kwh

Ellul: Stop Making Sense

This entry is part 6 of 28 in the series Presence in the Modern World

Let’s keep going with Chapter 1 of Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World, because by God, I want to finish it.

In the last post — well, let’s see if I can summarize Ellul thus far (and please correct me where I’m wrong):

  • Christians should live fully in the sinful world, understanding that we can neither make it less sinful, nor accept it as it is.
  • Societal problems — economic, social, political — are all caused solely by the underlying spiritual problem of sin.
  • Therefore, our role as Christians is to point other people toward the only solution to that spiritual problem, Jesus Christ.
  • One way we do this is by how we act (and react) in daily life.
  • Our actions should be tailored to specific situations, informed by a living, ever-deepening, individual faith in God, and consistent with the broad guidance of Christian ethics.
  • Christian ethics are not a “moral system,” or rules that must be followed in every circumstance. Instead, they are broad, general outlines to be considered.
  • Christian ethics are also subject to ongoing review and change by the broader church community.

Whew, ok.

Does this mean that a Christian can do, willy-nilly, whatever she claims that her faith is leading her to do? No; she still must objectively consider the implications of her actions, and that’s where ethics come in. Ethics are what we use to evaluate our actions before deciding what to do in a specific circumstance.

Now remember, this whole question of Christian ethics came up when Ellul was talking about how laypeople need to live in the world as salt (manifest God’s covenant), light (bear witness to salvation), and sheep (reflect ongoing sacrifice).

Ellul is not talking about being nice, or doing those good things that everyone would recognize as good. In fact, he says that, when we live and act in accordance with our faith and true Christian ethics, our works won’t even make any sense to the world. Everything we do should point directly to God, should only make sense “in the light of Jesus Christ.”

In other words: if your church is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and giving money to the poor, these are certainly good things, but are they specifically pointing people toward Jesus Christ? Do those you serve understand the difference between you and every other nonprofit, non-sectarian, community service organization? Is there a difference?

Ellul says that everything we do must be oriented toward the “combat of faith” with the world, and should result in glory to God. If we simply do what the world already thinks it would be good for us to do, then the world will have no reason to look to God.

This is a difficult concept. Most of us think that “being Christians in the world” means, for example, running a food bank, donating clothing, or, perhaps, advocating for certain legislation or political outcomes. Ellul says that none of these activities matter in and of themselves. If the world already thinks that your actions are “good,” or at least understandable, then there’s no reason to look past those actions toward God. (Your political advocacy, even dressed up in Christian language, keeps people focused on the world, not God, and won’t make the world any less sinful, or save your society from collapse, in any event.)

Now, I don’t think that Ellul is saying that we shouldn’t be feeding the hungry or fighting oppression. I think he is saying that our goal is not to solve the world’s problems, because we cannot, but to bear witness to the only one who can solve those problems.

It’s easy to volunteer at a soup kitchen, or drop off a bag of canned goods, and then just go about the rest of our day. Instead, about everything that we do, before we do it, we should be asking: is this pointing the world toward Christ? And I don’t mean in some abstract, “Maybe If I’m Nice Someone Will Ask Me Why and Then I’ll Be Sure to Mention God” kind of way.

Finally, remember that when we treat ethics as absolute guidelines or specific moral instructions, we are actually rejecting the Holy Spirit’s role in our lives.

Are we done with Chapter 1 yet? Ha, hardly. Up next: Praying for Hitler!

Ellul: Do Not Confuse Christian Ethics with Morality

This entry is part 5 of 28 in the series Presence in the Modern World

Returning to Chapter 1 of Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World. (Remember, I’m taking these notes as I go, section by section, so I reserve the right to realize later that I’m making incorrect assumptions and assertions! In other words, maybe I’m getting it wrong; feel free to tell me so.)

In my last post, we discussed Ellul’s contention that only laypeople can present “theological truth” to the world, since unlike clergy, they have no separation from the world.

This means that we must live our daily lives as “salt of the earth, light of the world, sheep among wolves” — essentially, pointing the world to Christ — not by following any formula or set of rules, but by the way we act in any particular situation.

It would be easier to grasp Ellul’s point here if he offered concrete examples about what exactly it might mean to live as salt/light/sheep, but maybe he is avoiding examples on purpose. A concrete example would suggest that there is always a single behavior required for a particular situation, or a set of guidelines we can follow for living as Christians. But those guidelines would add up to “morality.”

And that, Ellul says, is the problem: we confuse “Christian ethics” with morality, or virtues. But moral systems are what we use to try and improve the human world, and that’s exactly what we cannot do. We’re so desperate to relieve the tension of living in a sinful world that we create moral systems to try and improve that world. But that world cannot be improved, and Christianity does not equate to morality. (EDIT: Maybe that would more accurately read “that world cannot be made less sinful.” There are things about the world that can be improved at a certain objective level, I think, but the sinfulness — and ultimate collapse — remains.)

If we want to understand this, we need to understand Ellul’s definition of Christian life, which he views as a state of constant struggle between judgment and grace.

At every moment, we are being judged, and we are being forgiven. It is the struggle between these two states that ensures our freedom because, at every moment, we are being “placed in a new situation.” That new situation sets us free from both “satanic fetters” and any pre-determined, legalistic program of morality.

Ellul’s Christian faith certainly reminds me of Kierkegaard and his “individual before God.” For Ellul, there can be no accounting of God’s ethical demands appropriate for every circumstance, because “all Christians are in fact responsible for their works and conscience.” Each individual’s faith is a “living attitude” and that faith is what will determine their individual actions in every circumstance, as opposed to a specific moral guideline.

But, and here’s the requisite complicated rub, just because there are no guidelines, doesn’t mean there isn’t any guidance. We are able to (and in fact, required to) “trace the outlines” of Christian ethics, so that we might better respond in “specific, variable situations.” But these ethics cannot replace the “combat of faith” within each individual Christian for determining their behavior.

So, as we struggle each day to deepen our individual faith in Christ, we decide on which actions to take based on that faith, along with the broad lessons (not hard-and-fast rules) we learn from Christian ethics. Those ethics themselves, Ellul says, should be “continually subject to question, review, and reformulation through the efforts of the whole church community.”

In this discussion of ethics and individual action, Ellul appears to embrace a Kierkegaardian existential faith, while also preserving a role for the church, of which Kierkegaard thought little.

Note: I’m going to try to figure out how to better track these Ellul posts, perhaps by creating a single page listing them in chronological order.

Ephemera, 8/13/23

The title I used for the last post came from a Philip K. Dick story I originally read in The Best Science Fiction of the Year #9. I bought a copy of that book when I was 10 or 11 from the paperback racks at a local discount store, and it remained in my possession for many years after that. Several of the included stories live on in my memory, but most vividly George R. R. Martin’s “Sandkings,” which scared the living hell out of me. I also read it over and over. (I always read very inappropriately for my age; around the same time I read The Shining and The World According to Garp.)

* * * *

“The main problem with turning the world into language is that it’s, well, impossible. The word is always less than the thing it is meant to represent.” (Stephen Dobyns)

* * * *

I just don’t get Linktree, especially the folks who fill theirs with links to specific articles, stories, poems that they have published, so that it’s just a long, vertical string of links running down the page. It’s the very definition of user-hostile. Just get a website, maybe? Am I missing something about this?

Anyway, what do I know, I’m posting this on a blog. 2005 Internet was the best Internet.

Passages: The Exit Door Leads In*

Last night my husband and I saw Passages. It’s our fifth film at a theater in six weeks, which is a record for us, not only post-pandemic but for our entire relationship. We’ve always liked “going to the movies,” but never did it quite as often as we have been doing recently, and frankly I like the new pattern.

The film is so skillfully written, filmed, and acted that we talked about it, considering the characters and scenes from different angles, on the way to the car, on the drive home, and again this morning over breakfast.

In short, Tomas and Martin, both expatriates living in Paris, have been married for a number of years; the film begins at the point of a relationship already distant and strained. Following a mild argument with his husband, Tomas has sex with a woman, Agathe. Over the next ninety minutes, we follow Tomas and Martin’s relationship as it ends, renews, ends, renews, and finally ends.

The film pretends to be about the disintegration of a marriage, but is really about two people who happen to be married to each other. (And a third person, who gets somewhat short shrift, not to mention ill treatment.)

The title is, I think purposefully, reminiscent of the mid-70s book by Gail Sheehy about adult stages of life, which popularized the concept of “mid-life crisis.” To me, this seems like a joke on the part of the filmmaker. Tomas is excited over his affair with Agathe because it offers a chance to feel something “different,” and he describes it as “growth.” He says he wants to see Martin “grow” as well.

Which is a lie, of course; when Martin, angry and hurt, begins his own relationship with another man, Tomas reacts with near-panic, which leads to a number of complications.

There is no “growth,” here, for either of the two men — perhaps for Agathe, who learns a hard lesson indeed, but there is no evidence of Tomas and Martin being any different at the end than they were at the beginning.

It’s telling that the film starts, essentially, in medias res; the relationship is already strained, and I don’t think we ever learn anything about either of their lives, separate or together, before the moment of the opening. (Aside from some facts about Tomas’ family, which we learn about in a very funny scene with Agathe’s parents.)

And when Tomas first excitedly tells Martin of his sex with Agathe, Martin responds, “This always happens when you finish a film.”

On the surface, we are presented with Tomas (in a fantastic performance from Franz Rogowski) as the villain of the piece, struggling with his “feelings” and the havoc they wreak on his own life and everyone else’s. Martin is presented — again, on the surface — as the sympathetic one.

Except, actually, Martin is just as culpable for bad choices and selfish desires as Tomas. Tomas wants new experiences; Martin wants a child, but to what end? Martin proves himself willing to hurt other people in order to get what he wants, just like Tomas.

These characters are not going through a “mid-life crisis,” and the passage through which they are going is ultimately not leading to anywhere different than where they started. Completely ungrounded in their being, even as they both seem relatively stable and successful, they are seeking something that they feel is missing, because they have no idea what it is that they’re actually missing.

The film ends with Tomas cycling wildly and aimlessly through the city at night. It freezes on his face and fades to black.

* Yes, I know I stole the title from Philip K. Dick.

Ephemera, 8/10/23

Maybe the real AI was the stupid things we made along the way.

* * * *

Richard Beck on the subversive nature of the Bible: It “denies the ultimacy” of any political system (we are not citizens of this world), the prophetic tradition opposes oppression and injustice, and the themes throughout the scripture are about emancipation, liberation.

Beck says that the entirety of “political theology” may rest on the simple statement that the Bible exists “to unsettle the nations.” This seems right; those who claim Biblical support (and thus God’s blessing) on their state, or their ideology or particular political beliefs, whether currently in power or only seeking to be, are missing the point entirely. God has no interest in your political debates, he is only interested in justice.

I think it’s important for everyone, no matter left or right or in-between, whether they are in positions of authority, or seeking an electoral victory, or fomenting a revolution, to ask themselves: Why has every human political system in history led to oppression and injustice of some sort? And what makes me think my preferred political outcome would wind up any different?

I can’t help but go back to Ellul: Our world’s will always leads toward suicide. “If Christians work with all their might for a human project, they are only human beings like others and their effort has no added value. But if they accept their specific function as Christians, which does not necessarily involve participating in the world in material or measurable ways, then this is decisive for human history.”

* * * *

Speaking of Ellul, through the end of this month Wipf and Stock is offering a 40% discount on his books; use code IJES40 to purchase from them directly.

Ephemera, 08/07/23

“Got a special celebration on your parish calendar? A.I. can compose a unique hymn for the occasion!” Is this satire?

* * * *

I’ve very recently started reading David Bentley Hart’s translation of the New Testament as part of my morning routine, usually a chapter at a time. Reading the gospel as something both familiar and strange has really fired me up and improved my focus. I’ve been writing lengthy notes on each chapter in my own journal; don’t worry, I’m not subjecting the interwebs to my stream-of-consciousness Biblical babbling. But these readings may lead to some other posts here.

I mention all this just because Richard Beck had a great quote from DBH’s introduction to this translation (which makes a fascinating essay in its own right) which feels perfect for a Monday. Of the shocking and strange message of Christianity (which most of us forget is either shocking or strange, we are so immersed in, or bored by, it), DBH says, “I doubt any of us has ever understood it nearly as well as we imagine.”

* * * *

I still remember the first time I heard Sinead O’Connor. I was a college freshman, and my friend Chris played “The Lion and the Cobra” for me in his dorm room. “Mandinka” is what always gets mentioned, and it’s a great song on a great album, but it’s the very first track, “Jackie,” with its cold and plaintive opening, that haunts me to this day.

I’ve been washing the sand
With my salty tears
Searching the shore
For these long years
And I’ll walk the seas forever more

We Cannot Solve Sin’s Consequences by Human Means

This entry is part 3 of 28 in the series Presence in the Modern World

Resuming my read-through of Jacques Ellul’s Presence in the Modern World. I got sidetracked for a while with life, vacation, other writings and readings. There is still quite a bit of Chapter 1 to muddle through.

In my last post, I mentioned Ellul’s contention that the world is now so interconnected that all of us share some responsibility for sins, even if they are corporate, institutional or cultural sins; it is “scandal” for Christians to be associated with the world’s sins, but there is no solution to this scandal.

In fact, as Ellul continues in Section 2 of Chapter 1, simply living in the world — which is something he says Christians must not try to avoid — is, always has been, and will remain, a scandal. “We have no right to accustom ourselves to this world or spread a veil of Christian illusion over it,” Ellul says.

The world is “the domain of Satan” and all of us who live here, including Christians, are affected by the consequences of sin because we’re all sinners, and through our connections to others, participants in the world’s sinful condition. (A footnote explicates Ellul’s belief that Satan is “only the composite, the synthesis, the sum total of all the accusations brought by people against other people in the world.” Which is not a terribly clarifying footnote, really.)

Christian virtues will not “offset” these sins. Trying to change the world so that humankind might be “less wicked, if not less unhappy, living in it” is futile. At the same time — and here things get a bit complicated — we cannot reconcile ourselves to the wickedness, either. “We must not tell ourselves that we can do nothing about it,” even though Ellul has just said that we can do nothing about it.

In other words: the tension, oh the tension, of two truthful statements completely opposite in meaning. “On the one hand, we cannot make this world less sinful; on the other, we cannot accept it as it is.”

He compares this tension to that we feel being caught between sin and grace — we are sinners; we have received, and will receive, grace — and admits that this is an “uncomfortable” position. But it can’t be avoided: accept the tension, and live accordingly, he says.

Which means what, exactly?

It means not falling for the same false choices presented by most people and groups in society. They try to solve the economic, social, and political problems around us by using “technical means or moral criteria,” because they cannot see the underlying spiritual causes behind all of these problems. They don’t see sin.

Since they don’t and can’t solve the spiritual crises that they don’t or won’t see, they create “solutions” that just make the existing problems get worse “until what they have called their civilization reaches the point of collapse.”

As Christians, Ellul says that our role is not to see these problems in the same way as others, or to offer technical or moral “solutions” to these problems. Instead, we must look to the spiritual reality beneath the corporeal difficulties, and respond to these problems with the only actual solution: “it is by living and receiving the gospel that political, economic, and other problems can be resolved.”

At this point in the reading, I’m not sure specifically how this sort of thing would look in everyday life. Going back to Ellul’s point that we are Salt, Light, Sheep, even those metaphors-not-metaphors are pretty abstract: we are to live our lives as signs that point others to God. I find myself longing for a listicle of “24 ways to live and receive the gospel today.”

Actually, writing that last sentence made me shudder, and it certainly feels opposite to Ellul’s point. Almost, but not quite, as opposite, as trying to, on the one hand, “return” the government to an illusory “Christian” past; or, on the other, solve every human problem with a bureaucratic government program. (Oversimplifying both sides here.) Both of those proposed “solutions” rely exactly on the technical and moral means that Ellul claims move civilization closer to ruin.

To respond to the crises of our time “in a human way that is not a lie or pretense,” Christians have to embrace the uncomfortable tension: we cannot remove sin from the world, or solve the problems caused by sin using human means; but neither can we accept the sinful world as it is.

Ephemera, 08/04/23

Iain McGilchrist, in describing the left hemisphere of the brain, could just as easily be describing ChatGPT based on multiple reported experiences with the LLM, which is somehow worrying: “It is demonstrably self-deceiving and confabulates — makes up a story, when it cannot understand something, and tells it with conviction … It is not reasonable. It is angry when challenged, dismisses evidence it doesn’t like or can’t understand, and is unreasonably sure of its own rightness. It is not good at understanding the world. Its attention is narrow, its vision myopic, and it can’t see how the parts fit together. It is good for only one thing – manipulating the world.” (The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning)

* * * *

David Brooks asks, “What if we’re the bad guys here?” I think a better question might be, What if none of us are the good guys here?

* * * *

“Was this how everybody wrote fiction? It needed work, a good bit of work, but once you gave up trying to be deep, writing was a lot easier and a lot more fun. And what a relief to blame your fantasies and your nightmares on fictional characters.” (John L’Heureux, The Handmaid of Desire) (He wrote better novels when he was trying to be deep, tbh.)

Kierkegaard as Poetry (Part 1)

Yes, It Is Nothing

But what does this
mean, what am I to do,
or what is the effort
that can be said to seek,
to aspire to God’s kingdom?

Shall I see about getting
a position commensurate
with my talents and abilities
in order to be effective in it?

No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom.

Shall I give all my possessions to the poor?

No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom.

Shall I then go out and proclaim this doctrine to the world?

No, you shall first seek God’s kingdom.

But then in a certain sense it is nothing I shall do?

Yes, quite true,
in a certain sense
it is nothing.

In the deepest sense
you shall make yourself
nothing,
become nothing
before God,
learn to be silent.

In this silence
is the beginning,
which is to seek first
God’s kingdom.

(From “Look at the Birds, Look at the Lily,” by Kierkegaard, included in Without Authority, translated by Howard & Edna Hong; italics in original.)

Ephemera, 07/27/23

This starts out interesting and ends in complete and total absurdity. Yes: stop whining on your Discord server, go to your local parish, and say, “If everyone is welcome, then welcome me and people like me.” Uh, no: don’t chase people out of the parish and onto the sidewalk while screaming, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

Seriously, people. The return of orthodoxy to the Episcopal Church will depend upon the young gay priests who are right now demanding it, and who know what it actually means to be credally orthodox. (Hint: Leviticus 18 and its admonition against having sex with women while they are menstruating didn’t make the final cut on any of the creeds.)

* * * *

“When I go to a great bookstore, which, to me, is like a cathedral, I feel the need to tithe.” Sigh, me too. (Chris Vognar)

* * * *

“We eggheads used to understand that art is the best hope we have in this low world for a truly autonomous sphere, and that this autonomy is nowhere pushed further than in the productions of the avant-garde. Accordingly, avant-garde artists rejected mass entertainments, or at least did not engage with them as if they were the best thing on offer … In fact the sorry truth is that they may well be the best thing on offer, simply because the forces that produced them have absolutely bulldozed the last surviving hopes for art as a sphere of autonomous creation.” (Justin Smith-Ruiu; used to be Justin E. H. Smith, not exactly sure what happened there) 

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