Lighten up!

Paul: This week we had a little discussion about avoiding a potential issue that may be associated with our blog should current trends continue entirely unimpeded, which is to say becoming a blog about things we don't like and the way we feel things ought to be. I have some old tapes which took a great deal of searching to acquire, of old radio broadcasts by Alexander Woollcott. One in particular sprung to mind in what seems like may have been a rushed effort for that week's broadcast's content during the period when Woollcott was in London during the Blitz in an effort to convince America to enter the war against Germany.

Laurie: Wow, that was a really long sentence.

Paul: But grammatically unimpeachable.

That particular week, Woollcott chose to simply talk about a few things he'd liked and recommended. If memory serves, it was along the lines of "a meal, a play, a book and a song" or something like that. I thought it might be fun to attempt something similar on this blog.  I think the idea was also partly inspired by Laurie's recent blog post recommending her findings on the best products for cleaning one's home.

So, I'll pick a few categories, I'll leave Laurie to pick a few categories, and then we'll each give either our favorites or at least our recommendations in that category.

I choose: a product or service, a film, a book, and a beverage.

Laurie: Okay, I'm supposed to think of something now? I'm really bad at this sort of thing. You're the idea man; how about you choose some categories for me, and I'll accept or reject them?

Paul: No, we're both going to do one another's categories. So you're going to do the four I mentioned and also both of us will do some you are to come up with.

Laurie: What you seem to be missing here is that I can't think of anything. Maybe all those pop-quasi-christian relationship books are right and I'm just a "responder". Maybe this is also why I'm no fun at parties - that and my stubborn refusal to get drunk...

Okay, fine....hmmm...I'll choose: a musical genre, an historical era, a dream career, and an architectural style.

Paul: Yes, this is acceptable.

So, a Product or Service: I choose iTunes U. No matter who you are, if you have a connection to the internet (clue: you do if you're reading this) and you don't have excessively repressive time limits (meaning one of the few situations I could think of that would make this impractical would be if you are on a public library computer) you can access this world of knowledge. Simply get iTunes if you don't already have it. In the left sidebar is a link called iTunes U. This gives you access to thousands of lectures from hundreds of major colleges and universities around the world. You can go through entire courses or listen to specific lectures. There are major universities, minor ones, seminaries, other public lecture sources like the 92 Street YMCA in New York, and even some grade school and high school courses for those of you who could use such things. Some schools have vast libraries of lectures by great minds from all spheres and disciplines. Some have music or film or audio book resources. It is a wonderful resource which I encourage everyone to use. Probably 3/4th of our iPod is filled with material from iTunes U (and most of the rest is This American Life and Radiolab.)

Laurie:  Well I'll avoid the obvious choices of my practical nature (indoor plumbing, electricity, and internet - all of which I'm extremely fond of), and since you're not specifically asking for my "favorite things ever", but merely things I like and would recommend, I'll go with NPR - National Public Radio. I recently heard someone refer to it disparagingly as National Pagan Radio, which really made me wonder where they get their news. Besides my ongoing minor beef with Terry Gross's insistence on repeatedly featuring Bart Ehrman on her show as a representative of "Biblical scholarship", her attraction to Christian apostates, and her respect for any spirituality which is not Christian (That aside, she's one of the best interviewers I've ever heard, and highly recommend her show Fresh Air.), I've found NPR to provide the most balanced views on most every subject, far less slanted than any other network news source I know of. No, it's not Christian, but neither are the others. Through NPR I've been exposed to stories and subjects I'd never have heard of otherwise. I've also learned, by example, how to calmly and respectfully discuss difficult subjects and with people whose opinions differ from my own. In the three years I've been listening, I can only recall two times when I've heard anyone, conservative or liberal, treated in a verbally abusive manner. One was a caller to Talk of the Nation - the subject of the show was bullying - the caller was a self-described bully and proceeded to bully the host and the guest. The other was radio host Michael Savage, who was on NPR as a phone guest and abused a caller to the show who had politely stated why he disapproved of Savage's manner. Nowadays, when I happen to catch a glimpse of network news programming (you name it, FOX, CNN, MSNBC...) I feel like I'm watching a side show, a tacky, abusive, sensational, vitriolic, and biased circus.

Paul: I was listening to both of those shows on the days when they first aired as well and I shared your shock. Part of it was the contrast. But I know that whenever I find myself, for some infernal reason, in earshot range of a non-Daily Show major news source broadcast, I have the same reaction. It's sort of a new normal and I see it creeping into people's behavior. The television has told them to be unconfined, raging, frothy mouthed knee-jerk reactionaries and they are following orders. NPR is one of the few places I can still go to hear global news reported with an indoor voice.

Laurie: Really, is there any good reason we should be so shocked at the bullying in our schools, when this is the sort of behavior in which adults engage in the public sphere? But I don't want to open a new can of rabbit trails here. Beyond their generally wonderful example of respectful civic behavior, NPR also employs an independent ombudsman, to represent the public to the station, accept complaints and kudos, and to evaluate them for fairness, etc. Okay then. I'll hand you back your soapbox, Paul.

Paul: Now, A film: I am sort of a film buff, so it's hard to narrow this down, but if I were recommending a film to people across the board, it would be The Third Man. It was directed by Carol Reed and stars Orson Welles and Joseph Cotten. It is probably my favorite movie and without a doubt one of the best ever made. I don't want to give too much away, but it sweeps you into a gorgeous but fractured world of post World War II Vienna, smack in the middle of a mystery with ominous undertones. But it's also fun, romantic, beautiful. Really, you must see it if you haven't and see it again if you have.

