Cornel West Interview James Cone (AAR 2009)

For those of you who weren’t able to make it to Cornel West interviewing James Cone at the Montreal AAR gathering (btw, was overall a good gathering), or simply want to see another great interview of Cone, see this:

AAR has the video posted here: http://www.aarweb.org/Meetings/Videos/2009Montreal/2009_A8-203.asp. It sure took them a long time to get it up — I’ve been wanting to post it here for many months.

Setting Straight the Insanity of Glenn Beck on James Cone and Black Liberation Theology

Well, I’ve got my piece up at The Other Journal titled: “‘Everyone in This Room is Now Dumber for Having Listened to [Him]‘: Setting Straight the Insanity of Glenn Beck on James Cone and Black Liberation Theology.” I like it. I think other people should read it.

Also, I should probably note here that the tone is rather caustic. And some may find it rather off-putting. I attempted a line that is difficult to walk, and perhaps failed. How do you not legitimize Beck and his project, but still address the narrative he helps push that permeates society? How do you show that Beck is not learned — cannot speak well, nor well read — in this discourse? And perhaps most importantly, how does one not give into gentle language that would avoid showing the ugliness of what Beck has done? But on the other hand, how does one avoid becoming like Beck who seems to love name calling?

I determined that my first priority was truth-telling: to appear a bit crazy in an insane world may be the most sane thing someone could do. I ought not sugar coat the issues at hand, and I should keep a sharp edge. So I decided to follow the master, Terry Eagleton in his review of Dawkins. Now, I am not under the delusion that I have Eagleton’s mastery of the English language, or wit. Still, the method seemed apt. The poverty and ugliness of Beck’s work, and the popular narrative he is working within, has to first be exposed for the falsehood it is.

And so, I do not see this piece as simply character assassination or preaching to the choir, after all, I tried to keep the pejorative comments directed in how Beck stumbles, rather than Beck his person. This piece, instead, is aimed at achieving a moment of clarity, even if it is fleeting. This piece is also designed to give James Cone a fair hearing. And it would not be wrong to read this piece much more about Cone’s project and evangelicalism’s need to reckon with race, than Beck himself.

To Hell With Blogging, And Back Again

I’ve been troubled for some time that the genre of blogging dictates our theology when done on blogs.

When I’ve questioned other bloggers before, worrying that we may be more determined by the process than we know, I’ve often received the response: “Well, just break the rules.” However, I believe I do this to a large degree already. I do not follow a word limit, including pictures and video rarely concerns me unless it really makes my point, and, frankly, many posts develop so quickly that they are written directly in wordpress, rather than a word processor — which is probably a huge mistake for myself since the long editing process is often abbreviated.

Also, on the “about page”, a page that has not undergone a significant editing since I wrote it, I voice the reasons for doing the blog: “1. to practice putting out theological thoughts; 2. to raise discussion around these thoughts; and 3. to work on my writing, specifically on clarity and style — I’m sure by now you can notice it could use some help.” I’ve also made known that my audience will be whom it will. I haven’t been seeking to play to a niche or desires of a specific group or school of thought. As far as I know, this is not the “proper” understanding of how to blog, or more to the point, have a successful blog.

However, I have still been left unsatisfied and worried that one may be beholden too much to how blogs work. Yet, I cannot seem to give up my blog. While there seem to be many, many cons, the few pros have significant weight. I have been able to put together papers and essays from blog posts. And as such, word play has been essential to my thinking and writing process. Best of all, the posts are searchable and I can reference them for myself from nearly anywhere. And then there is the category of extremely helpful comments: some have been needed reminders, others pointed me to areas I had never considered, and still more, I have met and now call friends some of who have wondered into this blog.

And so I’ve come to come to a conclusion. I seek interlocutors, not an audience.

This brings me to Matt Harding. This guy traveled the world. He has made videos of himself doing so. On a whim, he started taking videos of himself doing the same dance in very different places. And then he realized, that with just him doing the dance, it kinda sucked despite the background vistas — or at least the videos could be much better. The first video below is one he released, and the second video is Matt explaining his process for making his videos. These epitomize exactly what I believe theological blogging should be: despite the fact that many may dance poorly, it is a grand, albeit messy dance because it is with people who want to dance with you for the good of God’s work.

