The Body of Christ needs a Left and a Right

This was written in 2007 for a class I was taking on the Church and Social Change. I have never posted it online because I received negative feedback on the thesis because it did not adhere closely enough to established political options available in our society (the subtext seemed to be that I failed to “take a side” in the way my professor wanted me to). Re-reading it in light of what has happened in our country in the last 15 years, it seems to me that this holds insights I would like to share. Most importantly the core theme and metaphor of the paper: We are the Body of Christ, and all functioning bodies have a right and a left side. And in the Church and the Body Politic of Society, we need to realize that we need each other from all sides, and we need to stop demonizing those who are not in “our” side of the Body. As the original subtitle of this paper stated: "Why the Church needs to get beyond Polemics to resist the rise of Global Corporate Consumerism".

A Prayer for Juneteenth

I wrote this as a private devotion as I reflected on Juneteenth. Perhaps it might help you or your faith community. 

Resurrecting the Matrix: An Ideological Review

I just saw Matrix Resurrections. Here are my responses in no particular order:

Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, and Episcopal Identity

In the media and in education it seems we hear a great deal lately about words such as "diversity", "inclusion", "equity", and "social justice". These are often conflicted and politicized terms, but they are also terms which are deeply rooted in the Christian Story and Episcopal Identity. I would like to offer a brief reflection on diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice as a chaplain dealing with diverse groups and cultures in the context of Episcopal schools and churches. But I must begin by saying I am not an expert by any means, and there is a vast literature to help our understanding from pastors and prophets, practitioners and professors, and many others who speak to equity and inclusion issues that affect different cultures, ethnicities, identities, and abilities.

Since I cannot effectively speak directly to all these experiences and concerns, due to my lived experience, I feel that the best way I can help move this conversation forward is by talking about how these issues are expressed in Scripture, in the history of the Episcopal and Anglican traditions, and in how we pray and worship together. Because, at the heart of Episcopal identity is the idea of "Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Agendi", which means that "How we pray shapes how we believe and how we live". And it turns out that Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice have been at the heart of how we believe and pray and worship for decades and even centuries. With this in mind, what I want to do is take the everyday definitions for these terms as found in Merriam-Webster, and look at how they unfold in the Bible and in the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer [BCP].

Durkheim’s Ghost

At this time of social distance, 

We need shared rituals 

Now more than ever

Even if they are shared 

At a distance 

Over an internet connection 

Or in a choppy livestream. 

.

In an age of 

Alacarte 

Individualized 

Atomized

Disconnected 

Consumerism

We have very few communal rituals 

To bind us together

To remind us

No one is an island

Separate from the main. 

.

And the ersatz rituals we do have

Seek to monetize us

Commodify the experience 

For passive consumption 

As a lifestyle product: 

A sportsball game 

A lackluster blockbuster

A concert of prerecorded audio loops. 

.

So let us embrace 

The communal

The collective

The old fashioned

The traditional

The ritual

The participatory 

As an act of resistance 

Against the totalitarian hedonism 

We are immersed in

And the nihilistic anomie 

It inspires.  

Is a Politics of Life possible in a culture of death?

The LORD of Love is the God of Life. God’s Love is shown precisely in healing broken lives, and protecting vulnerable lives, and elevating endangered lives so they find abundant life. The Glory of God is humanity fully alive, and the fullest human life is revealed in God Incarnate, Jesus Christ, who overcame death by the power of his undying Love. And it is Christ who healed and fed and taught so that all might partake in his Life. Therefore it is incumbent upon those of us who claim to serve the God of Love, revealed in the Life of Christ, to actually do what he taught, and live as he lived: By healing and feeding and teaching others his Way of Life. 

This entails a number or commitments personally, ethically, societally, and even politically...

A Squandered Jubilee

It seems God has given us what could be a Jubilee year. But we are squandering it. 

“You will make the fiftieth year holy, proclaiming freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be a Jubilee year for you: each of you must return to your family property and to your extended family. The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee year for you. Do not plant, do not harvest the secondary growth, and do not gather from the freely growing vines... The land will give its fruit so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it... The LORD says: The land must not be permanently sold because the land is mine. You are just immigrants and foreign guests of mine.” (Leviticus 25:10–11, 19, 23) 

Two Lefts don't make a Right: The Old Left and the New Left

Now that I have around people on the broad "Political Left" for over a decade, I have come to see both the persistent Right Wing mischaracterization of Leftist politics, as well as the endless debates and battles within the Left itself. And what most outside the Left, and many inside the Left, do not understand is that there is not just one Left. There are many. Just as there is not just one form of conservative. There are many. 

