to mean a disjoint between self-appraisal and behavior. Do we see that in the data Bradley presents? I think so. Recall, Evangelicals rated themselves the most “loving” of all the other religious groups. And yet, when we look at the ratings of actual behaviors and attitudes toward others, Evangelicals are no better, and often worse, than others. The word hypocrisy could be applied here.

What about being hate-filled? Well, hate is a pretty strong word. In social psychology it’s a word to describe feelings toward out-group members (though each of us can hate particular people for a variety of reasons). So how to Evangelicals look when we examine their feelings toward out-group members? What we find is, in Bradley’s own estimation, the most disappointing findings in the entire book. Compared to all the religious groups, including the irreligious, Evangelicals are more prone to hate when it comes to out-group members (e.g., Blacks, gays). This is not to say that Evangelicals are more hate-filled. But the seeds of hate seem to be more deeply sown in the soil of the Evangelical heart than anywhere else in American society (or, at least, among the groups examined in Bradley’s book, which did include the irreligious).

Let’s now turn to my quote. Is “Christianity” a mechanism for allowing people to replace being a decent human being with an endorsed “spiritual” substitute? If we examine the overall group means from the chapter we are left with the conclusion that Evangelicals aren’t any better, and are often worse, than others. And yet, they seem to feel pretty good about themselves, morally speaking. What can account for that disjoint? I think my hypothesis of “religiosity” creating an illusion of morality is a plausible explanation. (For more on the psychological dynamics of this “replacement” effect see my discussion of the Macbeth Effect in Unclean.)

All in all, then, I think I’ll stick by my original analysis. I didn’t see anything in Chapter 7 of Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…And Other Lies You’ve Been Told that would make me change my mind.

In fact, I might have been telling the truth.

I know that I’m way, way late to this party, but Jana and I just discovered Anne Lamott. I’d always heard of Anne Lamott. Always seen her books in bookstores, always heard friends describe her as one of their favorite authors. But I’d never picked up a book of hers.

On our family vacations–the Beck’s are big on road trips, we drive thousands of miles a summer–Jana and I like to listen to audio books. Before the big summer trip I go to all three branches of our local public libraries and clear them out. And this year I grabbed a copy of Anne Lamott’s book Grace (Eventually).

We were blown away.

(To be sure I suspect that conservative and evangelical Christians will have some problems with Lamott. So fair warning on that.)

A few weeks ago I was describing William Stringfellow’s notion that the essential part of the Christian witness is being a sacrament of life in the midst of death’s works. If Stringfellow is the theologian of this notion (for me) I think Lamott might be the poet of the idea. That’s what I loved about her writing, how she finds sacraments of life in the world. A world by turns mundane, crazy, and broken–but in the end life-affirming. There is grace…eventually.

My favorite essay in this collection is “Dance Class,” a story of her going with a friend to help with a dancing class for special needs persons, many with Down’s Syndrome. Before the actual dancing there was a time of sharing. Anne describes the thirst of the class to share, even the littlest and most insignificant things. It’s a craving we all have. To be heard. Noticed.

As helpers Anne and her friend are asked by those in the class to participate, to dance with them. And they do. They dance.

The class ends. The final paragraphs of the essay:

And then it was time to go. People shook our hands and thanked us. The gymnast gave me a hug with her head pressed into my waist. Neshama and I left feeling elated and surprisingly tired. It had been only an hour, but it was an immersion. It went deeper than I had thought.

When Karen and I were hiking a few days later, she told me that after class, one of the dancers had exclaimed, “I liked those old ladies! They were helpers, and they danced.” These are the words I want on my gravestone: that I was a helper, and that I danced.

That about sums it up for me. I want the same thing on my gravestone.

That I was helper, and that I danced.