Laurie: Wow, this is hard. There's no doubt you are aware that I have the memory of a gnat when it comes to films. Every time I see one a second time, it's almost as if it were the first. So, I'm limited from the outset to the small subset that I can remember. As with my last recommendation I will bypass the obvious favorites of a female of my age (Gone With the Wind, Grease, Overboard, West Side Story...) and suggest something off the beaten path and wonderful: Criterion's collection of Rossellini's History Films. Each one is a work of Renaissance art come to life, velvety enough to convince you the world was then painted in oils. The history is insightful, provocative. I own The Age of the Medici, Cartesius, Blaise Pascal, and The Taking of Power by Louis XIV. It's hard for me to choose a favorite. Cartesius and Pascal made me long for a time when all the disciplines were still married, when mathematicians were philosophers, and science was not seen to be in conflict with faith. The Age of the Medici was a peek into a family whose name is woven like a long thread of intrigue throughout European history. And Louis XIV, well, I never realized the method behind the man I always pictured as the silly grandfather of Rococo. I was astonished at his genius in taking control of France, and current political parallels.

Paul:All of them are amazing and the former three come in a set by the Criterion Collection.

A book: I purposely gave myself one that I knew would be difficult for me and one that would probably change depending on my mood that day. Today I'm going to go with The Fever, by Wallace Shawn. Shawn is one of the more powerful working playwrights around today. His work grabs you by the collar and mercilessly shoves a mirror in your face. In a good way, in a way where you leave the work a different person than you were when you arrived, be it for better or worse. Don't let the word "play" daunt you. It's actually a one person narrative which revolves around someone traveling who suddenly becomes acutely aware of the economic, political, social and classist forces that dictate the world. I cannot recommend it highly enough, and you can read it in an afternoon. It explores our comfort and discomfort as well as the cost of our lifestyles.

Laurie: Sheesh, how do you pick? Should I choose fiction or non? Sacred or secular?

Paul: I picked by looking over at my bookcase and thinking "Yeah, why not? That's a good one." There are hundreds of books I would recommend given half the chance. In fact, that's mainly what I do on my blog. So, I would say just pick something.

Laurie: Hmmm? Well, the ones I've read the most are Gone With the Wind, East of Eden, and the Bible. I've lost count of how many times I've read them. No one should go through life without reading Crime and Punishment. But I want to highlight something off the beaten track.

Okay, you'll have to bear with two. The first is The Freedom of the Will, by Jonathan Edwards. It is a largely philosophical work addressing the largely philosophical problem of the nature of the human will. He was addressing a view of the will which was then prevailing and remains the predominant view of volition: libertarian free will. It is a fascinating discussion, once you've slogged through the necessary defining of terms that is, and really helped me shape a view of the human will which is more in line with both Scripture and reason.

My next choice is a 1995 work by health and science writer, Laurie Garrett: The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance. This book comes extensively researched and heavy with footnotes, and as riveting as good fiction. It's a very good journalistic account of the emergence of new and deadly pathogens (AIDS, Toxic Shock Syndrome, Ebola, Lassa, etc) and the dangerous re-emergence of old ones (malaria, cholera, TB...), the causes, the responses of the epidemiological community, their various governments' successes and failures in addressing the crises. There are lessons to be learned from Garrett's work which we ignore at our own peril.

Paul: A beverage: Summer is coming and I have a recipe for a drink I make.  I discovered this by way of artist Jill Thompson and make it in the hot months. Walking is my preferred mode of transportation and for 5 months of the year this is a dehydrating mode of travel in Chico. So, you get a glass, put in the juice of 2 lemons, 1/3 cup water with some sugar (different people choose different amounts) microwaved together and thrown in the fridge to cool back down. Some ginger pressed in a garlic press (again, different people choose different amounts. I use an enormous amount of ginger.) Throw some ice in the glass, add the sugar water, and fill with club soda. Very refreshing!

Laurie: Wow, sounds interesting....But I'll stick with my ice-cold Diet Pepsi, if you don't mind.

Paul: A musical genre: You know, I was really close to saying Dark Cabaret, but I think I'll go ahead and be predictable and say Classical and Opera. Both are genres which tend to have the stigma of being only accessible to the affluent. False! Again, go to your library and, if you don't know what you're doing, go to the circulation desk and tell them that you want to see opera and listen to a lot of classical music. They can load you up with DVDs and CDs and inter-library loan anything you'd like to hear that they don't have on hand. It is an embarrassment of riches.Or, go here and download a bunch of great, public domain performances for free.
I can also tell you from having worked in theaters for years, if you want to attend a live performance, a good deal of theaters out there have what is called a "student rush." This is for 1) people with limited funds and 2) to try to keep the theater full. A half an hour before a performance, tickets will often sell for a nominal fee. Also, many theaters have what is known as a "pay what thou wilt" night where you can get in the door for $5 or less. All of which can get you into a symphony or opera. Although I am personally of Glenn Gould's camp in that I believe that the days of live performance are waning. The high quality of modern recording allows one to enjoy music of equal or superior sound quality to being in the music hall without the side effects of sitting next to someone with a high chest cold or chatty season ticket holders or older people who are compensating for their loss of sense of smell with increasingly liberal applications of perfumes.
The best advice I can give to one who is interested in Classical music is to jump in head first and listen to a lot of things. Find out what you like and what you don't. Listen to people you've heard of and people you haven't. Listen to ancient, early music chants and brand new compositions that sound like someone knocking a box of metal pipes down a stairwell, and everything in between. Look up information on them. Figure out what periods and composers you like.
Why? First of all, it's an expression of the highest aspirations of human kind, running the entire range of emotions and experience. The composition is structured with great care, art and skill. If you fill your head with greatness, the idea is that greatness is what will then come out. On top of that, you get to tap into a universal music type which transcends both age and geography. It speaks to everyone one of us as fellow humans.
And for our Christian readers of whom we seem to have many, this is where they keep the good Christian music. Conductor Robert Shaw once said, "Western art music was born in and nurtured by the Church." If you're anything like me (and I know I am!) you probably are underwhelmed by the praise music offerings on your local Christian pop music station. Well, throw on some Bach or Sibelius. For me, Gregorian Chant focuses up a room to the celestial way more effectively than any of last year's Dove Award winners.