Here is the produced video:

Here is the video of Matt talking about the process:

A Cautionary Tale: No Beck, You Aren’t Intelligently Addressing James Cone

Edit: For more than what is below, see my essay at The Other Journal: “Everyone in This Room is Now Dumber for Having Listened to [Him]” : Setting Straight the Insanity of Glenn Beck on James Cone and Black Liberation Theology.

I have found that Glenn Beck is often best left ignored. What helpful things he says are derivative and rare. However, he has again stepped well beyond his competency and this time directly into an interest of mine: liberation theology, specifically James Cone. I find it fitting that Terry Eagleton’s assessment of Richard Dawkins describes Beck as well: “Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.”

Beck asserts in the video below that he is trying to give a reasoned, measured, and intelligent narrative and analysis on liberation theology. However, this is patently false. He does not give an accurate narrative and analysis of Black Liberation theology. It seems that intelligence is a luxury that Beck has yet to buy. What he does do is make numerous, broken connections that simply do not follow — one would not be wrong to question his synaptic connections as well.

Lets get a few things straight: Beck here is constructing a narrative that seeks to be a revealed secret — a secret given to his listeners, who are also the oppressed faithful that keep true to the geist of the state. The progressives are the enemy, therefore, in Beck’s mind, it is his duty to inform his following about the secret machinations of the forces that seek destruction of his way of life. It does not seem far that Beck may see himself as a prophet dispensing revelation. In reality, he functions far more like a gnostic with their theology of secrets.

Beck’s narrative has a central ideology: his first concern is the continuation of the “republic.” His hermeneutical lens begins with the state. This he established in the first few minutes of at the beginning of the show and maintained it to the end — and the key point here is that if anyone is guilty of politicizing religion for explicitly American political ends (for the Republicans-Right Libertarians), it is Glenn Beck: his starting point is first the concern for the nation. He has instrumentalized theology for politics against Obama. While he says his point is all about God, and that people shouldn’t make it about race, the point of his entire rant is to make a political jab. He has done the exact opposite of what is good political theology. It is because of the sort of thing that Glenn Beck is doing that political theology has a bad name to so many.

Lets also get some other things straight: Beck is making sophomoric mistakes left and right. Mistakes that no knowledgeable person would make. Or to put it another way, his mistakes are so fundamental, it is like looking down the barrel of a gun to see if it is loaded. Cone is not the founder of liberation theology, and nor is he the founder of black liberation theology — Cone is simply one of the early, major voices. Also, black liberation theology is not something that could be tied to the Catholicism’s economic liberation theology in Latin and South America until very recently. For quite a few years, black liberation theology and Latin and South American liberation theology were at odds because they perceived different problems, thought the other group couldn’t deal with the ‘real’ issue, and as a result, it took awhile to reconcile the two. Hell, Cone and Gutierrez did not converse about their projects while both were at Union Theological Seminary decades ago. For Beck to make the connection that they informed each other early on, and conflate the two at times, is profoundly ignorant — as it is profoundly ignorant to relate the rantings of an angry man outside of the voting booth, the weather underground, and Dr. Khallid Abdul Muhammad to Cone’s work. Beck cannot be taken seriously much like a two-year old sitting in the cockpit would not be mistaken for piloting the plane.

As for the moment of victory on the cross — which Beck harps on — for Cone the cross is of course victory in a way, but victory in weakness, which Beck clearly doesn’t get. It isn’t about victimhood. Cone actually spends much time on the cross; indeed, Cone is very suspicious of rushing too quickly to the resurrection, because the weakness is key. Beck clearly hasn’t read Cone well — or he simply is not being honest here. Cone is not represented faithfully by Beck in the same way that Amway’s commercials cover up the corporation’s pyramid architecture. The notion of blackness for Cone is quite specific — he doesn’t mean simply black skin because we’re also talking about ontology — never mind that Beck is drawing from a decontextualized text to warp beyond recognition the point that Cone is making. And then there is the whole issue that the relationship between the oppressor and oppressed isn’t the binary that Beck makes it out to be. Indeed the binary exists, but it exists because it is a reality and liberation theology seeks to save both oppressed and oppressor from the violation of their humanity: in doing violence, the oppressor are harming themselves as much as they are harming the oppressed. Liberation theology seeks to heal the dysfunctional relationship, not re-establish it. This Beck clearly did not get — the notion that salvation extends to relationships seems beyond him. Also, to complicate the binary further, no one is simply always an oppressor or always oppressed. For a guy who rants about context, Beck certainly didn’t read Cone in context.

