Oh my goodness.  I cannot believe The Wire was not nominated for Best Drama, again.  What's wrong with these people?  Though Mad Men is awesome, and I shall even root for it against my beloved Lost.

Speaking of, if Methodists weren't so against gambling I would make a bet with each and every one of you that in several years time, we will have Lost: The Motion Picture.  With talks of another Sex and the City sequel, and yet another X-Files movie coming out, come on, you know there'll be some fans screaming, "but wait, you never told us what the Monster is!" or some such loose end, and that will lend itself to yet more island drama.  I think it would make big bucks.  Or, Lost: The Next Generation - the continuing adventures of Aaron and Ji Yeon.

While I do agree with Halden in his post that "The scandal of the ethic of Jesus and the early church is precisely that all the commonly accepted priorities, allegiances, and social formations of this age are radically disrupted by the apocalyptic erruption of the advent of Christ in death and resurrection" I also agree with Driscoll and other commentators that in so much as ordained ministry is a "job" like other jobs, don't neglect your kids.  We all, as disciples of Christ, have a ministry, and some are called to ordained ministry, and yes it requires a lot of hours and such (so do lots of other jobs), but if God has given you children, they need your attention.  I am not an ordained minister or the child of a minister.  I am thinking in this instance of a very dear friend and her struggles with her husband (they are a clergy couple). 

Anyway.  I don't think the primary problem with family as idolatry is ministers or anyone wanting to spend more time with their own children.  From my experience working in urban social services, I think it has more to do with the America we pay for and tolerate, in that many of us Christians want the best for our children and want to provide for them and want to see them succeed.  We also feel bad that other children suffer, so we may donate money or old clothes or whatever, but we keep our distance, because after all they live in one part of the city and we live in another or in the burbs and never the two shall meet.  Even though they may be our brothers and sisters in Christ.  Perhaps our church will do a one day mission project in the city, or write letters to Congress about better healthcare for kids and then we can feel good about serving the poor or working for justice or whatever.  Our families become idolatrous when we create or maintain that bubble of middle-class consumeristic society around us, when we feel good just because we gave away our kids' extra toys and clothes, and shake our head at the news of another child shot.  (I include myself in this indictment.)

I just realized I've written this post before.  So I'll finish by saying the idolatry part is not about time and priority issues, but about who constitutes our family. 

"The pregnant body, the social body, and the burden of certain 'types' of babies are all culturally loaded in ways that reflect the vast movement in the past century in the United States to popularize eugenics.  The quest to craft a more perfect union through 'fewer and better babies' is alive and well...many eugenic ideas have jumped the gap from yesterday to today, bridging the chasm between overtly coercive eugenics and purportedly voluntary parental and social responsibility in the land of the free and among people supposedly freed for discipleship.

The era on which we will concentrate, often called the Progressive Era, saw the professonialization of marriage, domesticity, hygiene, and charity.  As with the rising interest in infant feeding and child nutrition, there were unquestionable gains in the care of children and family made by those newly charged and ready to organize 'the race' for the future.  Schools were built, children were clothed, and hungry mouths were fed. But along with the efforts came a newly potent, death-dealing distinction between those whose lives were worth care and those whose lives were not.  Many of the participants in the progressive class of Protestants drew a line between lineages of hope and lineages of risk, peril and civic menace.  The distinction between auspicious and inauspicious lives was an integral part of the engine of mainline Protestant eugenics."

Conceiving Parenthood: American Protestantism and the Spirit of Reproduction by Amy Laura Hall, p. 219. 

Let's start off with my excuse - Brigid has impetigo and is better now, but I've missed a lot of work and am terribly behind on big reports blah blah so this is my very quick outline of a response to Marvin and Lee.   

Jonathan, the same thing you wrote popped into my head.  What do you mean, Lee and Marvin, by quietism?  William Cavanaugh is politically quiet?  How much time did he spend working with torture survivors in South America?  What about Kelly Johnson's involvement with the Catholic Worker Movement?  And who gets to define the terms of political involvement, anyway - Jim Wallis?  Is Bill and Kelly's ministry not political enough because it doesn't make enough of an impact on American public life?  What is public life?   But, you might say, that's my point - who is going to run the town and fix global warming and poverty and such?  As I said in the post about church as public, he's not saying don't lobby for change, but do more than that.

