A Sound of Sheer Silence

μόνος, or "monos," means "single" or "only."  θεός, or "theos," means god, originally in the sense of entities like Zeus or Athena.  Together, it is pretty straight-forward--monotheism is a assertion that there is "a single god."  Fair enough. But, within this framework, there are actually a number of permutations.  Rather than spell them all out in the beginning, I'll cut to the case--I believe in and interpret monotheism in the maximum possible way.  I believe there is one and only one divine, transcendent principle, period.  And that singular divine principle, as Aquinas would say, "everyone calls God."  Now, I understand that singular divine principle to be compatible with the assertion that the Son of God came to earth and lived among us, but for the purposes of this reflection that thorny issue is not really relevant, so let's set it to the side. So, only one divine, transcendent principle.  This means, by defini...

Growing up in the 90s in the South, the idea of the End Times was sort of in the wind, primarily in the evangelical world and the infamous Left Behind books, which then leaked into the rest of the culture.  That vision of the End Times is nonsensical and idiotic, and in fact actively pernicious in many ways ( one of which I went into at some length here ).  But I didn’t really have any other framework to talk about or think about apocalypticism, and so I had to park it in the netherrealm of “Christian doctrines we pretend aren’t there.”  Because the New Testament is almost entirely apocalyptic in tone and emphasis—it’s not just the Book of Revelation—so by excluding apocalypticism you are excluding much of the Biblical witness. If you have been reading this site for any length of time, you know I am a fan of the work of Rene Girard.  There are many reasons why this is, but one of the main reasons is that provides a different way of talking about concepts in the Chr...

A quick sort-of digression, and then to my main point.  I am part of the formation of a new religious community within the Episcopal Church, known as the Community of Mary, Mother of the Redeemer (CMMR).  It will be officially founded in September, and I will be saying much more about it in these electronic pages in the coming months.  There are numerous reasons why I am excited about this project, but one of them is how clear the theological vision behind the community is.  If you could summarize the charism for this community down to one sentence, it would be that "a fundamental component of the Christian message is opposition to Empire in all of its forms, and our mission is to equip and form disciples in resistance to Empire." Which of course raises the question--"what do you mean by 'Empire'?"  At the risk of defining something in relation to some other complex concept, I would say that "Empire" is a synonym for Rene Girard's concept of ...

There is a dimension to the mass shootings in the United States,  most recently the horror yesterday in Florida , that cannot be reduced simply to the lack of meaningful gun control.  It is certainly the case that, absent access to the guns, the destruction caused by incidents such as this would be dramatically reduced.  To be clear, this is absolutely reason enough to justify such moves--I am in favor of the complete ban and confiscation of all firearms in private hands in the United States, along the lines accomplished in Australia and the UK .  If accomplishing this goal is in conflict with the Second Amendment, then I am in favor of repealing the Second Amendment.  I am a gun control absolutist, and I believe that any and all efforts toward that end are good and salutary.  If such measures were in place yesterday, these kids would be alive today. But. There is something going on that causes all of these people to take advantage of the opportuni...

One way you know that you are on-to something useful and significant is that you see it pop up all over the place.  You'll be minding your own business, doing whatever it is you do normally, and all of the sudden something will happen and you will think "wow, that's yet another example of The Thing, popping up in an unexpected place."  That's been my experience with the ideas of Rene Girard.  Every few months or so, something will come up in popular culture that is controversial or ambiguous, and my first thought is "oh, that's an example of scapegoating," or "I know exactly what Girard would say about this." That was exactly the experience I had this weekend reading a New York Times  op-ed piece by Mayim Bialik , which is a perfect example of the Girardian concept of "The Sacred."  Bialik is an actress who came into prominence as the star of the 90s TV show Blossom .  As she states in the piece, she left acting after Blossom to...

So, as basically everyone knows, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as President of the United States tomorrow.  Like all inaugurations, there is a great deal of pageantry involved.  And, as has been the case numerous times before going back to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, there will be a prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C .  The National Cathedral is the cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, as well as serving (as the name implies) in an informal way as the closest thing we have to house of prayer for the entire country in a place as religiously diverse as the United States.  In addition, it appears that the choir of the National Cathedral will be singing in some capacity at the inauguration itself. I have made my views  clear  on the idea of the presidency of Donald Trump , and nothing that has happened since Election Day has changed my position one iota.  I do not and will not celebrate Donald Trump becoming t...

In the previous post , we looked at two basic ideas.  First, there is a moral intuition that many of us have with regard to the beginning of life--a child who is born is fully human, zygote is not fully human, and the stages in between are something of a disputed grey area.  Second, drawing on Girard, there is the notion of defining humanity in terms of its participation in human society, the "Social Other" as James Alison puts it, that forms us and is formed by our presence and action. Let's, then, try to put these ideas together.  By defining humanity in terms of the interaction with and participation in the "Social Other," the most critical event in the life of any human being is the moment of birth.  At the moment of birth, a human being is "installed" in human society in a way that is categorically different from what comes before, in at least two ways.  First, at the moment of birth a baby is able to interact with and be influenced by the entir...

The law school I attended had (as still has) a professor of criminal law named Paul Robinson.  I didn't have him for first year criminal law, but a number of my close friends did.  One of his big areas of research in criminal law involved the idea of moral intuitions.  Criminal law, and other areas of law for that matter, have often taken on a rationalistic and technical character, in which you attempted to come to the "correct" legal regime through the application of pure reason.  Professor Robinson believed that this approach tends to de-emphasize and de-legitimize our basic moral sense of what is just--a basic intuition that is often a more reliable vehicle to achieving justice than our hyper-rational structures, especially when that intuition is "crowd sourced" and incorporates our collective wisdom. I was thinking about Professor Robinson's ideas while reading this essay by Rachel Held Evans .  Evans writes about the dilemma that pro-life Christians f...

I learned here that there can be no true despair without hope. So, as I terrorize Gotham, I will feed its people hope to poison their souls. I will let them believe they can survive so that you can watch them clamoring over each other to "stay in the sun." You can watch me torture an entire city and when you have truly understood the depth of your failure, we will fulfill Ra's al Ghul's destiny... We will destroy Gotham and then, when it is done and Gotham is ashes, then you have my permission to die. ****************** We take Gotham from the corrupt! The rich! The oppressors of generations who have kept you down with myths of opportunity, and we give it back to you... the people. Gotham is yours. None shall interfere. Do as you please. Start by storming Blackgate, and freeing the oppressed! Step forward those who would serve. For an army will be raised. The powerful will be ripped from their decadent nests, and cast out into the cold world that we know and endur...

Batman: Then why do you want to kill me? The Joker: [giggling] I don't, I don't want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, NO! No. You... you... complete me. Batman: You're garbage who kills for money. The Joker: Don't talk like one of them. You're not! Even if you'd like to be. To them, you're just a freak, like me! They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out, like a leper! You see, their morals, their code, it's a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They're only as good as the world allows them to be. I'll show you. When the chips are down, these... these civilized people, they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve. ******************* You know... You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go "according to plan." Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press ...

When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural. -- Ra's al Ghul, Batman Begins Ra's al Ghul: Tomorrow the world will watch in horror as its greatest city destroys itself. The movement back to harmony will be unstoppable this time. Bruce Wayne: You attacked Gotham before? Ra's al Ghul: Of course. Over the ages, our weapons have grown more sophisticated. With Gotham, we tried a new one: Economics. But we underestimated certain of Gotham's citizens... such as your parents. Gunned down by one of the very people they were trying to help. Create enough hunger and everyone becomes a criminal. Their deaths galvanized the city into saving itself... and Gotham has limped on ever since. We are back to finish the job. And this time no misguided idealists will get in the way. Like your father, you lack the courage to do all that is necessary. If someone stands in the way of true justice... you simply walk up behind them and stab them in the heart. ...