Laurie: Well, here again we learn who is the real oaf in this relationship. I never go out of my way to listen to classical music, mainly because I need to hear it in a context to understand it or "feel" it. If I can watch the performance I can become engrossed, but that is not usually the case when it is playing in the background of my daily activities.

Paul: An unfortunate, gross misunderstanding and misapplication of some in contemporary times is the attempt to use Classical as background or "mood" music. It should be anything but. It should demand all of our attention and, indeed, our being.

Laurie:I agree, and admit I often lack the required attention. Which brings me back to my selection. My taste is very eclectic, but I don't listen to a lot of music these days. When I need a pick-me-up it's usually funk I turn to: Parliament/Funkadelic, Cameo, Ohio Players.... It makes me smile. And on a completely different note, for pure beauty, I recommend Loreena McKennitt's, The Mask and the Mirror album. I walked down the aisle to greet Paul to The Dark Night of the Soul. Hard to hold back the tears.

Paul: A song which will forever remind me of you on our wedding day.

An historical era: Oh dear, well, while I try not to romanticize periods, I think if I had my Tardis and was only allowed one trip, I would flip a coin and either go hang out with the Zürich era Dadaists or the art community of Fin de siècle France.

Laurie: Sorry to bust in here...but...well...I don't know what on earth you just said. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

Paul: Um, well, the Dadaists were a group of absurdist artists responding to the severe existential meltdown of the War to End All Wars: WWI.  Zürich was sort of the flashpoint when the major early players were all in the same place creating a movement. Fin de siècle France is around the turn of 1900, known also as the Belle Époque or Beautiful Era. Think Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Proust, Debussy, Degas was still kicking around I think as a venerable old artist at that point, Edvard Munch, Paul Signac, Félix Fénéon. One of those pieces of space-time where a group of artists hit a boiling point. In this case, with sort of a doomed, birth of the modern tone that appeals to my sensibilities.  Also a huge collection of people I would like to have met in the same time and place.

Laurie: So, what would you say to them, besides "Hey, you're not going to believe this, but I'm from the future!"?

Paul: Well, considering who and how they were, I imagine that's the sort of thing they heard and said all the time. Mainly I think I would be interested in listening, observing the processes.

Laurie:Anyway, I'm rather surprised you didn't choose Shakespeare's England.

Paul:  I thought about it, and while I would like to see an original staging of a Globe production, I think I'd prefer a time and place without bear-baiting and with the custom of hand washing before meals and after toilet.

Laurie: Well, I've thought of this often, since there are so many fascinating periods of history, but I always find that in order to enjoy those times I'd have to not only travel through time, but undergo a sex change and wealth enhancement. The truth is, history has been overwhelmingly brutal to women in every way, in matters both big and small.

At what time in history would I like to be uneducated chattel living without rights, without the advances of medicine, indoor plumbing or feminine hygiene products, and for whom every pregnancy ran a high risk of ending my life? Whenever I've tried this thought experiment I've invariable come away thinking Right Now is not so bad after all.

Paul: Hm. As opposed to this enlightened age when women enjoy peace, freedom from oppression and fear of bodily harm, and equality in station and pay throughout the world? Hopefully the written word doesn't betray my dripping sarcasm here. I'm beginning to wonder if we wouldn't do better to take the optimistic road and both go dramatically forward in history.

Laurie: Listen, I'm not going to knock progress. The value of women and children in western society has made advances I'd hate to lose. It's fun to look back to "brighter days"- to Harriet Nelson. Truth is, wives were being battered and children molested back then and had no recourse whatsoever. Mommies popped "nerve pills" to help them keep up those perfect images we so wish to emulate. Black folk had their own water fountains and rode in the back of the bus. But as for looking to the future, people being what they are, I have little reason to believe the future generation will be any more a golden age than it is now. For all our progress, we are still vulnerable to holocaust.

But now, I think I've trod all over your good intentions, which is to say, your sympathy for the ongoing inequality women suffer. You are right, the world is still not a very friendly place for women, and in much of the world is as hostile and oppressive as in ancient days.


So, having cast that dark cloud, let's see if I can't cheer things back up by imagining time-traveler-Laurie gets to be a male....hmmm. Pretty much every era has been a brutal time for men as well. I wouldn't want to be Martin Luther, or John Calvin, or Henry VIII even. There really never have been any good old days. Oh boy, the cloud is back. Sorry. I'll try and get back into the spirit of the thing...being a Southern Belle seems like it might have been nice, if you could live with your slave-holding conscience.

Paul: You do remember that this category was your idea, don't you?

Laurie: Sorry. It's a fantasy I always start off enjoying until the side of my brain that remembers the billions of folk too simple to warrant a mention in the history books kicks in. That said, being an educated man, a philosopher or an artist, during the Renaissance would have been a great time. But there is one figure above all that I would have liked to have met in the flesh - Jesus Christ. I want to see him smile and ask Him questions - know what made Him laugh, hear His tone when he spoke to women and children, study His mannerisms. I've not given up hope of meeting Him.