The rest of the show is characterized by the same pitiful misreading: that Cone has no concept of grace; salvation should only, ever understood as highly individualistic; Cone is a marxist; the Bible has no concept of making just the social reality; Beck has no concept of structural evil; liberation is obsessed with the victim so as to grab power; liberation theology and philosophy are synonymous; etc. All wrong. All painfully false. One should certainly wonder if Beck is familiar with the prophets denouncing the economic system (called Mammon), the years of jubilee, Jesus and the early church on sharing, etc. Beck isn’t worth the time to keep analyzing — I’ve got better things to do. My point here is to show how impoverished Beck is in simply the first segment of his show. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on — his narrative and analysis are just as true as The Da Vinci Code.

In conclusion, Glenn Beck has not been honest. He has tried to smear Cone like he has tried to smear other people. Beck traffics in attempting to create guilt by association. This should not surprise anyone. This was far from well reasoned, measured, and intelligent. If he submitted this in a class where I am the instructor, he would get a failing grade for not engaging well with the source material (too limited in scope), not displaying an accurate understanding of Cone’s over all project, and cheap and incorrect criticism. He has not demonstrated a grasp of Cone’s thought and not engaged it well. This is simply a hit job. It is propaganda. For a guy who sees Hitler everywhere but himself, he oddly follows the same tactics. In light of this, Beck should be likened to a puppet, and the question then is, who is up to their shoulder inside him?

If you really want to know what Cone’s project is about, watch his interview with Bill Moyers.

Hauerwas has another Festschrift and More

Tonight at EP, with Hauerwas present, we celebrated his 70th birthday. Part of the celebration was the unveiling of his festschrift. Yes, he has another festschrift (his third, I think), and a very interesting one at that. It is titled Unsettling Arguments: A Festschrift on the Occasion of Stanley Hauerwas’s 70th Birthday and published by Wipf and Stock of course. The contributors are made up of his students, but it isn’t simply taking Hauerwas at face value or simply reiterating Hauerwas’s project. Indeed, if someone did so, I think Hauerwas would be rather disappointed.

Some of the chapter titles that stuck out to me were:

“Capitalism and Fetishizing the Particular: Is Hauerwas a Nominalist?” by D. Stephen Long
“Being ‘Stuck’ between Stanley and the Feminists (the Proverbial Rock and a Hard Place)” by Janna Marguerite Bennett
“Time for Hauerwas’s Racism” by Jonathan Tran

I look forward to reading it.

Also of note, mentioned during the celebration, is The Mennonite Quarterly Review issue for July 2010 — which features not only the Menno Mafia on Hauerwas, but also a comprehensive bibliography of Hauerwas’s writings to date. With my dissertation plans to include some focus on Hauerwas, this is a freaking gold mine. Tracking down all his works must’ve been laborious to say the least.

Legend… wait for it… dary!

I’m all geared up for EP. Drinks and conversation has already been had here in Chicago. Truly now I know what “pre-gaming” means for a conference — a prefiguring of exactly what we will do over the next few days. This’ll be good. I hope to see some of you there.

Read John Piper as a Hegelian and All Will be Clear

First let me say, it has been years since I’ve read John Piper; however, much to my frustration, Piper’s maxims are still stuck in my head. And therefore, frankly, I do not believe I need to go back and read him. Yes, I do believe there is little more to his theology than the surface of his maxims. Besides, there are far bigger and more important fish to fry — and I really need to finish this Hegel, Benjamin, and Theology of History paper. Still, while reading Hegel’s Intro to the Philosophy of World History, Piper popped into my mind. After spending more time in reflection than I am comfortable with, I’m pretty sure the best way to read John Piper is through Hegel’s sense of God-for-itself and glory. And frankly, such an association is rather damning. Case in point, I believe that the following quote fully comprehends and summarizes Piper’s anemic theology:

From the point of view of religion, the aim of both natural existence and spiritual activity is the glorification of God. Indeed, this is the worthiest end of the spirit and of history. The nature of the spirit is to make itself its own object and to comprehend itself.

Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of World History Introduction: Reason in History, Translated by H.B. Nisbet, pages 149-150.

Now, of course Piper would not be a good Hegelian. He wouldn’t subscribe to Hegel’s Trinitarian modalism (see Cyril O’Regan’s Heterodox Hegel) — Piper wouldn’t follow the philosophical nuances that ultimately define Hegel’s conception of divinity and revelation — and then again, Piper wouldn’t follow the leftists and their materialism. What I am saying here is that the best way to read Piper is through Hegel. And that should be all you need to know about Piper — he shares a narcissistic God with Hegel.

Žižek on Avatar

Žižek has some words on Avatar at the New Statesman:

So where is Cameron’s film here? Nowhere: in Orissa, there are no noble princesses waiting for white heroes to seduce them and help their people, just the Maoists organising the starving farmers. The film enables us to practise a typical ideological division: sympathising with the idealised aborigines while rejecting their actual struggle. The same people who enjoy the film and admire its aboriginal rebels would in all probability turn away in horror from the Naxalites, dismissing them as murderous terrorists. The true avatar is thus Avatar itself – the film substituting for reality.

True.

Christ and Capital

Geoff Holsclaw — friend in the program here at Marquette — has a paper up at The Other Journal: Christ and Capital: Money Changers and the Lord’s Temple. Go give it a read if you’re into economics, theology, the Gift, and sacraments. If you’re curious about his bibliography: he draws on Phillip Goodchild’s recent and excellent book Theology of Money; a favorite of mine, Louis-Marie Chauvet’s Symbol and Sacrament; Kojin Karatani’s Transcritique: On Kant and Marx; Kathryn Tanner’s Economy of Grace; John Milbank’s essay “Can a Gift be Given? Prolegomena to a Future Trinitarian Metaphysics” and more.

Jeebus!

Jeebus is not my word. I wish it was. Apparently it has various origins: Homer Simpson and Duke Ellington. However, it also has a definition that goes beyond simply altering the name of Jesus in the great tradition of frick and frack for… well, you know: “Put alternatively, a person who follows the New Testament loves Jesus; a person who can’t wait to take away sick benefits from a dying lesbian because God Hates Fags loves Jeebus.” I swear I applied that very definition, not in the same exact words mind you, to the term Jeebus before I saw urban dictionary. I was under the impression that such a definition wasn’t common knowledge — I generally have to define the use of Jeebus, still.

Now, why am I explaining all this background? Two things. I have two perfect definitions of Jeebus. The first I have literally had on my mind for over a year, and the other I saw yesterday.

1. From the Flobots (who by the way, are awesome) in “Stand Up”: “Underfunded but we still don’t understand/Under God but we kill like the son of Sam/But if you feel like I feel like about the son of man/We will overcome.”

2. And a picture I got from Michael:

Do you have any definitions of Jeebus?

A Must-Read Introduction to Political Theology

In the past few years, I have made a point to keep track of introductory books primarily because, from time to time, people ask about books to read. And with future prospects for teaching, I pay even more attention to introductory books — particularly on topics that seem to rather misunderstood, like political theology.

Now, I’ve noticed a few different trends in how to introduce a subject. One way is to do something like a reader. The famous Blackwell Companion to Political Theology edited by Peter Scott and William Cavanaugh follows this route and function at times like a reference volume. There are obvious perks to this method: each chapter is written by a specialist and highly informative concerning its focus — be it person, topic, or movement. However, at times, such an introduction sometimes seems to miss conveying that a conversation is at hand and how different schools of thought interact, build off each other, etc. Also, introductions like Blackwell’s are very long, and for some, can be difficult to read through period, much less feel like one has a grip on the scholarly conversation. Simply put, the point of an introduction is to get the big picture and encyclopedic introductions do not always meet this need.

Now, there is another way: something like an informed conversation-lecture. This kind of introduction is incredibly difficult to do well: one must balance space, intellectual depth, readability — all the while conveying accurately the complex and multiple conversations, concerns, and stories. Until recently, I had felt that the contemporary discussion in political theology lacked such a volume. That is until I ran into Michael Kirwan’s Political Theology: An Introduction released last year.

Kirwan has written an excellent book. I have considered going back through his book to outline it here and list those who are given a voice, so as to show you how much ground he really covers, but this has proved more difficult that it appears. Crucial to writing such an excellent book is interweaving a multiplicity of voices, and this he does so from page one. To do him justice in summary, I simply do not have the time — he has covered much ground — and nor do I think I could faithfully convey the tone of the book. The way he engages material reminded me of the better conversations I have with professors in their offices: I had the feeling that I was in Kirwan’s office listening to him explain the field. His engagement with material was as if he pulling books from his shelves, showed me his worn copy, and talked about what was inside, all the while gesturing to books he already mentioned now piled on his desk, or ones we would get to still on the shelves.

Any teacher looking to touch on political theology should include this book in their class. Anyone looking for a reading list -– who they should read next or at least be aware of — should read this book. And just as important, those looking for why to read someone included in the book should read this book as well. As Kirwan makes connections between thinkers, he invariably provides answers to “Why” questions: primarily “Why should I care about so-and-so when I am concerned with this other conversation?” So not only does this book simply broaden one’s horizons, but challenges the reader to stretch themselves in the future — to read someone who initially seemed beyond their interests. This everyone needs, no matter how old they are.

I do not believe that the Blackwell Companion removes the need for Kirwan’s book, and nor is the vice versa true. These two books together would set the interested reader on a strong path. But people already know about Blackwell’s Companion. So the conclusion here? Go read Kirwan’s book. You will not be disappointed.

If I were Kirwan’s Jesuit superior, I would lock him in an office all day long and order him to write many more introductions like this. This, among many other reasons, is probably why I am not his Jesuit superior. The University of London is lucky to have him.

Roger Haight Remembering Edward Schillebeeckx

My last semester at Union, I audited Roger Haight’s seminar on Edward Schillebeeckx — when Haight was still allowed to teach. It was quite good, but really, if you aren’t going to read Schillebeeckx anytime soon, or don’t know how to even pronounce his name, watch the much shorter video:

Links, Links, Links!

1. What Glenn Beck actually got correct about the dead sea scrolls: “What I’m going to do is defend Glenn Beck here on what he got right. I will repost the words and strike what is incorrect. The remainder (what is either correct or at least possibly correct) will be in blue.”

2. J. Kameron Carter has his own thoughts on Avatar.

3. Union busting may be a mortal sin.

4. An upcoming alternative to Facebook: Diaspora.

5. In a world of suspicion, everyone loses out. Can we truly give and receive when we fear death?:

A cardboard box left at a church near Lake Mary caused the closure of Markham Woods Road while a bomb squad X-rayed it and then blew it up.

The note on the 40-pound bundle said, simply, “For Pastor Nick.” In the old days, someone would have taken it inside and opened it.

But a church member who found the package on the doorstep about 11 a.m. today thought the corrugated box secured with duct tape might be dangerous.

… The result: More than $2,500 in paper money was turned into confetti. Four hundred ninety-eight rolled silver dollars remained intact, Cannaday said. The church won’t be out any money, though, because the U.S. Treasury will replaced damaged paper money, she said.

6. If you weren’t aware, the Vatican has changed its language on the pedophile scandal:

Pope Benedict XVI says the clerical child abuse scandal shows that the greatest threat to Catholicism comes from “sin within” the Church.

… Benedict said the Church has “a very deep need” to acknowledge that it must do penance for its sins and “accept purification”.