In regards to the Church as human institution, I think I've complained enough about my local UMC enough to show that I don't think it's the kingdom of God on earth.  In fact I will counter that the liberal mainline has a stronger ecclesiology because it thinks its responsibility is to bring about the kingdom of God on earth.

Another MLK Jr. would be good.  But, I have to say, both as a Christian and a woman, I'm leery of placing value on one kind of a person above another.  I'm not saying that's what you mean, Marvin - this is just leading me into other thoughts.  So, we need someone who makes a significant impact on society for the better through some kind of change - MLK Jr., Alice Paul, Frederick Douglass, etc.  I've been thinking about this in regards to this article I recently read.  What does that have to do with anything?  It's making me think about who gets to impact society and what impacting society means.  (Basically, the article says the usual story is feminism has freed us women to make an impact on society, and the author quotes another horrible author who says women are wasting their lives if they stay home with their kids and missing that opportunity to Make a Difference - without recognizing that a lot of us just have boring office jobs and such).  This, for me, connects with peacemaking.  Again, who defines what  peacemaking and making an impact or being politically unquiet is?

(By the way, one of Lee's commentors linked to this Hauerwas speech in which he said the offending things about the flag and salvation and such.  I read the whole thing and I think it's fantastic.  Remind me to save it and read it to Brigid when she's grown up.  It's a great quick intro to Hauerwas.)

Oh, Marvin, you bring up so many memories!  Now, back in the olden days when I was in seminary (mid-90s!), it was a male dominated place - about 65% men and 35% women (currently at  54% men and 46% women, much less favorable dating odds for the ladies but better for the gentleman).  A good part of my social life that first and some of the second year consisted of my one female friend and I hanging out with a bunch of guy friends engaging in theological pissing contests.  Great fun!  No - honestly.  I'd like to think I held my own among those boys (thank you, Marvin, for the compliment) and never faded into supporting conversation roles.  But that group argument dynamic was not natural to me, since I am a naturally shy person.  Or is it because I'm a woman?  When I took that Theology and Technology Class at Garrett before my daughter was born, there were only two of us women in the class of about ten total.  I remember thinking "here we go again.  You can do this.  Speak up!  Don't let these techie-nerd boy seminarians intimidate you!

Later in seminary, by the way, I made more female friends and we did not engage in that same kind of debate.  We discussed things, but it was not like it was in the male dominated group.  We also went dancing on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill a lot, which was also great fun.  

I do hear that groups of mothers can be very competitive (My little Noah was walking at 8 months!  Oh really, well my Emma was talking in full sentences at 5 months).   I must be very blessed to have good friends who are moms and think that kind of crap is - well, crap. 

That's a different type of competition, though - both those mothers and the junior high school girls Jonathan and I commented about in Avdat's post are competing over status and image.  If my child is advanced developmentally that means I'm a good mother and if I'm dating the most popular boy in school then I'm popular and cute too. 

I was going to say that intellectual competition I experienced was different - who knows, maybe it wasn't.  Intellectual competition can be about status and image as well.  But I don't think it was for us.  I think it was about engaging ideas.  Several in that group were more academically focused than ministry focused - wanting to go on for the Ph.D., whether we did or not.  That definitely contributed to the dynamic.  Could we have discussed theology and still been passionate about it without that "edge" and is that "edge," the competitive part, distinctly male?  Would it have been as much fun, would I have grown as much intellectually, and if I answer no is that horribly sexist?  Or is it sexist to assume that women don't like that kind of intellectual stimulation? 

The comments in the McArdle blog are fascinating.  McArdle acknowledges that women compete for status, but says [female] "status competitions are very often relational, having to do not with their own personal qualities, but with their ability to, for example, get men to pay attention to them. The activities involved in building other-directed status are extremely different from those involved in male-type status competitions."  She says the competition in junior high was about defining who was and was not allowed in the group.  I don't see how that can translate into mommy competition, especially around the getting men to pay attention to them part.

Now I also have to acknowlege the truth of this comment "women will tend to follow your lead rather than establish the social dynamic ourselves. Men establish the dynamic to be comported with because we let you. In that sense it is clearly a "joint" dynamic, in that men and women jointly permit men to determine the dynamic."  My female friend and I let the males in the group establish that competitive dynamic and played along with it, and by playing along with those rules, we gained "status" - i.e. I think we were well regarded intellectually. 

Well, Marvin, I don't know the male/female ratio at Union, but I look forward to hearing what's changed in seminary culture - or not.

Without curse words, even, although then it doesn't have that same flair as Hauerwas.

"According to the early Christians, the church doesn’t exist in order to provide a place where people can pursue their private spiritual agendas and develop their own spiritual potential. Nor does it exist in order to provide a safe haven in which people can hide from the wicked world and ensure that they themselves arrive safely at an otherworldly destination. Private spiritual growth and ultimate salvation come rather as the by-products of the main, central, overarching purpose for which God has called and is calling us. This purpose is clearly stated in various places in the New Testament: that through the church God will announce to the wider world that he is indeed its wise, loving, and just creator; that through Jesus he has defeated the powers that corrupt and enslave it; and that by his Spirit he is at work to heal and renew it...This is where our word “belief” can be inadequate or even misleading.  What the early Christians meant by “belief” included both believing that God had done certain things and believing in the God who had done them. This is not belief that God exists, though clearly that is involved, too, but loving, grateful trust."

Originally from Simply Christian.

Everyone has problems and issues and worries about themselves and loved ones and the world.  But Hauerwas and Wright are saying that Christianity is not a tool to use to develop a spiritual life so we can worry less or feel better about our situations and problems and help us cope with them.  Not that we don't need a spiritual life or help dealing with our problems!  I certainly do.  But more than that, I need to remember that I am part of a mission.  As Wright says in regards to baptism: "you are brought into that story, to be an actor in the play which God is writing and producing. And once you’re onstage, you’re part of the action. You can get the lines wrong. You can do your best to spoil the play. But the story is moving forward, and it would be far better to understand where it’s going and how to learn your lines and join in the drama."

And speaking of N.T. Wright - how about that!!!  I missed it on TV but watched it online.  Too bad he's Not Hot. 

Thanks for your prayers and such regarding my grandfather; they are much appreciated.

A special thank you to Camassia, who was visiting from California, and I'm sorry our visit was cut short, but I was glad to see you even just for two days.  And thanks also to Tripp and Trish, who stopped by to see Camassia, I enjoyed your company.  It was very good to be amongst friends that night.

I stumbled across the Duke Socratic Club blog and bless their hearts, they've recorded several lectures that various professors gave to their club.  I've only listened to the Hauerwas one so far, which is Hauerwas reading from the memoir he's writing.  I jotted down a few gems:

"I personally don't like Wesley very much."

"If you need a theory of truth to assure yourself that Jesus was raised from the dead, then worship that theory."

And after that quote, he said something like, we have to learn to narrate to the world (or narrate the world?) the story of God who led his people out of Egypt and became incarnate in Jesus to a world that thinks Christianity is about giving our lives meaning.  (I wrote this next part down word for word.)  "Fuck me."  Our lives aren't that interesting.  And then something about teaching us how to die, which didn't make sense to me. 

I suppose his point is, typical Americans are concerned about their lives and problems and can this Christianity stuff make sense of my life and what can Christianity do for me, etc. etc. individualism bad, community/church/etc. good and so on.  Please excuse my intellectual laziness, but I'm going to assume you're familiar with Hauerwas.  

I'm thinking about the giving your life meaning thing, though, as someone who's had a rough year so far, major life changes, blah blah.  I'm strugging with what I want to say - Cliff has said it so well anyway- so I'll just sit with this a while.