Paul: Well done! You brought it around to the only positive point of view I could imagine. So I'll move on to A dream career: I just had this conversation with Stefan (Gina is my step-daughter and Stefan is her boyfriend, for readers who don't know and even for readers who do know) at my birthday dinner the other night. If I had a sack of money fall on me, I think I would start a classical theater company, mainly focusing on Shakespearean productions, but doing a great array of works, here in Chico. I think this town would embrace such a thing and, I daresay, I think such a thing would do this town some good. I would place myself as the creative director, probably direct two productions a year of my own and solicit other directors to direct other pieces throughout the year, (possibly in which I would act) hopefully making us a year round classical live theater company. We could do shows or workshops for schools, work with the college, be a very positive force in this community. If you're a wealthy philanthropist in Chico, email me.


Laurie: Well, the more romantic choice would be epidemiology. It's kind of like being an archeologist, but the hunt is for disease and it's causes rather than artifacts and theirs. My weakness in math, however, would likely preclude me from advancing far enough in my scientific education to get there. So, a more realistic "fantasy" career would be as a writer, lecturer, and historian with an emphasis on church history. How's that for lofty?

Paul: An architectural style: Oh, you know me. I'm going to say Gothic Revival or Neo-Gothic. I like it when a building bashes me over the head with how it is stunning.

Laurie: Again I find myself guilty of thinking too small! I like what you like, but I had homes in mind. It's a tight race for me between Victorian and Craftsman style homes. Gotta love those southern colonial mansions too, but I think I'll choose Victorian. We have a lot of both types here in Chico, and even one colonial that I can think of, down on Vallombrosa. I wish I could say our 1905 "charmer" fit into any of those categories, but I'm afraid I can't find one for it. It looks an awful lot like the house my mom grew up in in Maine. Anyone have a fancy name for our house of sticks?

Paul: Sort of a Bungalow which is a term for "no style, we just built a one-story house."

A Question About Gurus

Paul:  So, a friend of ours read our most recent post about gurus and asked (and I paraphrase), "how do you know the Bible itself is not just another guru?  There are so many interpretations and it was written by so many authors over so long a period of time.  On what basis do I believe one writer/book over another?"

I would like to attempt to answer some of that this week.  I'm not entirely certain my response will be satisfactory for all, but it will be honest and how I came to where I am.  Some of it will be personal and emotional, but some of it I hope will be more on the objective side in speaking to the veracity of scripture and the how and why of proper hermeneutics.  Although I would preface by saying many great doorstop, cookie-jar-reaching tomes have been written on this topic.  I don't expect we'll be exhaustive in our discussion here today.  It is also my intent to avoid the sort of cliche and cop-outs that I heard so often as a questioning unbeliever.  Phrases like "Well, that's where faith comes in."

Laurie:  Hmm, I feel the same way about the "that's where faith comes in" argument. I mean,  don't think it's helpful. Hopefully I won't get off track here, but I always believed the Bible was "God's Word" or the true "holy book" or however you might wish to put it. But for me, admittedly, (and I venture this is the case for many professing Christians) this belief had little to do with faith, and everything to do with geography and maternity. What I mean is, I'm a white Anglo-Saxon American. My mother was brought up Episcopalian, or so she told me, and raised me as a Lutheran.  I was told from Day One that the Bible was God's book, and that was that. It never occurred me to question that fact until much later, and, honestly, I thought questioning it was a dangerous, potentially unpardonable sin.

So I don't even think of believing that the Bible is God's word as a matter of faith. I think you can accept it as fact and not be a person of faith at all. There's believing, and there's believing. What I mean is, I accepted the notion that God orchestrated the writing of a book for humans, and that the Bible was that book, but I didn't much care about that God or His book. I'd say that faith cares. Faith loves that God and hangs on His every word. But, of course, if you don't accept the idea of God, let alone that he wrote a book...well I can see where believing such a thing would require a change of mind which some would call faith.

Paul:  Right, and I think I was a good example of that.  I went years with a high view of Scripture but without being a believer, as in a converted person.  The converse is also true.  The Gospel is the key point, the non-negotiable.

For me, I went, through a series of events, experiences and revelations, from full atheism to, at the very least the understanding that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in my philosophy.  Now, I would like to point out a very important point for me right here at the beginning that just because something is emotional or breaking from consensus reality does not immediately translate to "false" or "not real."  We are all brains encased in skulls interpreting stimuli communicated by our senses.  It was an important realization for me that just because a person who is having a psychotic episode is "seeing" a four foot long cockroach on the wall doesn't mean it isn't real.  It doesn't even necessarily mean that they are "seeing something that isn't there."  Their brain is really seeing it just as much as I am seeing this computer screen in front of me.  So, just to make sure we're all on the same page, I'm going to do my best not to make sweeping generalizations about objective reality on both sides of the fence.

Laurie: Okay, I'm interrupting again, but, well...are you implying the imaginary cockroach is as real as a real cockroach? I always get hung up when you talk like this.


Paul: What I'm saying is: how can we really even measure such a thing?  Which sounds like I'm playing a mind game, but I assure you I am not.  I understand what you are asking is, correct me if I'm wrong, to the effect of "Is there really a giant cockroach there or not?"

Laurie: Right.

Paul:  What I'm saying is that we are all brains encased in skulls interpreting external stimuli communicated to our brains by our senses.  If someone has a wonky link in that chain and they are seeing something that the rest of consensus reality is incapable of sensing, that doesn't make them not see it.  They aren't making it up.  They really are seeing that giant cockroach just as much as I'm seeing a CRT Monitor right now (don't laugh, it was free.)

Put another way, Philip K. Dick was asked at a lecture he was giving "What is reality?"  He thought for a moment and said "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Which actually plays right into the hands of what I want to talk about. 

Speaking of sides of the fence, another common response I'd like to avoid is the one that says that the Bible is the infallible word of God because it says that it is the infallible word of God.  In my experience, that sort of argument is only helpful intramurally.  For example, if someone comes into the church and claims that they are a Christian and then claims that God told them that I need to give them money so that they can go buy meth, I can hold that up to the light of Scripture and examine it, see if it's inconsistent and deal with it appropriately.  Hypothetically speaking.  In the practical world, there would actually be a much shorter process to me saying "no."  I don't actually need to go break out my Bible to see if there's something fishy about that.

Laurie:  That reminds me of that line of reasoning I've always found suspect in which folks "prove"  the canon of Scripture is closed by pointing to the last book included in that canon, which happens to be the Revelation, which happens to end with a warning not to add or take away from it. Now, I understand the logic thread, but I think it's pretty clear that the intent of John when he penned the words "the book of this prophecy," was not an at-that-time-yet-to-be-canonized collection of Scriptures. It's never a good idea to misuse Scripture to prove Scripture.

In order not to be abused, Scripture should be used as it was intended to be used, read how it was meant to be read: as poetry, history, law, proverb, allegory, parable, letter of instruction, or prophecy. Each has its usefulness and it's limitations. But again, I think I'm straying from your point.

Paul:  But we're trying to speak externally at this point, so I'm going to talk about my conversion. This may not be entirely intellectually satisfying to some (I also apologize for being so apologetic), and there is an element to my own story similar to Evelyn Waugh's description of his conversion "It was either Christianity or chaos."  I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but as I've said elsewhere, the only thing that keeps me a Christian is the Gospel. Otherwise there's no way I would have chosen Christianity.  I find I believe the Gospel and I cannot not believe the Gospel no matter how fed up I get with Christianity.

I didn't exactly have a light-switch, road to Damascus conversion.  I had a conversion to assenting to the truths of the Bible in my early 20s and then a true spiritual follow-up where I started actually wanting to do anything about it in my late 20s.  We'll get to that in a moment.

Early 20's Paul was an agnostic, a poet, and a raging alcoholic (I don't place those three together to say that the former two are character flaws in and of themselves.  They just happen to be my three chief accurate specific character descriptions of that period.)  I'd done some pretty terrible things and would have gone on to do some more.  I became interested in attending church, a Quaker one in that case, for a number of reasons.  One was reading Albert Schweitzer, one was a girl who played the cello and went to the youth group, and one was the pastor whose sermons I found fascinating.  He would preach with historicity in the forefront, which greatly appealed to me.  He sort of preached how my brain works, which is to say in stories.  It was in winter that he started a series on the basics of the Gospel, which was one of those things I thought I knew, "Yeah, I get it. Jesus died for sinners."  But he started on a point I'd never heard before and it gripped me so completely.

The doctrine, although he didn't use this term (it was a Quaker church after all), was the doctrine of Total Depravity.  He started talking about sin nature, how we humans are all sinners by nature, how all fall short of the glory of God and how that keeps us separate from the divine, and I had about as close to an epiphany as I've ever had in my Christian life.  I thought "Wait a minute!  That sounds like me!  And on top of that, it sounds like an accurate description of human civilization!"

Much to the chagrin of my close friends, I went around for a while in that headspace, as sort of a One Point Calvinist.  Total Depravity and that's all.  When I tell this story it surprises some people that it didn't even occur to me to look further into it, to see if there was a way out.  I just wandered around looking at the world around me through those glasses, bleaker than late period Nietzsche.

I minored in Religion at Chapman University under Marv Meyer of the Jesus Seminar (which is the group of academics who are totally enamored with the Gnostic texts and who famously voted over the entire canonical gospel with color coded stones over whether or not what was being told in the text really happened or not.)  I found the story of the preservation of Scripture throughout history a very compelling story, the variety of authors with doctrinal unity, the clear path (mostly) of what would and wouldn't be canonized, and, in spite of what Bart Ehrman tries to shill to those whose religious curiosity extends only to what's available at Barnes and Noble, the constantly growing evidence for accuracy in the preservation of the ancient texts throughout history based on an ever growing store of ever older manuscripts.

Although, there is an important point I feel I need to make right now before we make the transition into my more recent history into church life.  Part of what keeps the infallible Scripture from being a rigid guru is that, in spite of what I hear so often, there is vast freedom in God's grace and Christ's imputed righteousness.  This is what made me fall so in love with the Gospel, as well as the key reason why I feel like an alien in Christianity so much of the time.  The Gospel tells me that God loves me and that I am regarded by Him as having Christ's righteousness.  I know that people are quick to take the next step to "but that means I'm going to want to behave myself and do good works," but let's camp here for a moment.  It's so refreshing here.  I can be a Gentile, I can approach God intimately, I can love un-apologetically anyone and everyone, in fact I'm commanded to.

When I first moved to Chico, I spent about a year in the Quaker meeting mainly because I had first gone my brother's former church, once.

Laurie: Once?

Paul:  Okay, maybe a handful of times right when I moved up here.  I was abridging for the sake of the flow of the story.  But I went a few times and then I went to one Saturday evening service and then didn't come back for a long time, around a year if memory serves, while I went to the Quaker meeting instead.

That was because the weekend music director at my brother's former church pretty much told me I wasn't welcome in his church because I was wearing a Jerry Garcia t-shirt.  So, I figured I would oblige him and take my congregating elsewhere. Since then I've noticed time and time again some set of behavioral expectations that Christians put on one another which make absolutely no sense to me. And, as I've said, so often I feel like if people in church really knew me, really knew what I think and feel, they wouldn't let me in the door.  Because, you see, there are a lot of people who turn Christianity into a weird, rigid set of actions, rules and orders.  But, the problem is that the expected points of views have nothing to do with the Gospel, which is the only essential point to Christianity. You can believe all kinds of bizarre accessories, but if you have the Gospel, if God has removed your heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh which seeks Christ, you're a Christian!  It doesn't matter if you baptize babies or think the wine turns into other things at communion, or sit in silence for an hour Sunday morning, or dance with the Hare Krishnas, or sleep all day and climb trees at night or wear a tin foil hat. In Heaven, there will be Communists and Monarchists.  There will be people of all skin colors. There will be people who go to churches that you don't go to. I don't understand why people feel such a strong need to take one thing that should unify us all and turn it into a point for division.  The Gospel is the only essential point.

Look, the Gospel is that we humans are sinners and that God is merciful.  He sent His Son to atone for our sin nature so that if we believe in Him we will live forever with Him and seek to glorify Him. Here's where I get in trouble with other Christians (as usual.)  The Gospel is not that the world was created in 6 literal days, or that evolution is false, or hating homosexuals, or the American brand of modern political Conservatism.  It doesn't call one to seek to destroy any work of art or thought that acknowledges unchristian actions or ideas or godlessness.  Just because we're allowed to eat bacon doesn't mean it's compulsory for a Christian to eat bacon.  In fact, in spite of how all of the above are taken as givens in modern American Christian behavior, I think all of the above are things that I personally reject. And yet I am a Christian. What do you make of that?

Laurie:  It's all so simple. Too simple, I think. I mean too simple for people to accept at plain old face value. We want to glamor it up. Besides that, if it's free (to us) we immediately devalue it. It's human nature. It's why we, or the Treasury, can't just go printing up new dollars when we run short. What amazing beings we humans are, for whom "taking something for granted" is a statement understood to mean something we don't value! When in fact the statement, at face value means "treating something as an un-earned gift".  We sure do know how to turn things on their heads. If given a gift we either de-value it, or else refuse to accept it unless we can find a way to pay back the giver, so that we get the glory for the possession of it rather than the one who gave it.

Paul: Yes, exactly.  And thus our very response to the gift is yet another symptom of how much we need the gift.

So, back to the guru thing, the Gospel is the means to salvation, an atonement with God.  Yes, returning to where we camped earlier, my changed heart as a Christian is going to direct my life in certain directions, but the Gospel is not a philosophy, nor is it a set of rules.  It's a gift from God. Part of how it naturally modifies one's behavior is that when shown such comprehensive undeserved grace, it stands to reason that one would also seek to extend grace.  And it would also stand to reason that one should try to keep aware of just how comprehensive that grace really is.

Laurie:  What do you mean "comprehensive"?

Paul:  That it encompasses our entire being, everything we have or ever will do or think.  Our works have absolutely nothing to do with achieving our justification.  Our justification is Christ's own imputed justification.

Laurie:  So, this grace has a profound effect on our lives, but the changes are internal and not imposed by the external demands of a guru.

Now, of course there remains the fact, which our friend brought up, that there is a sense in which Jesus Christ is a guru, in that people look to Him for wisdom, and for hope, and to be transformed, and especially in that He actually told people to do that very thing. He set out to gain a following, if you will. And, since the Bible is the book written to testify to this Jesus, and through which we learn about Him, and in which we are told to continue to draw followers to Him, it in that sense could also be viewed as a guru. Now this, of course, could be said about anyone who puts himself forth as a leader, along with any literature a leader produces with the intent of gaining and keeping a following. So, I think this is were we need to begin making distinctions.

Paul: Right, because we could have an infinite regression to the point of absurdity here where any scrap of truth or wisdom could be labeled a "guru."  

Laurie:  Yes, exactly. And where would we be no absolute or objective truth? There is a point at which we decide whether someone is worthy of following, whether their claims appear to be true and their teachings of value.  The "liar, lunatic, or Lord" argument has been around for a long time, and is useful here. If Jesus is not who he claimed to be, then he was either a liar or a lunatic. I will never knowingly or willingly follow a liar or a nutcase, and no matter which way I slice it, neither the testimony of Jesus or His apostles or their writings smack of either disingenuousness or insanity. Also the testimony of history does little to dissuade me from the truth of these claims. And so, as far as gurus go, and in that sense, I have found Jesus Christ to a respectable one.

But I would also distinguish the Christian message from others in another way, in that, as Paul has alluded to, Christ does the work. He does not gain from us. He only gives to us. He does not require that we pay debts to him. He pays them. He does not make demands upon us as a Lawgiver and Judge, but comes offering a reconciliation with God that is already bought and paid for - by him - to all who will accept it. A new-found peace with God will bring about changes in a person's life, not the least of which are love for God and mankind, but these are by-products, so to speak. This is pure and simple Christianity.

Sadly, though, there are would-be gurus in this world who lack the originality to come up with their own shtick. These folks will latch onto the work of another and use it as they see fit to manipulate others and bring them under their control. The Bible has been found by some to be very useful to this end, authoritative as it is, and exclusive as it is. But, they must abuse it to accomplish their ends, because the Scripture itself warns against having any "gurus" besides Christ, and against using his teaching to create gurus for ourselves.

Paul:  So, the short answer is something along the lines of "not if you're using it right."  Is that what you're saying?

Laurie: Exactly. We must take it as it is, for what it claims to be, and use it for what it's for - or else dispose of it entirely.  As you've said elsewhere Paul, a meal tainted with poison, no matter how fine a meal, is no longer fit to be eaten. So the Gospel message, as millennia has proven, when tainted is not just useless, but dangerous. But, when taken pure, it is life and peace.

Downsizing gurus and sacred cows

Paul: You know, one thing I've noticed in my Christian walk, which has been around a half dozen years now, is that Christians are by no means immune to the celebrity worship culture within their cultural faction. I am speaking specifically of those personalities within Christianity with whom we identify with what they say and how they say it, then take the step to identifying ourselves with those individual Christian celebrities. This is not a new phenomenon, but I've run into people who might say words to the effect of "I am of Al Mohler. I am of John MacArthur. I am of John Piper."

Laurie: "...I am of Mark Driscoll. I am of R.C. Sproul. I am of John Calvin. I am of Jonathan Edwards. I am of Martin Luther. I'm Reformed...NO, I'm Reformed. And whatever you do, don't invite Rick Warren to your conference!"....Sorry, I got a little carried away.

Paul: Now, I'm not meaning to slam those individuals by any means, and I purposely picked famous pastors with decent doctrine. Along with them, there's also a lot of Christian celebrities with horrible doctrine who are put on pedestals by other Christians.

I'm also not trying to be on any high horse. In the interest of full disclosure, I love listening to Steve Brown and John Frame. I'm sure I've been guilty of putting Martin Luther on too high of a pedestal at times in my Christian walk. It happens.

It is my, and I think Laurie's, intent to talk about gurus this week. Why do we follow other humans too closely? And why is it dangerous? I would also point out the converse of what I said at the beginning that this is not peculiar to Christianity. This is something humans do and it is my belief that it is a dangerous thing that humans do.

Laurie: Yes, it is a very human thing to do. There is nothing religious about it. Or should I say, there is something very religious about it. It is at the heart, really, of almost every religion I'm acquainted with.

Paul: Well, yes, but I don't think it's a novelty confined to the world of religion. I know when I was younger I had a version of this very same phenomenon with me and some authors who I idolized and whose careers and personalities I sought to emulate. And, in some of those cases, you end up holding the bag in sort of a Richard Cory situation because you don't really know these people. All you know is a highly edited product with their name on it.

Laurie: Yeah, me too. Only I wasn't as smart as you. For me it wasn't authors, it was musicians and celebrities. I had exceptionally poor taste in gurus. But, hey, it could have been worse. Look what happened to those Manson girls.

Paul: Well, that's part of what I'm saying and given the contemporary authors I was interested in, I wasn't exactly the pinnacle of wisdom. And there's a huge problem with saying "I love so and so" or "I want to be like so and so" when you don't know them personally and probably never will. This was shattered for me a few years ago when two of the contemporary authors I'd idolized in college both, entirely separately, killed themselves within a very short window of time of one another. Although by that time I'd moved into a life more independent from gurus, I have to say I was struck by the contrast of two men I once thought I wanted to be like who had both committed suicide.

Laurie: Well, there you go. What I was getting at was, that there is just nothing Christian about it. It is actually a very anti-Christian phenomenon. What I mean is, we are specifically instructed in Scripture not to do this very thing. As you said, it is dangerous. It destroys the church, and it destroys its people. I hope you, and those who read along who don't share our faith, will bear with me while I quote a bit longer from Scripture than I normally would in this setting:

"I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment....But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ...for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, 'I follow Paul,' and another, 'I follow Apollos,' are you not being merely human?...I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another....'knowledge' puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God....For we know in part and we prophecy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away..." (1 Cor. 1:10; 1 Cor. 3:1,3-4; 1 Cor. 4:6; 1 Cor. 8:3,4; 1 Cor. 9:9,10,12; 1 Cor, 13:9-10)

And notice all that talk of "the flesh". That means just what you were saying, Paul, that it's just base human nature to behave that way. But, like you said, behaving that "human" way is dangerous, and your namesake agrees. In another place Paul (the apostle) says:

"For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another." (Gal. 5:13-15)

The guru mindset is dangerous on a number of levels. I say "mindset" because it can apply not to just an individual guru, but also to a particular movement, or system - a "brand". In this case one will swallow just about anything said by anyone that falls under a particular umbrella, or carries the right "brand name".

Paul: Right, and this is what I think lays in the core of the matter. I see this time and time again. Dittoheading is very attractive to humans because we tend toward the lazy and the quick path to self-righteousness, self-assurance. It removes any need for original thought. You get a set reaction approved by the guru and you apply that knee-jerk reaction wherever applicable (and sometimes, embarrassingly, where it isn't. I can't tell you how often I've mentioned something about science near a Christian and had them blurt out of the blue something about evolution being false.) But I think I've opened a few cans and derailed a few trains here. You were talking about The Church specifically and the tendency toward following gurus.

Laurie: Yes, I was, but so are you, tangentially anyway. Anyway, you're getting ahead of me.

On one hand this brand-name type of thinking destroys Christian love and leads to us tearing each other and the church apart. I've witnessed, and to some extent participated in, much of this and let me say, we Reformed-types can be among the worst. We feel we have the right, because we are so concerned about doctrinal precision. But if the the authority of Scripture is really foremost in our hearts and minds, then why are we so quick to disregard to warnings of the apostle Paul in so many places? What I have in mind just this moment is the recent outcry against John Piper for inviting Rick Warren to speak at his upcoming Desiring God Conference.

Paul: Which, for the record, I applaud. We need more bridges.


Laurie: Oh yeah, me too. But, speaking of bridges, in response to this deal I heard a reformed-type whip out an R.C. Sproul quote: "The thing about building a bridge is that traffic comes from both sides." Whatever that means.


Paul: Well, who knows what the original context may have been, but in this case the quoter seems to imply that we don't want to build bridges because the rabble will come over to Our side and some of Our people will go over to Their side. Clearly we can't have that here on Elitist Isolationist Island!


Laurie: I have to admit, the kerfluffle over this has left me feeling a bit ill. I'm stunned really. I've yet to hear the reformed-types taunt Piper for his extensive and on-going admiration of C.S. Lewis. Why is that? Lewis was not Reformed, and even believed in purgatory of all things, and that's not all. (Now, before you jump down my throat here, remember, I love C.S. Lewis. I look forward to meeting him in Heaven. But he, too, was a flawed human being.) It's just so ironic to me is all. Oh, the complaints the Reformed have against Rick Warren! (And, yes, I understand them.) But, the man is not a heretic. He's just not reformed. He preaches Christ crucified, and whatever one may think of his methods, that is what matters. And here's a bit of sound doctrine to back me up:

"Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will....What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice." Phil. 1:15:18

I've finally come to the place in my Christian life where I'd rather participate in a group where Christian love is preeminent. If forced to choose, I will choose love over perfect doctrine. And I wish with all my heart that such decisions were not necessary. Sound doctrine without love is not Christianity, it is dead orthodoxy; Christian love is the truest form of doctrine, and the fulfilling of all God's commands.