However, he added that forgiveness should not be a substitute for justice.

7. Lastly, there is a push to get Žižek on SNL, much like there was one for Betty White.

Reconsidering Avatar: Eco-theology and Ontological Blackness

Now that it has been months since the release of Avatar, perhaps we can consider it without all the hype and with the benefit of helpful criticisms.

First, lets get Avatar’s crimes out of the way. John Petrakis at the Christian Century slammed the film: Avatar paled in comparison to District 9. Indeed it did. Frankly, Avatar was crap. It was eye candy. Unobtanium? Really? The movie was so obvious, it was like a giant sledge hammer. Unfortunately, it had the aspirations of being a classic — something nimble, multi-layered, etc. I agree with Petrakis that the film got by on flash (flash that Ebert has condemned), and that also, the film could be interpreted in one of the various ways:

• a paternalistic tale of the lone white man who saves the noble savages from disaster because they are incapable of helping themselves

• an anti-American screed that attacks our military for needlessly slaughtering innocents for our own financial gain

• an environmental slideshow that celebrates the possibilities of humans bonding with nature while expressing serious doubts about their relationships with each other

• all of the above

And this leads me to David Brooks rightly ripping into Avatar for its messiah complex, specifically its white messiah narrative. For a supposedly post-colonial movie, it stumbled badly. The white messiah mythos is entirely problematic, and no one adequately situated in racial discussion would have done something quite so stupid to employ it. We’ve seen this mythos before in colonialism and Christianity — in fact, missiologists and missionaries are finally coming to grips with ministry by white messiah. Yeah, even Christian agencies are second guessing themselves, but Cameron’s story hardly questioned itself on this account.

And then we’ve got the violence as the answer and a poorly done religiosity — does it bother anyone else that the Na’vi religion is potentially reduced to synapses and “uploading and downloading memories”? Debra Dean Murphy has shown how the story is far from radical, particularly in its rather flat pantheism and narrowly imagining that an entire planet’s response could only be violent.

Frankly put, Avatar is a poor retelling of Native American history. By and large, it may have done more of a disservice than anything else. The story’s sins are quite large, if not impossible to avoid. Wen Reagan is wrong in my estimation, Avatar wasn’t a masterstroke of imagination, it was simply immersive without a helpful imagination and radical answers. In my estimation, the story failed. Why then should we remember this film? There seems little going for it.

But there is more to consider. And here is the point of the post.

Many, many, many people have seen this movie. In some ways, the movie functions as a language on such a large scale that less heavy lifting needs to be done when commenting certain subjects that the movie touches on. We can therefore do what Eric has done, and use Avatar as a launching pad. This shows the impoverished nature of Cameron’s story, while at the same time use a common language to pull people beyond Cameron’s banal world.

In fact, I use Avatar in the same way, but rather than point to eco-theology, I note how James Cone’s notion of ontologically black actually exists in the movie — which I attribute to a happy accident. The character Trudy Chacon is a helicopter pilot who has qualms with killing the Na’vi. By the end of the movie, she and her helicopter are painted in the war paint of the Na’vi. She has become part of the Na’vi struggle, and seeks to serve them (as opposed to lead, which is an important distinction for solidarity). However, Chacon can never be one of the Na’vi — there is no Na’vi body for her to join and she could therefore never live in their world without the aid of an oxygen tank. She will always be human, and yet, she is dressed up like the Na’vi when she dies. When I was at Union, someone in class asked Dr. Cone, “Who is an example of ontological blackness?” Cone replied that Bonhoeffer is the first person who comes to mind. Yet, Bonhoeffer is not well known. Far more people know about Chacon.

And here is the value of Avatar: it stepped into a world, and did it loudly. And while Cameron did it poorly, he at least did it. There is much to learn from a bad book. And there is equally much to converse about when a bad story sets the language. The value of Avatar is not that it is a good story or a good film — it is neither — but rather that it has provided a landscape within American culture to talk about militarism, environmental abuse, and native peoples.

A Telos Means Formation and Patience

The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they’re supposed to be.
I’ve been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?