In the last three posts I’ve tried to summarize the argument made by William Cavanaugh in his book Torture and Eucharist for the place of Eucharistic discipline (denying communion, excommunication) in the church. As noted in the last post,  Cavanaugh argues that in the face of the Pinochet torture program the use of excommunication by the church–denying the Eucharist to the torturers–was effective in making the persecuted body of Christ visible and, thus, a location of protest and resistance.

As I said in the very first post in this series on Monday, I wanted to write about Torture and Eucharist as Cavanaugh’s argument has come up as a counterpoint to the vision of open communion I describe in Unclean where I use Jesus’s radical ministry of table fellowship–his eating with tax collectors and sinners–as a model for the Lord’s Supper.

How are we to make these two visions fit together, if at all?

A place to start is to think about the limits Cavanaugh puts on his own project. Specifically, Cavanaugh shares the worries we all have about excommunication. Cavanaugh recognizes the abuses that are concomitant with the practices of closed communion and excommunication. He does worry about top-down powerplays involved in purity policing. These are my worries and focus in Unclean.

Consequently, Cavanaugh is keen to point out that what he’s talking about is a really severe situation, one of the most catastrophic moral breakdowns imaginable within the body of Christ–Christians torturing Christians. And in such extreme situations extreme counter-measures are required. Thus, Cavanaugh argues that excommunication shouldn’t be reserved for failures of piety and hedonic excess. Excommunication should only be reserved for sins against the body of Christ, sins that threaten the ability of the church to be the body of Christ–the Persecuted One in the midst of the world. Torture is such a sin. By creating victims in the face of the Divine Victim, by nailing people to crosses under the sign of the Cross, by torturing at the feet of the Tortured One, and by persecuting under the eyes of the Persecuted One the church is no longer the church. Only by drawing a line between the perpetrators and the victims can God be visibly seen hanging on the cross in the midst of history and human affairs. (Incidentally, this is the same argument made by James Cone in his recent book The Cross and the Lynching Tree.)

If this is so, then how are we to sort out which sins deserve excommunication? To get at this Cavanaugh make a distinction between degrees and kinds of sin. We shouldn’t think of Eucharistic discipline as being reserved for the really, really bad sins. It is, rather, reserved for a certain class or kind of sin, sins–like torture–that threaten the identity of the body of Christ as described above. A quote from Cavanaugh shared yesterday describing this:

The gravity of an offense is often invoked in separating ordinary sins from sins meriting excommunication. I would argue that this not be understood as simply a mater of degree but of kind. In other words, excommunication is not reserved for those individuals who simply out do the rest of the church’s ordinary sinners in the number or degree of their sins. Excommunication is better understood as applicable to those kinds of sin which impugn the identity of the body of Christ. Excommunication, by definition, is for ecclesiological offenses. If, as I have already argued, the excommunicated person puts herself outside the church in the very act of her sin, then the sin itself must be construed as a sin against the body of Christ. I am arguing, then, that the use of excommunication should not be extended, but rather limited to those sins which threaten the very visibility of the body of Christ. 

This, I think, sits comfortably with my focus in Unclean. We are not talking here about excessive sinfulness, about the prostitutes, tax collectors and sinners Jesus associated with. We are, rather, talking about Christians who are acting violently against other Christians. These actions indicate that the Christian communion has been shattered and lost. Basically, the church no longer exists. Excommunication in this instance is simply the attempt to recover and resurrect the church in the face of its destruction. More from Cavanaugh on this point:

It should be apparent that this social practice [i.e., excommunication] is not based on any perfectionistic ethic for the church. My argument that torture, as an anti-liturgy of absolute power which attacks the body of Christ itself, should be met with excommunication is by no means an argument for the use of excommunication in general for other types of sin. This is torture, not theft or masturbation. If accepted, my argument would limit excommunication, to keep it from being used in the service of right-wing ecclesiastical politics. Furthermore, formal excommunication is not the only key to the church’s visibility. It is not so much a solution as a recognition that something has gone terribly wrong.

I think these passages show that there isn’t really a disjoint between Torture and Eucharist and Unclean. My concern in Unclean is with things like “right-wing ecclesiastical” powerplays, where a “perfectionist moral ethic” is used to judge people engaging in sins like “theft or masturbation.” That is, I’m pushing back on using closed communion to morally police the congregation. As I read him, Cavanaugh would agree with me. His argument for excommunication is limited to situations where the social body of the church has been torn apart. And excommunication in this case isn’t about fixing anything as much as it is a public declaration that the church–as a whole–has lost its way and has disintegrated into moral chaos. We might say that excommunication signals the failure of the church as a whole.

And it is important to note in all this that excommunication isn’t being used to monitor the moral lives of Christians as much as it is being used to highlight the conflict between the church and the state, the conflict between the church and the principalities and powers. The Eucharist keeps alive the memory of Jesus as one tortured and killed by the state and functions as an ongoing sign and symbol that Jesus is Lord in the face of the principalities and powers.

According to Cavanaugh, then, excommunication is simply bringing to the surface a conflict that already exists. Excommunication doesn’t create the separation and rift. Excommunication simply names the rift and brings it out into the open. And the goal of this isn’t judgment but restoration and reconciliation. Cavanaugh:

If Eucharistic discipline is rightly understood, then excommunication does not rend the unity of the church, but makes visible the disunity and conflict, already so painfully present, between the body of Christ and those who would torture it. Only when this disunity becomes visible can real reconciliation and real unity be enacted.

Again, a key insight here is that “reconciliation” isn’t about an individual member repenting of, say, some sexual sin and being welcomed back by the church. That is, the reconciliation isn’t between the sinner and the judging church. It is, rather, the reconciling of two tragically divided groups of Christians, of the church reconciling with itself so that its resistance to the principalities and powers has moral integrity, force, and public visibility.

In the last two posts we’ve sketched two of the important points made by William Cavanaugh in Torture and Eucharist about how the church (his case study is the Catholic church during the regime of Pinochet) mobilizes resistance to the torturing state. Specifically, the church/state conflict is over bodies with the church seeking to disrupt the state’s unopposed power to do whatever it wants to the bodies of citizens (or anyone for that matter within the state’s borders). The church contests this power by claiming these bodies. When the church does this the church becomes visible, a community who stands together against the actions of the state.

In this post I want to summarize three practices described by Cavanaugh that allowed the Chilean church to become visible, claim martyrs, create solidarity, and mobilize resistance to the state. The last of these practices–Eucharistic discipline–is the reason why I’m doing this series, to wrestle with Cavanaugh’s argument about the need for denying communion to certain individuals.

So what are practices by which the church becomes visible?

1. Providing tangible support and relief for those victimized by the state
This seems obvious, but the key is to do this visibly and institutionally. In response to the torture and other state abuses the church in Chile established institutions that guided efforts to help and support the victims. These institutions became rallying points for those wanting to come together and resist the state. As Cavanaugh describes it:

Offering a wide range of programs covering legal and medical assistance, job training, soup kitchens, buying cooperatives, assistance to unions and more, these organizations became the focus of church resistance to the regime…the church provided a space in which organization could take place and social fragmentation could be resisted….

[These] organizations help to “knit the people together”…The church in Chile resisted [the] strategy [of the state to disappear the church by isolating individuals from one another] precisely by knitting people back together, connecting them as members of one another. 

Cavanaugh describes this action as Eucharistic in that it allows the persecuted body of Christ to come together and be visibly recognized by ts members and the onlooking state.

2. Subversive street liturgy
The state wanted to keep its activities out of the public view, to disappear the bodies. Resisting this, the church wanted to make the tortured bodies visible. This was accomplished in Chile by the Sebastian Acevedo Movement against Torture. Members of the movement would appear in a public place, perform a subversive act of liturgy, and then melt away. Sort of like a flash mob. Cavanaugh describes an example:

On September 14, 1983, a group of seventy nuns, priests, and laypeople appeared suddenly in front of the CNI clandestine prison at 1470 Borgono Street in Santiago [where most of the torture occurred] and unfurled a banner: A MAN IS BEING TORTURED HERE. They blocked traffic, read a litany of regime abuses, handed out leaflets signed “Movement against Torture,” and sang.

Subversive street liturgy made the tortured body of Christ visible and made martyrs of previously anonymous victims:

Suddenly the invisibility under which the torture apparatus operates are shattered, interrupting its power. In an astonishing ritual transformation, clandestine torture centers are revealed to the passerby for what they are, as if a veil covering the building were abruptly taken away. The complicity of other sectors of the government and society is laid bare for all to see. The entire torture system suddenly appears on a city street. Techniques of torture are detailed, places of torture identified, names of victims and names of those responsible–including sometimes the names of the immediate torturers themselves–are made publicly known. Victims are thus transformed into martyrs, as their names are spoken as a public witness against the powers of death.

3. Eucharistic discipline
The final practice of making the body of Christ visible is the reason why we are doing this series. Specifically, one way the church resisted torture in Chile was denying communion to those involved with the torture program. The Eucharist was denied to torturers as they were excommunicated. This action drew a sharp line between the torturers and those being tortured. And in drawing this line the church clarified where the persecuted body of Christ was located. The body of Christ was visibly aligned with the victims over against the excommunicated torturers.

Cavanaugh making some of these points:

Unity in the church is much more than agreement on doctrine or the general ability of the members of the church to get along, nor is it just participation in a common project or community. It is participation in Christ, and so requires a narrative display of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Unity is based on assimilation to Christ, and so the unity and the identity of the church are the same issue. Jesus was tortured to death. Tortured and torturers in the same church therefore threaten the transparency of the church as the body of Christ.

The gravity of an offense is often invoked in separating ordinary sins from sins meriting excommunication. I would argue that this not be understood as simply a matter of degree but of kind. In other words, excommunication is not reserved for those individuals who simply outdo the rest of the church’s ordinary sinners in the number or degree of their sins. Excommunication is better understood as applicable to those kinds of sins which impugn the identity of the body of Christ. Excommunication, by definition, is for ecclessiological offenses. If, as I have already argued, the excommunicated person puts herself outside the church in the very act of her sin, then the sin itself must be construed as a sin against the body of Christ. I am arguing, then, that the use of excommunication should not be extended, but rather limited to those sins which threaten the very visibility of the body of Christ.

…

If anyone is to “discern the body,” then it must become visible in present time. [It was the effect] of some state disciplines [under Pinochet] to render the church invisible, to “disappear” the body of Christ. The Eucharist, as the gift which effects the visibility of the true body of Christ, is, therefore, the church’s counter-imagination to that of the state. Formal excommunication makes the church visible, if only temporarily, by bringing to light a boundary between church and world which those who attack the church have themselves drawn.

…

If Eucharistic discipline is rightly understood, then excommunication does not rend the unity of the church, but makes visible the disunity and conflict, already so painfully present, between the body of Christ and those who would torture it. Only when this disunity becomes visible can real reconciliation and real unity be enacted.

…

In the Eucharist the poor are invited now to come and to feast in the Kingdom. The Eucharist must not be a scandal to the poor. It demands real reconciliation of oppressed and oppressor, tortured and torturer. Barring reconciliation, Eucharist demands judgment.

I think you can see Cavanaugh’s argument. If the church is to stand in solidarity with the victims of torture, claiming these bodies over against the state, a line needs to be drawn between the tortured and the torturer. Eucharistic discipline draws that line and, thus, makes the persecuted body of Christ visible.

In the next post I’ll share some of the caveats Cavanaugh shares about excommunication (and some of these can be discerned in his quotes above) and locations where his analysis bumps up against the arguments I make in Unclean.