Infidel

Last week Ayaan Hirsi Ali gave a lecture on freedom of speech for the Calvin January Series. Ali has told her story in Infidel, the autobiography that traces her life from scrabble hard poverty in the failed stated of Somalia (that her father had dreams of ruling) to various middle eastern countries to a long stay in Kenya. She was a Muslim girl who suffered abuse from her unhappy mother and neglect from her absent father. When she escaped from an arranged marriage to Holland, she began another long journey to belief in the Enlightenment project of freedom and democracy and progress and away from belief in Islam, which she blames for the many abuses Muslim women experience. While a member of Pariliament, she made a short film about this Qur’an-induced abuse called “Submission” with Theo van Gogh. Shortly after its release in 2004, van Gogh was killed by a Moroccan immigrant. She lost and then regained her Dutch citizenship but moved to the U.S. where she is a member of the American Enterprise Institute.

Ali speaks powerfully from her life’s experience—she is not yet 40 years old—about the challenges unassimilated Muslim immigrants in Europe pose to the western democratic system. She also points a finger of blame to multiculuralism’s easy, indifferent acceptance of all differences as equal, which she calls a radical relativism. Under guise of accepting their Muslim neighbors, the Dutch at least did not make any conditions for citizenship and allowed those who desire to undermine or even overthrow democracy in the name of Shari’a Islam to grow and gain power.

I was asked at the last minute to help a Calvin professor lead a discussion sponsored by CALL (Calvin Academy of Lifelong Learning—an amazing homegrown Elderhostel kind of group) as a follow-up to her lecture. They had assumed that it would be controversial. And indeed, in some places it might have been. I can’t imagine that Wooster would have even invited her to campus. But the questions afterwards to Ali and the serial-monologues that passed for discussion for CALL indicated that the audience shared Ali’s worries. Three men who are from Muslim countries spoke even more forcefully against Islam. My own comments (anticipating more questioning of Ali than there was) were three-fold, pictured as two intersecting circles of context set into a larger circle: We need to set her individual narrative into the larger picture of abuse of Muslim women, the statistics for which I am uncertain. We need to set her narrative into the context of the Qur’an and the way it invites literalistic interpretation and the way that Muhammad’s example of political force contrasts with Jesus’ mission of self-sacrifice. These must in turn be set into the all encompassing circle of Biblical attitudes which compel us to love our Muslim neighbors whether or not we fear their system of belief.

One of the saddest of the many sad realities of her difficult life that struck me as I re-read Infidel this winter is how no Christian in Holland came alongside Ali as she lost her faith in Islam with an invitation to experience Christ’s freedom and salvation. Therefore, she settled instead to fill her cleanly-swept house that she proudly calls “Infidel” with the false religion of secularity. We can only pray that God will put such a Christian friend in her life now. It is never too late.

Symbol of Belonging

We now have a mailbox at Church of the Servant (complete with a box of offering envelopes tucked into it). Seven and a half months from our first walking into the church to hear someone call Chuck's name to having a box and quite regular invitations out for lunch after church as well as opportunities for meaningful service that could mushroom to take up all our time. Not bad. In fact, wonderful, given the reputation for ingrown indifference to newcomers that G.R. has. We haven't found it to be the case. We will join the church this spring.

Theological Context for the Dress Saga (and lots of other situations as well)

My family always gets me interesting books for Christmas, and among them this year is a wonderful one from Ellen entitled Living Gently in a Violent World: The Prophetic Witness of Weakness by Stanley Hauerwas and Jean Vanier. Duke Divinity School’s Hauerwas needs no introduction to people who read theology, but Ellen actually went to church with him while she was in Chapel Hill. I had read some of his previous essays on disabilities probably two decades ago. (An aside: I asked Wooster’s most liberal religious studies prof why Wooster had never brought him to campus as a lecturer because I thought he could speak to a wide-ranging audience, but he laughed and said that H’s verbal language is often foul!! Calvin had him as a Jan. Series lecturer a couple years ago with no public incident….) Vanier is the founder of the L’Arche communities that provide homes for severely disabled folk around the world. I read this slim book while we were driving the first leg of our journey to Texas today. The book is an attempt to begin writing a theology of disability and to explore the gifts the disabled give to us and the church. One paragraph in particular stood out for me as a profound context for the dress saga I told yesterday (and out from there to the current American experience of economic crisis):

“Long story short: we don’t get to make our lives up. We get to receive our lives as gifts. The story that says we should have no story except the story we choose when had no story is a lie. [This is H’s way of describing modernity’s definition/idol of freedom and autonomy.] To be human is to learn that we don’t get to make up our lives because we’re creatures. Christians are people who recognize that we have a Father whom we can thank for our existence. Christian discipleship is about learning to receive our lives as gifts without regret. And that has the deepest political implications. Much of modern political theory and practice is about creating a society where we do not have to acknowledge that our lives are gifts we receive from one another” (92-93). Hauerwas and Vanier have been arguing/demonstrating that the profoundly handicapped (esp. as treated in L’Arche communities) deeply counter modernity’s model by being places of service, patience, listening, gentleness, celebration and sharing with people whom the modern world has no way (ultimately) to value. They are therefore gifts to the church and the world, showing us all what true Christian communities can be.

It seems to me that Karen is struggling to receive her life as a gift, to understand that she doesn’t get to make it up, but that God has gifted her well. The girls at the table Friday night helped her understand this truth by affirming her choices (though they weren’t the ones that she initially thought and may still sometimes think she wanted) and therefore her deepest humanity. Of course, I can only pray that our whole family helps her in the same way. (Certainly her group home community does.) In this way, she can lead us in reaffirming that Ellen and Kelly didn’t “make up” their circumstances and that their upcoming wedding too is a gift, the gift that we are celebrating with them. I love Vanier’s definition of celebration too: “To celebrate is to say we are happy together” (74).

The Sage of THE Dress

Back from the heights of academic book lists to the reality of choosing a bridesmaid’s dress for Karen to wear at Ellen’s wedding. But we must back up a bit to tell this story.

When Kelly visited us at Thanksgiving along with all our other guests, he had only one opportunity to spend time with just the five of us. He took that time to ask, not Chuck for permission to marry Ellen, but to ask all of us to give them our blessing on their future plans. Karen sat silent, momentarily stunned, and then said, “What? I thought I was going to be first [to get married].” We held our collective breath, I worried a bit that jealousy would overtake her. Then just as quickly, she said, “Oh, all right. I’ll be second.” Then she started peppering Ellen with questions. “What is your diamond ring going to look like, Ellen?”
“I’m not going to have one, Karen.”
“Well, what about your birth stone. You can use that for a ring.”
“I don’t like sparkly things, Karen. I’m not going to have an engagement ring.”
“Can I be your maid of honor?”
“I’m not going to have a maid of honor, but you and Jenny can be my bridesmaids.”
“What about your veil?”
“I’m not going to have a veil, Karen.” One by one, Karen’s visions of a Cinderella wedding, the kind fostered by all the media she has ever seen, were deflated (can visions be deflated?), clouded anyhow.
Karen knows how to put a word into a google search function, so now she started with “bridesmaid dresses.” Up popped many sites, all designed to reinforce the Cinderella, or at least the sophisticated 21st century Cinderella, vision of a wedding. She found many dresses that would do just fine, every one of which Ellen nixed because she is determined to have a simple, non-consumeristic wedding, with as much of it handmade as possible. She had found her wedding dress via an etsy site and a fifties-style, cute flowered sundress model for the bridesmaids’ dresses as well. Now came the tug of war between the two competing visions of the wedding. I knew the bride, whose approach I heartily approve, not only would win, but she should win. I also knew that the bridesmaid (the other one is agreeable with whatever is asked of her ☺) had a slightly broken heart because this was not going to be her wedding plus she was trying to discern among mixed cultural signals. I have to protect her and educate her and love her and help her make good choices that she can understand as her own choices, not just forced on her. This is harder than mastering Ken Meyers’ book list!
The internet also showed us some wonderful Amy Butler fabric that the etsy dressmaker could use for the sundresses. It seemed at one point that Karen had agreed to two or three of these. But then another foray on the internet yielded a beautiful teal and black lace dress from Coldwater Creek, not too bridesmaid-y but not cotton and not a sundress. I dragged my feet, knowing what the bride would say and knowing that it wasn’t available in her size. When she was with me last week, I took her to a fabric store and there were racks of new, spring-y Amy Butler fabric. I went back and bought several 1/8 yard pieces.
Last night we were going to go over to her group home to say goodbye before we left for Texas today (delayed a day due to yet another snowstorm), and I intended to have Karen make a choice among those swatches as Ellen needs to know soon. However, the gals were going to be at Calvin for a party with some of the students who volunteer to play games with them occasionally. We headed for Calvin instead and found her at a table with three sweet, blonde gals who all melted and sighed at the mention of “wedding,” “bridesmaid,” and the sight of pretty cotton flowered material. “Oh, Karen. How lovely. You’ll look so pretty. A wedding…” etc. In a flash Karen, happy with the reinforcement and approval, made her excellent choice of fabric (Amy Butler Daisy Chain Sweet Jasmine natural, just in case you need to know, and Jenny’s will not be matchy-matchy but will coordinate) and with a teal border/shoulder straps/big sash and bow color.
I suppose she could still resist but the choice has been made and soon enough she will have a pretty dress to wear. I am hoping that the Saga of THE Dress is essentially over and that both bride and bridesmaid will be happy.

This post is for Reuben

One of Reuben’s intellectual heroes (may I say that, R?), Ken Meyer of Mars Hill, led a seminar at the InterVarsity Grad/Fac. Conference. One of the gals with whom I roomed was upset because she went to it expecting something quite different based on the advertised title that had something to do with cultural engagement than a list of book titles. Thankfully, she found something more akin to her interests and skills in the second set of seminars. I heard Meyers the second time around myself. He verbally annotated each title, spending too long on the first ones, giving short shrift to the last ones, but here’s the list, just for you, Reuben:

Five essays on the academic vocation and the disorders of the contemporary university:
1) C.S. Lewis. “Learning in Wartime.” from The Weight of Glory.
2) Wendell Berry. “The Loss of the University.” from Home Economics: Fourteen Essays.
3) Robert Jensen. “On the Renewing of the Mind.” from Essays in Theology of Culture.
4) Mark Edmundson. “On the Uses of a Liberal Education as Lite Entertainment for Bored College Students.” from Why Read? The Uses and Abuses of Literature for Life. www.student.virginia.edu/~decweb/lite
5) Roger Lundin (whom Jenny heard lecture Thursday evening at Hope’s Veritas Forum). “Postmodern Gnostics.” from The Culture of Interpretation.
www.marshillaudio.org/pdf.

Five really thin books on the disoders of culture.

1) C.S. Lewis. The Abolition of Man.
2) Wendell Berry. Life is a Miracle.
3) Colin Ganton. Enlightment and Alienation: An Essay toward a Trinitarian Theology.
4) George Parker Grant. English-Speaking Justice.
5) Richard Weaver. Ideas Have Consequences.

Five books detailing the texture of the 20th Century.

1) John McWhorter. Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care.
2) Jacques Barzun. The Use and Abuse of Art.
3) David Thompson. The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood.
4) Julian Johnson. Who Needs Classical Music?
5) Langdon Winner. Autonomous Technology: Technics out of Control as a Theme of Political Thought.

Five books of Christian response to the cultural….

1) Lesslie Newbingin. Proper Confidence. Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship.
2) Nathan Hatch: The Democratization of American Christianity.
3) James Turner. Without God, Without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America.
4) Craig Gay. The Way of the Modern World: or Why It’s Tempting to Live as if God Doesn’t Exist.
5) Colin Gunto (sp?). The One, The Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity.

There you go, Reuben. This should keep you busy for quite a while. AB

Following Christ 08: Human Flourishing

If I don't get some of this recorded on my blog, the days between then and now will be too numerous for me to recall them well. This InterVarsity Grad/Faculty conference (and Jenny and I have attended all three, Ellen having attended 02 and Chuck, who stayed home with Karen so we could go, 98 and 02) was in my judgment the most practical for its young attendees. My quick report is divided into three parts:

1) the women's day-ahead mini-conference at which I was a small group leader. If I hadn't been asked to serve in this way, I would not have gone. Sharon Gartland and her team put together a marvelously well-thought through day of restoration considering, "Finding Space for God." Using a hands-on craft of creating a bowl that represented the space and time in our lives, paralleled with three commissioned dramas that powerfully explored Mary's response to God's word in her life overlaid by common professional women's experiences, a Nigerian poet's shared work, Renaissance art explained by an art-historian, worship (music, though not enough), exercise and time spend in small groups with scripture study and crafting and conversation, they both gave opportunity for restoration and challenges. Even those women who came in saying, "Crafts? I'm not crafy," went out refreshed.

2) the plenary evening sessions. Here the speakers were simple, direct and powerful. I'll try to convey the main points of three of them. The first woman, MaryKate Morse from George Fox U. Seminary, exhorted the often-fearful, anxious graduate students (and faculty) to resist the spirit of fear by "eating this verse: 'For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and love and a sound mind.'" One of the young gals in my day-ahead small group knew that MaryKate was speaking straight to her. The second, Jeff VanDuzer, is the dean of the School of Business at Seattle Pacific. He shared how his department is putting together a mission statement straight out of Genesis 1, countercultural to the greed model that has gotten our nation and world into so much disaster. The last to speak was Francis Collins, the former head of the Genome Project, who gave his conversion testimony and spoke of his confidence that believing scientists can embrace creation and evolution because "science is a joyful form of worship." He ended by playing a relatively new hymn (I wish I had copied the title), accompanying himself on his new guitar that is decorated with a double helix.

3) the expositions of three passages from Colossians by N.T. Wright. As usual, Wright is dense--if you let yourself drift off for a second, you've lost a point or two and maybe a thread that holds his lectures together--engaging and profound. I told the young gals who roomed with Jenny and me just to hold on to a point that means something to them and not worry about the rest. My friend Tom Trevethan, who always has his bunk-meter running, said to me that you could disagree with Wright about (say) the details of justification, but how could you listen to him and conclude that he is wrong in his sweeping conclusions. He urged the delegates to take up their tasks of bringing a fresh understanding of Jesus' power for the planet. From Colossians he looked first at God's Wisdom. To be genuinely human, you need wisdom and to get wisdom, you need Jesus. Through Jesus all things were made and will be reconciled. Humanity rescued and restored is humanity as it was meant to be." The next morning he took up the theme of Glory. He said that the Jews of Jesus' day understood the glory of God to be present in the Temple but of course understood the tensions inherent in the fact that the temple was not as it ought to be. We too live with the tensions of the fallen world and the promise of ultimate glory restored in creation. The theology of glory, he said, is rooted in the crucifixion, the tension only resolved with the appearing of Christ. This raises the question of mission in which Christians must bring together worship, justice, beauty and evangelism. His last exposition was of the notion of Virtue in Colossians. His cavet was that virtuous living is only by grace, not by self-help formulas. We become more human after our salvation because of we experience more of God in us through the spirit. Rules matter, he said, but they are not the principle thing nor the reaction to rules that says, "I'll be true to myself." The eschatological ethic is dying to self and being raised to the heavenly realities that enable you to be citizens of heaven and earth. Heaven is not 'up there' but "just on the other side of the thin veil of reality that we pierce with prayer and worship and service." We are a pilot project of the new world and must practice the instruments of the primary virtues of faith, hope and love.

And if I may add one other facet of human flourishing: friendship. I was able to meet and spend some (if not enough) time with dear friends from forty years ago and friends made while in Turkey and Egypt three years ago, good time with Jenny and the two (very) young grad students who shared a room with us, who discovered in each other the possibility of a deep friendship. Praise God!

A Beautiful Month in the Neighborhood

Happy New Year! We're back from Chicago now, and I promise a couple of posts from the Following Christ/Human Flourishing conference that Jenny and I attended. But while we were gone, most of the snow melted in a daylong rainstorm. More had fallen by the the time we returned, so I need not fear a dearth of snow around here, but this time it was a gentle two inches. Two objects for this post: To add a reason my tired brain had forgotten about why the 23rd was a beautiful day here--the neighborliness of my next door neighbor who took pity on Jenny and me chipping and chopping the ice left from the snow plow. He just kept going with his powerful snowblower and blew away that icey mess in short order. Thanks!!

The other is to convey some December G.R. statistics from the paper this morning. First, it was the cloudiest month on record. July 5 itself had more sun that we had the whole month. Second, we got 54 inches of snow, making it the second snowiest Dec. on record and three times the average 18 inches G.R. gets the last month of the year. Third, this month's supply of snow added to the rest of the (calendar) year's record 143 inches. I'd say that Chuck's man-toy, the snow blower, was a strategic purchase. My only hope is that the rest of the winter will be easier now that we've survived this. According to a local TV weather guy, none of this excess has to do with global warming but instead it is related to last winter's "weak La Nina." There you go, those of you who are bereft of snow in your southern homes.

I promise a book post for Reuben from the conference....very soon.