Paul: At the risk of being labeled a liberal or Emergent or some other disparaging buzzword our Reformed brothers and sisters toss around like dodgeballs, perhaps love is perfect doctrine.

Laurie: It is the one doctrine that will never fail and the one most essential to the Gospel. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:34-35, See also 1 Cor. 13, 1 John 3:14-23) Seeing that love is this critical to the gospel, why is it that it's never more Christian love we are fighting for?

Paul: And why is it that I hear people concerned with right doctrine mocking things like "people who just want to hear about love", "just preaching the Gospel", or "being all about Grace"??? Why on Earth would any of those be bad things? Frankly, given the choice of fitting into a historical confession (I have yet to find one that I do) or fitting the bill of those three phrases, I'll take the love, Gospel and Grace, thank you very much.

Laurie: I'm so glad I married you. If it weren't for you, and the grace of God you're always extending to me, I'd be a miserable and intolerable legalist.

Well, I'd like to get back to that other point you mentioned - the danger of becoming a ditto-head, brainwashed, in a position of near-blind following. As you said, we begin to let our guru do our thinking for us, letting them become the filter through which we view everything. We begin to trust our leader to interpret Scripture and life's events for us. In a sense, we come to trust them more than the Scripture, in that we let them be the filter of what the Bible says rather than the other way around.

Paul: Clearly there are wonderful insights to be learned from others. Teaching from a variety of sources is a very illuminating thing and I think we ought to have more and more intramural conversation with varied points of view. It broadens our horizons and teaches us aspects we may not have thought of on our own. I have strong suspicions that the Gates of Heaven are far wider than any of us tend to imagine. But that's exactly my point. While listening to many people is of great value, no one of them is the final authority. Nor is any one group of them. I mean, I just think about how often I'm wrong and then apply that same flawed humanity to anyone who might become a guru.

Laurie: Yes, we need each other desperately, which is one reason why it's such a travesty when we allow ourselves to be divided over anything less than core gospel truths. Like limbs separated from a body become useless, so do we when we overestimate our capacities and cut ourselves off from the rest of the body.

Paul: I daresay that is one of the harms of idolatry in any form. Of course, the main being it's misplacing one's worship and the purpose of one's very life by worshiping something other than He who alone is worthy of worship. But idolatry also focuses us in unhealthy directions, limiting us to sort of a self-imposed intellectual retardation. As opposed to what neo-atheists might wish one to believe (in their defense, I suspect most of them have not encountered many earnest Christians), seeking to worship God is the one way out of that trap. People are otherwise putting things in small boxes or sometimes seemingly enormous boxes, but boxes all the same. I would give as an example the compulsive need some Christians have to discount and discredit any mention of science because they've bought the hype that science and religion are at odds. This is a very new phenomenon. A more classical view of science is that the more we learn about the universe as it objectively is revealed by our scientific findings the more we learn of God (to paraphrase Calvin's famous view of the two kinds of knowledge.)

In other words, my presuppositions are that there is ultimate truth and that I have yet to figure it out completely. And so has everyone else. But in its existence as ultimate truth, one must accept it on the terms in which it reveals itself, not on the terms in which one would wish. Which I think is somewhere in the same zip code where true science and true religion meet.

When we start building a box in which we view all of reality, idolatry is exactly what we are doing. This is what following a guru without question of any kind accomplishes no matter how close they come to truth. Reality does not fit in boxes and neither does God. We must accept Him on the terms in which He reveals Himself. While maps may be extremely helpful we should not confuse them with the territory.

Laurie: Well put, dear friend! And that is, I suppose, the deepest and most lasting danger - the subtle idolatry of it all. And as Christians it leads us to warp the gospel, sometimes beyond recognition. But there's another kind of danger that I don't want to overlook, it's the more immediate and obvious kind, the kind that causes unimaginable suffering in the here and now and shrouds the name of Christ in scandal. It is guru mentality that leads people to withhold medical care from their children as an act of faith; that leads many to refrain from any form of birth control even at the risk of a mother's life and health in a mis-guided understanding of what it means to be "pro-life", and an over-extension of a single Old Testament reference; that's apparently led to at least one child being literally spanked to death, because a guru taught that a spanking is not complete until the child is completely submitted; that's led to the deaths of 909 people in Jonestown; that's led to child marriages and polygamy, to "Christian" militias, to the Manson Family.... I could go on, but I think you get my point. The thing is, no one sets out to get themselves a guru, or to join a cult. They want some truth and some feelings of righteousness and end up settling for just that - some truth and a lot of self-righteousness. Once they have that, they are inclined to swallow whatever else comes along with it.

Paul: There seems to be no end to the examples available. I think, in conclusion, the lesson I glean from this is to listen to all kinds of people with all kinds of points of view. Keep an open mind and heart, keep questioning and thinking through things, hold people's ideas up to the light of Scripture and seek to draw closer to God. Although I'm no longer a carnivore nor specifically a Discordian, I think Robert Anton Wilson may have put it succinctly when he said "Sacred cows make the best hamburgers."

Laurie: Well, that certainly makes sense, seeing as they are no doubt the best fed and most lovingly nurtured cows of all....Vegetarian or no, every so often I get an overwhelming craving for tri-tip....