And while I identify with Classical Christianity instead of modern politics (whether Left or Right), and no one on the Left would accept me as part of the Left, I would like to talk here about two versions of the Left which seem to be particularly important in the United States in 2020. This is my attempt to compile and organize what I have learned reading and teaching about politics in the last decade, and not an authoritative account of political or economic theory. Any flaws in the description are my fault alone, and should not be blamed on the sources I cite.

With that out of the way, let's start with two basic definitions:

The Old Left: Focuses on making sure every person, starting with the most vulnerable and impoverished, has “daily bread”. The main emphasis here is making sure the material conditions are met for all people to survive and thrive, including access for all to healthy nutrition, secure housing, quality medical care, educational opportunity, and access to political representation and courts of justice. This Old Left can range from a Democratic Socialist emphasis on nationalizing some industries as utilities for the public good, while leaving a robust free market for other goods and services, to Statist Communism, in which all industries and economic activities are managed and distributed by the government. 

The New Left: Focuses on making sure every person, starting with the most traumatized and marginalized, has a positive self-image. The main emphasis here is to limit psychic, social, and symbolic violence which is done to marginalized peoples by other powerful stakeholders in society. When marginalized peoples are demeaned or denied by other stakeholders, this has systemic effects socially, economically, and psychologically. Thus we must make all marginalized groups safe from these aggressions by carefully regulating speech, artistic content, institutional access, media coverage, and all other aspects of social interaction, so that we can silence, de-platform, and marginalized all ideas, people, and groups who would traumatize and marginalize others. 

Twin Pandemics

The Twin Pandemics of 

Silent Disease and Systemic Inequity 

Have laid bare 

The emptiness of our cultural values

The incessant jangling of our moral superiority

The hollow clang of our promises 

Of liberty and justice for all.

We are witnessing the implosion of a culture 

Whose moral imagination is 

So atrophied 

So impoverished 

It cannot hold together any more. 

The Crumbling Metaphysics of Mammon

Despite radically different starting points, both the secular and religious person are duty bound, by the very fundamentals of their worldview, to oppose the absolute claims of the Market Economy to rule the affairs of humanity. Furthermore, they are even more duty bound to harness the powers of the economy to bring abundant life to humans. For money is created to serve humans, and not humans to serve money. The wealth of a nation is the health of its people, and the health of an economy is the health and well-being of the people served by that economy. There is no other metric that is meaningful or worthwhile. Is the economy increasing the life and health and wellbeing of those who live within it? Then it is a good economy that needs to be strengthened. Is the economy decreasing the life and health and wellbeing of those who live within it? Then it is a bad economy that needs to be reformed.

Race Cars, Pandemics, and Economics

If we want to have a global interconnected society that can survive shocks like pandemics, we are learning that all people everywhere need basic access to nourishment, healthcare, and communications. Without it, every institution, from schools to businesses to entire economies, grinds to a halt. 

Divine Justice, Quarantine, and Healing

During this time of pandemic, social distancing, and quarantine, my sacred reading today was from the First letter of John (read it all here). One text in particular deals with Divine Justice, and can really reframe how with think of Justice in an age of global contagion:

"If we confess our sins, [Christ] is faithful and just, and will forgive us our sins, and purify us from all injustice." (1 John 1.9)

Human rights or God’s rights?

We get tied up in knots about whether healthcare is a human right or an earned privilege. We argue about whether food is a human right or an earned privilege. We debate whether education is a human right or an earned privilege. For those of us who believe in God, as revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, there is a way out of this conundrum. 

Liberal Politics and the Sh*t Life

Recently a friend posted an essay on "Shit Life Syndrome" as a reason for why large swaths of working class people broke ranks with the Democrats and voted for Republicans (and likely will again, if the DNC nominates another neoliberal corporatist shill like they have for the last few decades). According to the article: 

"Shit-life syndrome is not another fictitious illness conjured up by the psychiatric-pharmaceutical industrial complex to sell psychotropic drugs. It is a reality created by corporatist rulers and their lackey politicians—pretending to care about their minimum-wage-slave constituents, who are trying to survive on 99¢ boxed macaroni and cheese prepared in carcinogenic water, courtesy of DuPont or some other such low-life leviathan."

