Category: Culture

Alleluia, The Doctor Returns

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As posted at The Huffington Post Religion blog –

believeI’ll admit it: I was more excited about the return of “Doctor Who” than about Easter. Some may say this makes me a poor Christian — that it should be the communal celebration of the Resurrection that my hearts yearns for the most — but honestly, in the past few years it has been in this story of a self-proclaimed madman with a box that I have encountered the most meaningful depictions of the divine. Easter in many churches these days has become more about creating the most perfect liturgy, scientifically trying to prove the resurrection, or demanding that one must believe in divine child abuse in order to be saved than about celebrating a God whose healing love inspires us to believe and go do likewise. For that I have “Doctor Who.”

“Doctor Who” is one of the longest running television shows in history with its first episode airing in November 1963. In 2005, the BBC rebooted the show with a postmodern audience in mind and it has since gathered a worldwide fan base. The show follows the adventures of a witty and hyper-intelligent humanoid alien “Time Lord” known simply as The Doctor, who travels the universe in his time machine, the TARDIS. The Doctor generally travels with a companion and, as his title suggests, often finds himself in situations which are in need of healing and repair. One cannot argue that “Doctor Who” is necessarily a Christian or even theistic show (despite its habit of having Christmas and Easter specials) or even that the Doctor is intended to be equated with God. The two men who have creatively led and written many of the episodes of the BBC reboot of the show, Russell Davies and Stephen Moffat, are both self-proclaimed atheists. Yet, as producers and writers, they frequently address religious themes and use the character of the Doctor to challenge hollow and dangerous conceptions of God. It is in their attempts to use the Doctor to deconstruct inward-focused religion which has little relevance in a world full of injustice and pain that an alternative, more meaningful, vision of God emerges.

Jack Caputo has argued that a God that makes sense in our postmodern era is a God defined by weakness instead of strength. By weakness he does not mean a “weakness that lacks the power of faith or the courage for action” but a weakness that stands on the side of the powerless, that participates in the reversals which displace the high and mighty and lift up the lowly, and that keeps hope alive when life appears to be hopeless. Caputo writes in “The Weakness of God,” “You see the weak force that stirs within the name of God only when someone casts it in the form of a narrative, tells mad stories and perplexing parables about it.” It is in these mad tales that resonate with the imagination of the age that many of us are encountering an image of God more meaningful than what is being presented in many churches these days.

As we watch “Doctor Who,” we encounter the story of one who far from being above humanity, comes alongside us to not only suffer with us, but inspire us to do the hard work of creating a better world. We see in the tale of the Doctor an example of a figure who calls followers to lives of adventure and wonder, practices radical forgiveness, and welcomes the marginalized and defends the powerless. It is an potential image of the divine that inspires hope, and which (for me at least) grasps what it means to live the way of life Jesus modeled far better than do the pointless attempts to orchestrate the perfect worship service or defend the plausibility of miracles.

So, as the show returned this Easter weekend, I eagerly anticipated immersing myself once again in a narrative about one who saves the world by calling it to participate in acts of healing and love. I wish I could say that I knew I could encounter the same in churches this Easter. As a committed Christ follower, I am tired of Easter being reduced to mechanics. I want more than marathon services or reiterations of the details of Christ’s death and resurrection that try to convince me that merely believing that something happened is the purpose of being a Christian. I want to be called to join in on the adventure of healing the world, in welcoming the marginalized, and living in the revolutionary way of Jesus. Thankfully, “Doctor Who” is brave enough to tell such mad tales even when the church is not.

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The Danger of the Light

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For Lent this year the church I attend is exploring the idea of light – of entering into the light, of letting light illuminate the truth. As much as Christians like to talk about the light shining into the darkness, we often forget how dangerous light can be. Light reveals things that we would rather keep hidden. Light forces us to face truths we would rather ignore. We forget in our haste to claim Jesus as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path that carrying a light in the darkness isn’t safe. In the world pre-electricity, to go out into the darkness with a lamp or torch was not an act of the wise. Walking around in a pitch-black night with a torch made you a target for wild animals or other ill-intending creatures of the night. Hiding one’s light under a bushel is safe, shining a light is dangerous.

lachish_ewerAs I listened to the discussion last Sunday, the illustration that came to mind was the repeated attempts one reads of in the Hebrew Scriptures to remove the lampstands from the Temple. Granted, the scriptures speak of removing the presence of the pagan goddess Asherah and tearing down the poles or trees erected to her in the Temple, but as archeology shows, those poles in the temple were the lampstands or menorahs. Asherah as a symbol of the feminine and embodiment of sexuality and reproduction was depicted by a tree with seven branches in bloom (to represent fertility) as shown in the picture, exactly the way lampstands for the tabernacle/temple are described in Exodus 25. It was this symbol of the female and of sexuality that was repeatedly removed from the temple, only to return again and again.

I couldn’t help but think about the symbolism of this act of removing a lampstand of the feminine from the official place of worship. Light is dangerous. It illuminates structures of oppression and reveals the truth and beauty of women and the body. Such things are scary to a culture trying to cling to hierarchies of patriarchal power. It is easier to extinguish the light, throw the lampstands away, than to gaze upon that which it reveals.

This idea returned to me this week as I was discussing the scriptures read in the early church in one of my classes. The canon of books and letters Christians read pre-Constantine was significantly different than the established canon we have now. Most interestingly was that they included accounts of martyrdoms (like The Martyrdom of Polycarp) in the texts they looked to for worship and comfort. The point was made that pre-Christendom these texts of martyrdom that gave comfort to those suffering persecution as well as encouraged them to resist the ways of empire although popular in the early church were kept out of the canon once Christianity became the official religion of the Empire. Illuminating the oppressions and temptations of empire became too dangerous. It was easier to extinguish that light than to see what it revealed.

Even now to hold up lights illuminating the voice of women, the beauty of the body, or the ills of empire is dangerous. It is scary to have the truth revealed under the light. Doing so makes one a target of ridicule and accusations of heresy. Light makes it impossible to continue in the darkness of the status quo, once truth is revealed it cannot be ignored, only rejected. But that is the risk we take when we embrace the one who claims to be the light.

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Celebrating the Flesh

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It’s Mardi Gras. Carnival. The days of embodied celebration before Lent. And beyond a few announcements of church pancake suppers tonight, I’ve heard not a word about either from within the church world this year. Oh, I’ve heard people in professional ministry talk (complain really) about planning their Lenten observances for weeks, but as far as I can tell the period between Epiphany and Ash Wednesday is not a time of celebration but merely a prep period for Lent.

Mardi Gras and Carnival are the embarrassing uncle of the church year. The one’s we don’t like to talk about. Those strange grafted-on “pagan” celebrations that root us firmly in this world and don’t let us pretend that we truly are just souls having a temporary bodily experience. In the Western church, it’s fine to focus on ways we can deny our bodies for the sake of spirituality during Lent, but the mere mention of celebrating bodies is suspect. A fest of the flesh just reeks too much of sin to be embraced. Sex and bodies must always be seen as corrupt and evil, not places of joy or truth. And so the age old dualism that separates mind and body remains.

Even those who call for liberation from structures that oppress get uncomfortable when the bodies they advocate freedom for do, well, bodily things. I recently read this great quote from Marcella Althaus-Reid on the ways feminist and liberation theologians still adhere to this view that incarnate flesh is sinful –

If the shanty townspeople go in procession carrying a statue of the Virgin Mary and demanding jobs, they seem to become God’s option for the poor. However, when the same shanty townspeople mount a carnival centered on a transvestite Christ accompanied by a Drag Queen Mary Magdalene kissing his wounds, singing songs of political criticism, they are not anymore God’s option for the poor. Carnivals in Latin America are the Christmas of the indecent, and yet they are invisible in theological discourse.

Catherine Keller refers to this as our fear of incarnate or incarnal love. Love and religious practice have become disconnected from the body except for the habit of denying the body. We have lost the ability to celebrate and express joy in our body and not feel guilty about it. Mardi gras and Carnival are reminders that some have not lost that gift and bought into our Western dualistic disparagement of the body. Perhaps it is time to stop rushing past them or ignoring them in shame and embrace the wholistic worship that we are so desperately lacking in the Western church.

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Terrified of Mercy

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I’ve always been fond of those illusion pictures (like the old woman or young lady image). There is always an image that one sees first and it takes time and training to see the other perspective – but once one does it is impossible to not see both. That shift in part describes my experience with Christian art after having encountered Rita Brock’s work.

I’ve heard Rita speak and have read some of Saving Paradise. In her work, she explores the ways early Christian art focused less on the crucifixion of Christ and instead on the ways Christ redeems and baptizes the world. While later Christian art is full of crucifixion images and accompanied a theology that saw this world as an evil from which we must escape, earlier art presented Christ in his glory using baptism as an entry point into the paradise of this world. This baptized world is not perfect of course, but it is a place to struggle together in the process of becoming more like God. As Brock suggests, this early art — which included images of water flowing from Christ over the earth — conveys the theology that everlasting life begins at baptism (not when we die and escape) and invites us to live as Christ lived even in the present.

Brock points out that most commentaries on Christian art ignore these images of baptism and the theology they imply. But after seeing her point out in images the presence of water flowing from Christ, it is hard now not to see it. And it is exactly what I encountered when I was in Los Angeles recently and had the opportunity to visit the Heaven, Hell, and Dying Well: Images of Death in the Middle Ages exhibit at the Getty Museum.

My experience of the exhibit began as I was walking in and overheard a child asking her father what the title of the exhibit meant. His response was that the church used to use the idea of hell to frighten people into doing what they wanted and that these were some of the images they used to do so. I cringed at his explanation, but then encountered basically the same idea in the commentaries posted by each image. Each one seemed to be explained as “Christ sending sinners into everlasting punishment in hell. Used to convince people to obey the church so that they could avoid such when they died.”

The problem is that is not what I was seeing in those images. I was seeing the baptismal waters of Christ. Even as people were being pulled into the torment of hell by death, the baptismal waters were still covering them and in some it was obvious Christ was rescuing them (see my rather blurry examples). I found it fascinating that these aspects were not mentioned in the commentaries, but that the narrative of Christ punishing bad people by sending them to hell has so infiltrated our cultural imaginations that it is near impossible to admit to alternative narratives. We in our retributive and manipulative culture seem to relish the idea of the wicked getting what they deserve and those who follow the “right” set of rules being rewarded. But, I wonder, how much more poignant (in the full heart-wrenching sense of that term) is the idea of Christ redeeming the world and inviting all into abundant life beginning now?

Forgiveness and mercy aren’t cheap or easy. The wicked are never let off the hook when they are redeemed. If we ignore life in this world and focus on just the punishment or reward of some afterlife, we miss the struggle that walking in the way of Christ involves. If baptism invites us to enter into the earthly paradise where although evil is yet present, we still can struggle along together toward our mutual spiritual flourishing, we are not in for an easy journey. Living in the way of Christ instead of the greedy consuming ways of the world is the hardest path we can ever follow. Punishment is easy because we can remain our selfish selves as we are cast out; mercy is hard because it forces us to change. Not getting what we deserve is truly the most devastating yet beautiful thing that could ever happen to us.

There is a fantastic scene near the end of the Doctor Who episode Last of the Time Lords that illustrates this devastating baptism of mercy perfectly. After the character The Master attempts to take over the universe and nearly destroys the earth in the process, the Doctor yet again saves the day. At one point the Doctor is filled with the glory of all space and time and appears transfigured in all his power before the Master to confront him with his deeds. The Master first tries to attack the Doctor and yet his attacks are futile. He then cowers in a corner as the Doctor hovers above him with a look of infinite sorrow on his face and they have this exchange –

The Doctor: I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…
The Master: You can’t do this! YOU CAN’T DO THIS! IT’S NOT FAIR!
The Doctor: Then you know what happens now.
The Master: [scared] No! NO! NO! NO!
The Doctor: [serious] You wouldn’t listen…
The Master: [cowering] NO!
The Doctor: [serious] ‘Cause you know what I’m gonna say.
The Master: [terrified] No!
[the Doctor touches down, the glow of light vanishes, the Doctor kneels next to the Master and puts his arms around him]
The Doctor: I forgive you.

The Master is heartbroken to unfairly receive mercy and an invitation to live differently with the Doctor – healing instead of dominating worlds. As I watched that episode recently, that scene reminded me of that exhibit at the Getty where the obvious in art is ignored because we simply do not want to accept that perhaps it is mercy and invitation instead of death and punishment that Christ is actually offering. We are terrified to think that perhaps this life does matter, that we must choose a much harder path than merely assuming we chose the right religion. Accepting the baptism of this life is devastating, so we ignore it in our art, label it heresy in our churches, and go on living exactly as we wish. Yet, Christ is there baptizing us anyway, saying “I’m sorry, I am so sorry. I forgive you.”

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Women and the Olympic Gaze

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As posted at the Sojourner’s God’s Politics blog –

I have a love/hate relationship with the Olympics. I love the pageantry and global drama of it all. And even as one who hardly ever watches sports (I make exceptions for Roller Derby and Quidditch), I nevertheless find myself glued to the screen whenever the Olympics roll around. At the same time I am uneasy with the neo-colonial aspects of the Games and the fact that one’s ability to win a medal increasingly depends upon how much money one’s country has (making the Games a vivid illustration of global economic injustice). Yet even as I have watched (and enjoyed) the London Games with conflicted emotions, I find myself more and more uncomfortable with the ways the presentation of the Olympics serves to reinforce harmful assumptions about women in our culture.

It started before the Games. As the world geared up for the Olympics, it was hard to avoid hearing some guy or another (from TV hosts to bloggers) saying that what they were most looking forward to watching was women’s beach volleyball. It was this strange inside joke insinuating that the real purpose of the Games was to give them an opportunity to see women diving around in bikinis. I even heard complaints about the new Olympic rule allowing women to compete fully covered (a concession offered to allow Muslim women to compete in the Games). It was uncomfortable to hear how nonchalantly women continue to be reduced to mere sexual objects, but I brushed it aside as typical of our culture.

Then the health and fashion magazines put out their summer issues. On their pages I saw a sprinkling of female Olympians looking more like made-over models at a cover shoot than hard-working dedicated athletes. And I noticed another trend as well. I wasn’t seeing any shot-put champions or rowers on those pages. Instead they were gymnasts, swimmers, soccer players, and (of course) beach volleyball players. Instead of reading stories of amazing athletes committed to their sports, I was left with the impression of how one could look pretty (alright, sexy) while playing an acceptably feminine sport. I know that’s just what these sorts of magazines do, but I found myself asking, why can’t these women just be admired for being good athletes?

At first I thought my discomfort was peculiar to me, but then I read more about the ways these stereotypes typify the televised presentation of the Olympics. It’s not just my impression that women athletes are objectified for their looks, two recently published studies prove it to be the case. One study found that in the Vancouver Olympics, men received some 23 hours of prime-time footage while women received under 13 – most of that from figure skating. In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, while women made up 48 percent of the U.S. team and earned 48 percent of the nation’s medals, male athletes received more television coverage, especially in individual events. Significantly, “nearly three-quarters of the women’s coverage was devoted to gymnastics, swimming, diving and beach volleyball” – all sports in which women wear bathing suits (or the equivalent). Another 13 percent of the coverage was devoted to track and field where women are also scantily clad. Only 2 percent of the coverage depicted women competing in hard-body contact or power events (judo, weight-lifting) that are not typically deemed “socially acceptable” sports for women.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not belittling the efforts or achievements of women gymnasts, divers, or even beach volleyball players. They are amazing at what they do and I wish I had the dedication they have to train at their sport. But I am uneasy in how they are presented to the viewing public. I wonder whether it is just the assumption of the network that people are not interested in watching female athletes unless those athletes are sexually appealing in some way, or if that is in fact the reality of the U.S. audience?

There was much derision from western countries when, after the IOC forced a few traditionally Muslim countries to allow female athlete to compete (or else not be permitted to compete at all), an Arabic hashtag which translated to “prostitutes of the Olympics” trended on Twitter in reference to the female athletes from Saudi Arabia. The opinion that a woman’s virtue is compromised if she participates in competitive sports led to this backlash against these women and had many in the U.S. declaring how sexist those countries are. Yet, the facts show that it is in the U.S. where women are not fully accepted as athletes unless they can be “sold” as sex objects in order to boost ratings.

As I watch these Games with my seven year old daughter, I find myself wising for a better world. She keeps asking me when she can see the women weight-lifters, archers, and shot-putters and I have to explain to her that it is unlikely that those events will make it on TV. I want her to feel confident in her body and take joy in its strength, but cringe when even the Olympics, the supposed pinnacle of pure sport, instead send her the message that her body’s primary purpose is to be admired for its alluring qualities. She deserves more than that. These athletes deserve more than that.

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On Superheroes

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My children have discovered superheroes.

They’ve always known about superheroes of course, but over the past few months they have jumped fully into the world. So we’ve been watching the movies, reading comic books, and listening to my trivia-obsessed daughter repeat all the details from entries in her X-Men or Justice League encyclopedias. I am even sewing capes for my son’s superhero birthday party in a couple of weeks.

So with all that said, I have a confession to make – I’m honestly really conflicted about the whole superhero thing. Oh, I too loved superheroes as a kid and like any good child of the 80’s I ran around my neighborhood in my Wonder Woman underoos. But while I love the idea of heroes working to help make the world a better place, there is just too much baggage that comes along with the genre for me to be comfortable with it. It is hard to get past the imperialist propaganda of Superman or Captain America out there fighting for “truth, justice, and the American Way.” It is even harder to accept as heroes the billionaire, playboy, philanthropist types who essentially must work to save the world from the fallout of their own participation in the military industrial complex and finance schemes. And while I recognize that more recent comics explore the complex ethics and struggles these conflicts present, that’s not the story my children are discovering.

But beyond those philosophical issues, my biggest struggle with superheroes is the portrayal of violence as the answer to everything. Even the characters that try to resist violence always end up facing a bad guy so evil that they have no choice but to respond with violence. Any commitment to peacemaking is cast as essentially choosing to side with evil. And on a visceral level, this is what the audience wants from this genre. It comforts people to have the world cast as good versus evil where the good guy is stronger and can beat the bad guy in the end. People want the solution to all the world’s problems to be as simple as the Hulk shutting up Loki’s endless prattling by smashing him back and forth into the floor. Who cares what Loki was actually saying (or that it sounded eerily similar to what a lot of theologians and politicians are saying these days), it’s funnier and more cathartic to have him beat into a pulp through mindless anger.

This issue arose with my seven year old daughter recently when after seeing The Avengers she asked me what “avengers” meant. I told her that to avenge means to get back at someone, to hurt someone because they hurt you or something you care about. Since this of course conflicts with everything we (and her school) are trying to teach her about how to respond to others, I asked her if she thought avenging wrongs was a good thing or not. After agreeing that it was wrong to avenge, she commented that it seemed like “The Avengers” was a bad name for that group of superheroes. She said that they don’t avenge as much as protect, so they should really be called “The Protectors.” She then told me that I need to email the people who created it and tell them they got the name wrong (cuz in her mind why wouldn’t Marvel and Stan Lee listen to her mommy?). So despite the violence “The Protectors” use, I at least got to discuss with her the impulse behind that violence – distinguishing defense from revenge and rage.

That conversation then led to another discussion a few days later about a t-shirt I was wearing (shown here). She asked about the symbols and I explained what they were and how each of them worked. I then asked her which would she choose. Interestingly, she immediately ruled out Excalibur and the lightsaber since those are only used for fighting others. She then had a hard time choosing from the remaining “magic wands” of Gandalf’s staff, the Elder Wand, and the Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver. The potential to alter and fix the world held far more appeal than simply fighting the evil it contains.

I think it is that impulse to do good in the world that attracts my kids to superheroes, but I remain conflicted with how the genre portrays building a better world as being simply the need to defeat absolute evil. There are demons that need to be fought in our world today (and all too often they look more like Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne than Loki or the Green Goblin), but the superheroes we need are those willing to work to fix problems and not simply those that avenge and destroy. It might not be as sexy or entertaining as blowing things up or smashing arrogant gods, but those are the hero traits I’d prefer my kids to be admiring.

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Procreation, Birth Control, and Choice

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I have a feeling this post is going to get me in trouble with some people. This is a conversation that is so polarizing in our culture that it has become impossible to explore why we hold the views we do and the ways they have shaped our culture without being accused of betraying one side or the other. But I’ve been in an interesting place recently as I’ve been listening to the political rhetoric about birth control as well as almost coincidentally reading traditional church teaching on the sacrament of marriage for my ethics class in seminary. And while I fully admit to not agreeing with all that I have been reading (and acknowledge that the theological stance of the church rarely translates into the understandings of the masses), it is helping me to see the underlying point behind the impulse that has unfortunately become a war against birth control and women. So this post is my thinking aloud as I work through class discussions in relation to these recent debates.

Let me come out and say that I agree with the premise that one of the purposes of marriage is procreation. But by that I do not assume as it is taught by the Catholic Church (and recently adopted by evangelicals) that sex (marriage?) therefore must be limited to being between a man and a woman who must be open to conceiving children with every sex act. Procreation has unfortunately been co-opted into a very limited (and very culturally modern) view of family that assumes simply producing children is the ultimate goal. But the procreative orientation is far bigger than that.

Marriages should be procreative because all relationships should be oriented around encouraging and welcoming new life in all its forms. Sometimes this involves the bearing of children or the adoption of children into one’s household, but it also simply involves an openness to accepting responsibility for others. Partners, friends, communities all should be procreative – they should encourage life and take responsibility for caring for others in this world. Instead of selfishly turning inward to care only for one’s personal wants and needs (as an individual, couple, or community), it is to accept that we are all responsible for the well-being or the shalom of others. To be procreative is to care for not just our own children, but to support the children in our neighborhood or church by willingly sacrificing our time to care for and serve them. It is caring for the children in our global community who lack proper nutrition, or access to clean water and health care. It is to care enough to work to stop human trafficking and sex slavery that deny many children around the world a right to a whole and healthy life.

To be in relationship is to commit to support and sustain life in such ways. Marriage, at least in the way the church has traditionally understood it, is a public covenant of that commitment. Yes, some influenced by the cultural definition that marriage is simply about feelings of love or two people trying to make each other happy, have accepted a similarly limiting definition of procreation as only being about the biological production of children. For some this restrictive stance leads them to seeing children as choices not as blessed members of the community. So when marriage is just about two people in love, then children are something that the couple must either be protected from (so therefore we must have safe-sex to prevent the unwanted dependency of children) or it is something that couples simply add on as if they were an accessory to make the family picture look complete. On the opposite extreme, this limited view produces the idea that one can impose through legislation restrictions against birth control, same-sex unions, and women’s agency. When individual choice and happiness are the guiding reasons for doing anything, morality (of any sort) can only be imposed by law and sadly gets reduced to such absurd extremes in the process.

When Mike and I got married we chose as our wedding “hymn” “They Will Know We Are Christians by Our Love.” We had a number of people question that choice since the song isn’t about romantic love (what people often assume the sole point of marriage is), but love for God and neighbor. But we knew that we were not entering into a relationship just for our sake, but to mutually strengthen each other to better serve God in this world – be that through one day caring for children or through accepting responsibility for caring for the local and global communities we are a part of. We did end up procreating by having children of our own, but even as we seem to fit this culture’s assumed normative ideas of marriage, we constantly try to work to expand what it means to be in relation with each other and our community. I don’t accept that as a mom my sole responsibility is to make my husband happy and to pour myself into my kids (which these days seems to simply just be about who can pretend to live-up to the perfection of one’s Pinterest board). Yes, loving and caring for my husband and kids is part of my responsibility, but so is loving mercy, seeking justice, and walking humbly with God. I am procreative in my so-called heteronormative marriage – but so are my single friends, my gay and lesbian friends, my childless married friends, and yes, even my children as they learn to live in communally loving and responsible ways.

I reject the absurdity of the birth control debate not just because it is hurtful, but because it misses the point. But at the same time I reject the cultural lie that my individual choices are all that matter. We are all part of a community and therefore our relationships cannot just be about meeting our personal needs, but instead must procreatively support and nurture life in all its forms. If birth control helps some people actually be more supportive of life, then let’s celebrate and fund it. Sadly birth control is often simply viewed as a matter of choice which has allowed us to view children simply as a threat to our (false sense of) independence or as an accessory to our constructed life. But banning or limiting birth control so as to impose a limited idea of procreation onto all people doesn’t solve that problem. To truly support a traditional view of the intent of procreation the place to start is instead to encourage people to think more communally, to see themselves as responsible for caring for the needs of their local, national, and global community (which might include having children), and to work to support and encourage life in whatever ways they can within those relationships. That is what good marriages – good relationships – should do. But somehow I don’t see those publicly speaking out against birth control these days deciding to call people to live communally and to support life (and children) by seeking justice for the poor and the suffering.

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Grace, Magic, and Hard Work

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I love this picture that has been making the rounds on Facebook recently. Strangely enough the first thing this picture reminded me of was an argument that arose during a debate over Harry Potter I participated in years ago. The church I attended decided to host a debate about Harry Potter and I represented the pro side while just about everyone else was on the “we haven’t read the books, but we have read about the books and believe The Onion article that said J.K. Rowling worships Satan” side. Only books 1-3 were out at the time and this was during the heyday of Christian attacks on the books (long before it was obvious that the series had more Christian allegories than even the Chronicles of Narnia). Beyond the typical objections that the books will turn children into Satan-worshipers and encourage them to disrespect authority, one mom complained that she found it inappropriate that at Hogwarts food magically appears on the table at mealtime. Her argument was that she wants her children to have a good work ethic and not to believe that anything in life is free. She wanted her girls to know that preparing meals is hard work and so would therefore be sheltering them from this absurd depiction of people getting something for nothing.

I think at the time I had to restrain myself from asking if she also banned her kids from hearing the story of the feeding on the 5000 in Sunday school, but it was hard not to think about her objection a few months later as I read The Goblet of Fire and its subplot about house elves. As it revealed, food does not magically appear on the tables at Hogwarts, it is prepared by hardworking elves who in the wizarding world are generally kept as slaves. House elves have been so trained to subservience that most of them believe their identity is derived from serving their wizard master. In the books, Hermione commits herself to working for rights and fair pay for house elves. Of course her efforts are ruthlessly mocked by not only her classmates at Hogwarts, but by many readers of the books who found the “rights for elves” subplot to be a silly distraction from the real story.

I know that back in 2000, thinking about the plight of the people who worked to provide me with food was not something I had ever done. Recently out of college, I was quickly learning the hard work required to make my own meals. But at the time the food I bought at the grocery store could have magically appeared on the shelves for all I knew. I might in saying grace thank God for the food and the hands that prepared it, but that never extended beyond the kitchen to those who grew the food or did the backbreaking work of picking the produce. My perspective has changed tremendously over the past 12 years, as I now do my best to be aware of where my food comes from and the conditions faced by the workers who grow it. Sadly, the plight of the poor, mostly immigrant workers who grow our food is uncomfortably similar to that of house elves in the Harry Potter universe. Also similar is the likelihood that one will be mocked if one dares to acknowledge those workers or advocate for their rights.

Thankfully recent films like Food, Inc. and Fast Food Nation have forced people to at least be aware that our food doesn’t magically appear in the grocery store and that the people who grow and process our food are generally treated poorly. But people don’t want to know about such things – because knowledge makes them feel like they may have to do something to change things. If animals are being abused in factory farms and the immigrants who work in those places are treated like animals, it makes it difficult to sit down to enjoy a feast much less mindlessly consume the cheap food such a system produces. So food companies are helping people return to states of ignorance through expensive propaganda campaigns that while acknowledging that our food comes from somewhere do so by presenting idyllic images of family farms without a poor worker or abused animal in sight. While the “happy cows come from California” was perhaps the most extreme example of this sort of misdirection in advertising, McDonald’s proud of our suppliers series is the most recent. If the McDonald’s ads are to be believed, their food comes from dreamlands that look deceiving similar to the average person’s idea of the pastoral landscape of heaven. I don’t doubt that these suppliers work for McDonald’s in some fashion, but Harry Potter seems to do a better job representing reality than these ads. Countless reports reveal the harsh conditions faced by those that grow food for fast food companies, reports that places like McDonalds are now trying to undermine with these ads. But in truth many people would rather believe the lie they’re selling than have to change their eating habits or take the unpopular path of advocating for worker’s rights. As The Meatrix shorts so brilliantly reveal, few people want to take the red pill and know the truth about where our food comes from.

As a bumper sticker on my car says, “the truth will set you free but first it will make you angry.” The McDonald’s ads are constructed to not only hide the truth, but to keep people from ever getting angry. Angry people change the world and the world doesn’t want to be changed. I agree with that mom at the Harry Potter debate, teaching our kids that food appears from some magic place (be that the grocery store or the idyllic family farm from the propaganda images) does them a disservice. Life isn’t convenient or easy despite what the fast food companies would like us to believe and problems don’t magically disappear just because we would rather not deal with them. So when we say grace we need to extend that thanks to all those who worked hard, often with barely any pay, to bring us that food. And, like Hermione, we need to advocate for and embody change – even when it’s unpopular or difficult. But whatever we do, we need to at least embrace the truth instead of being placated with lies.

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Holistic Female Characters

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The conversations over the past week or so on feminine identity and image have sparked a number of discussions of what movies do portray women holistically. The trend these days in films is to make women appear strong by either stripping them of everything that is traditionally considered to be feminine and/or by making them attractive yet kick-ass action heroes. While I admit that there is a place for such portrayals, they often don’t allow women to be their full selves. So while I think it is wrong to portray women as just weak, it is equally wrong to go to the other extreme and remove all vulnerability from women as well. We’re human, let us be who we are. Let us be in love, but not be defined solely by being in love. Let us be smart, but also love our kids. Let us be strong without always having to hurt others.

So here is a (very) short list of movies and books that I think present women holistically. They are smart, strong, and kick-ass at times, but also fall in love, admit to weaknesses, and deal with pain – without being solely defined by any one of those things. I’ve started the list, I would love for readers to add to it in the comments (and yes feel free to add examples of men presented holistically as well!)

I have to start the list off with Eowyn. The quote in my blog header is from her, an image I may or may not have a version of tattooed somewhere on my body. We also named our daughter Emmaline Eowyn. So, yes, she ranks up there as my all-time favorite female character. The Lord of the Rings movies did a fair job presenting her as the strong shieldmaiden, defeating the Witchking with her declaration “I am no man.” But they only briefly showed (in the Extended Editions at that), her greatest strengths. Through all the stories she knows that she is called to do great things and fears the cages that will hold her back. In the limits of her world she assumes this means either becoming like a man in battle or marrying the future King Aragorn. He reminds her though that she is a daughter of Kings; a cage will not be her fate. But it is in the houses of healing that she discovers her true calling as a healer. Rulers in Middle Earth are healers – Aragorn is recognized as the true king because he has the ability to heal. The elves name him Elessar (my son’s middle name) because it means one who can heal. Eowyn discovers that greatness inside her once she learns to serve and heal others – that is what it means to be a ruler. I love that. I love Eowyn. And I love that it takes her a journey to discover that.

Katniss Everdeen. I love the Hunger Games. I love Katniss. She is deeply vulnerable and has a long slow journey to figure out how to cope with all the pain in her life. She cares, self-sacrificially for others and yet knows what it takes to survive. From a place of utter brokenness after the death of her father, she pulled her family together and helped them survive by learning to hunt and forage. In the shadow of a totalitarian government that wants to use her as their pawn, she through trial and error figure out how to stay true to herself and yet protect those she loves. She succeeds spectacularly and fails tragically in the books and yet manages to figure out how to survive both. She isn’t cocky and she has more questions than answers. She feels pain deeply and gives tremendously. She is my hero.

President Laura Roslin from Battlestar Galactica. Okay she could be annoying at times, but her balance of taking charge in a crisis (the end of the world) and living in the vulnerable space of dealing with breast cancer at the same time is hard not to respect. When robots of our own creation return to annihilate the human race, I want her as my President.

Robin McKinley’s treasured The Hero and the Crown (Newberry winner) and The Blue Sword (Newberry Honor book) set the standard for strong female protagonists in beautifully written stories. The first book tells of the legendary Lady Aerin the dragon-slayer who saves her Kingdom despite her family’s assumption that she was just a worthless girl. The Blue Sword takes place centuries later as the orphaned, unladylike and socially awkward Harry discovers that she is heir to Lady Aerin’s mythical blue sword. These books have just the right amount of girls overcoming stereotyped roles without reducing them to simply being glass-ceiling smashers. Their stories are mesmerizing as you fall into them completely and find in Aerin and Harry heroes any reader can love. (On a side note, McKinley’s Sunshine is in my opinion the best vampire book ever written and it has an amazingly strong female protagonist as well).

Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. So there are some major gender issues in this play, the whole denounce Hero at the altar for being unvirtuous thing is just plain creepy in today’s world. But the development of Beatrice and Benedick and their witty brilliance are worth the weirdness. She is as independent of a woman as she can be in her world and is astute enough to point out her constraints. She is smart and understands that she does not need a man to fulfill her which of course makes the relationship she stumbles upon with Benedick all the more meaningful. Emma Thompson defines this role for me (she is great at playing real, vulnerable, and yet strong women). Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more…

I love the movie Away We Go and Maya Rudolph’s character Verona in it. She is funny, smart, and creative and trying to come to terms with being pregnant. After losing family and her home young, she is trying to understand what it will mean for her to start a family. She and her husband travel the country in search of a home and in the process define for themselves what family does not mean to them. The extreme stereotypes of women (the domineering wife, the hippie attachment-parenting mom) are humorously depicted as limiting women. In short, the film is the holistic woman’s hero’s journey as she seeks a way of being in the world that allows her to be herself – intelligence, scars, humor and all.

So now it’s your turn – who would you add?

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Anti-American Christian

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I’ll admit, I follow a few celebrities on Twitter – especially the writers and actors of my favorite sci-fi shows. If I didn’t love Firefly/Serenity and Chuck, I probably wouldn’t be following Adam Baldwin (@adamsbaldwin) – pictured here at Austin ComicCon. At the same time it’s sickly fascinating to read his extreme right-wing hate speech on a regular basis. I’m still not for sure if his Twitter persona is an extension of his characters or if he simply plays himself in his shows – as his gun-loving Ronald-Reagan-obsessed characters mirror what he posts on Twitter. So whether or not his tweets are caricature or the real deal, they serve as my reminder of the extremes of individualistic nationalism that stands in direct contrast to the ways of the Kingdom of God.

A few days ago, he posted the following Tweet –

anti -American Blog! | RT @washingtonpost “Why do we overlook civilians killed in American wars?” – http://wapo.st/xhLko2 ~ #FreedomIsNotFree

At first it pissed me off. What sort of people are we if it is considered not only unpatriotic but actually anti-American to care about the innocent people our country kills? Are the deaths of children on their way to school or of a mother in the marketplace really simply the cost of the freedoms we enjoy? To not expect them to pay that cost or to even mention that they are paying that cost, is therefore a betrayal of our country? Who are we that anyone would argue that such things define our national identity?

But as I considered the idea of national identity, I realized that the very notion of rooting one’s identity in one’s nation requires that the nation be valued before all else. If who one is at their core is a citizen of the United States (as opposed to say a Christian), then defending and protecting the manifest desires of the nation must form a person’s core identity as well. What is right (what is ethical) is therefore what serves the nation no matter who it harms or uses. Freedom, defined as the nation always getting what it wants when it wants, is of course not free as anyone who stands in the way of the nation’s ascendency must pay.

As a pure philosophy, it holds together and I respect the right of others to hold to that philosophy. The problem is of course when that religion of nationalism is sold as the right and true path for Christians. Few people would admit to rooting their identity in the nation or placing the needs of the nation at the forefront of their lives. But if they are told that in doing so they are actually serving God, then they easily jump on that bandwagon. In this way to care about the death of innocents or to question why others must pay for our expensive lifestyles is not just un-American it is unchristian. But as Walter Brueggemann has written, nations and empires “lack both patience and tolerance toward those whose ultimate loyalty belongs to someone or something other than the empire itself.” The clever way to deal with such impatience is to turn the worship of that other thing into worship of the empire. So if the nation can get those that claim to worship God to actually worship the nation in the name of God, then there is no conflict of interest. It’s idolatry of course, but it keeps the peace as it serves the nation.

So I realized that it is not so much the words of Adam Baldwin’s tweets that upset me so much, but that they echo the idolatry I hear on the lips of so many professed Christians (and, yes, before you accuse me of partisanship, liberal Christians can be trapped in idolatry as well). More and more therefore I want to embrace the anti-American label. I appreciate my country and am grateful to live here (and don’t foolishly believe anywhere else would be better). I also desire to embrace the call Jeremiah gave to the Israelites to seek the peace and prosperity of the land of their exile. But if being American means finding my identity in the nation and situating my ethics in my loyalty to it, then as a Christian I have no choice but to be anti-American. My ethics must be based on “blessed are the poor and those who hunger and thirst after righteousness” instead of “We’re #1” and “freedom (for us) isn’t free.” So thank you, Adam Baldwin/Jayne/John Casey for reminding me of my identity and what it means to give my allegiance solely to the Kingdom of God.

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