While this article approaches realism about the peril of working class Americans, it stays just inside the fantasyland of viewing the Democratic Party as THE solution to our social ills...

Consumerism, Yoga, and Meditation

Over the last two decades there have been a vast number of studies which document the effectiveness of mindfulness and meditation on everything from emotional health to recovery from illness. This has been coupled with the rise of "The Mindfulness Industrial Complex" which packages Eastern spiritual practices for Western Corporate consumption. In the last couple of years, I have noted some really good thought pieces and video essays which analyze and critique these trends. I wanted to catalogue these critiques of Westernized forms of Eastern Spiritual practice, ranging from yoga to mindfulness to meditation, offer some of my own commentary on how Consumerism had adapted Eastern practices to its own ends, and suggest where we might go from here.

While I see immense value in Eastern spiritual practices and have incorporated several into my journey with Christ, my problem with Consumerized versions of Eastern Spirituality is threefold:

Is Consumerism to blame for everything?

After a recent blog post, a friend called me out for anti-Capitalism, and asked me "Is there anything you do not blame on Consumerism or Capitalism?" The really short answer is: No. I don't blame everything bad on Consumerism. First of all, I think there is a place in society for Markets and Capitalist business. So, I am not against a pro-social form of Market economy. Second, I actually blame everything on Sin: The infection of human nature that manifests itself in selfish and predatory behavior to attain short-term material goals, at the expense of long term personal wellbeing and societal health. But saying everything is the result of sin can be a really easy way to avoid responsibility to change: If there is a universal condition called sin that infects and affects us all, who am I to change it? Who are we? We are better off being fatalistic, giving in, and going along.

But when we name how sin functions in a certain system, and how that system acts to focus and amplify the symptoms of sin, then we can devise counter-measures to deal with sin. We can be aware of the strategies and processes the system uses to dehumanize us and disconnect us from meaning and value in life, as God's grace empowers us and sensitizes us to those strategies and processes. So, at this point in world history, we have one over-arching ideological and socio-economic system which holds our entire planet in its thrall: Global Corporate Consumerism. So let's talk about that...

Religion is in retreat! All hail the new gods!

Recently a spate of articles have come out showing, yet again, the rise of “The Nones”, who have no religious affiliation, while traditional religions continue to decline. While there is truth to this trend-- predominantly white Christian expressions in the USA are in decline in terms of numbers-- this is not the whole story. For a better insight into the polling data, I would look at Pew Religion. They offer some explanations to go along with the current American data, which is reflective of the European decline of religion last century, but not reflective of the growth of religion in Asia, Africa, and much of South America. However, there is no definitive explanation of why the decline in some places, and rise in others. So, let's take a look at one theory...

The Rise of Homo Consumerensis

I’ve been pondering a feeling I have but cannot quite put into precise words. But it seems like our culture has less capacity, and desire, to think about and discuss ideas. Everything has turned into a politics of the putdown, and diatribes of denigration. In the late 90's to early 00's, I remember having lively discussions online and in real life about theological and philosophical topics with regular folks: From predestination, to the nature of God, to acceptance of LGBT persons, to capital punishment, to what goes on in the Sacrament.

Monarchic Anarchist Theocratic Pluralist Entrepreneurial Socialism

I love "world building" science fiction: The kind where a big sprawling universe is created which includes all kinds of details about the history, culture, sociology, religion, economics, and politics of future society. One frequent form of future society that particularly interests me is a kind of "technological monarchy" which you can find in works such as "The Mote in God's Eye" and Peter Hamilton's "The Night's Dawn Trilogy". This is not a Star Trek style galactic republic, nor a Star Wars style Evil Empire. Rather, it is a form of society that combines monarchy (and often a "State Church") with forms of representative government, with advanced technology, with religious and cultural pluralism, with free market economics, with various socialist policies, to create something really different. Could anything like this ever exist? Could there be a coherent ideology to hold such a system together? Let's see if we can develop a thought experiment to put together a sympathetic worldview which might make this possible.

A Bibliography of Liberation Thought

On Social Media a friend asked this question: "What books developed your critical consciousness the most?" I am a Classical Christian, and do not identify with modern political categories, whether Left or Right, Progressive or Liberal. But I have read and listened a great deal to progressive critique of culture, economics, and politics. And I think there is a lot of misinformation out there about what people in various cultural and political camps actually believe. So I thought it would be good to put together a reading list which helps us see politics from a wider lens, which includes and transcends modern American categories: