Solemn Liturgy of the Lord's Passion

[alixtii]

I dreamed I met a Galilean, a most amazing man.
He had that look you very rarely find: the haunting hunted kind.
I asked him to say what had happened, how it all began.
I asked again; he never said a word, as if he hadn't heard.
And next the room was full of wild and angry men.
They seemed to hate this man; they fell on him and then--
They disappeared.

Then I saw thousands of millions crying for this man,
And then I heard them mentioning my name
And leaving me the blame.

In honor of Holy Saturday and the Easter Vigil, let me point you to my Shepherd Book Firefly drabble The Road to Emmaus, originally written for the "Anticipation" challenge for 20weeks. (Also, if you missed it, I also wrote a Buffy ficlet for Good Friday: Mystery. Am I going to write something for tomorrow? I haven't decided yet.)

I finally managed to watch Jesus Christ Superstar this afternoon, part of my family's Good Friday tradition. The problem is I know this movie more or less by heart, and so unless I'm watching it with other people its very easy for me to get distracted. You have to understand, in my secular family Christmas is about Santa Claus and presents under the tree. Easter is about the Easter Bunny and finding eggs and candy that comes in baskets. I think this is a great thing, a testament to the richness of our culture, although it is rather problematic just how Christonormative it is (sort of?) in a pluralistic society.

But Good Friday is the only day out of the year that in my family could even be remotely called religious. We dye our Easter eggs and then settle in to watch the movie with a reverence that I can only describe as that to the sacred.

It is a retelling of the greatest story ever told, after all. When I walk away from Jesus Christ Superstar in all its weirdness--being filmed on location in Israel providing a strange and dissonant resoncance against the necessary suspension of disbelief needed to approach Rice and Lloyd Weber's retelling of the passion in terms of the 1970's--I do so totally moved, and its no surprise that this is one of the religions which dominate the world. (Over-excessive evangelization is the other reason, of course.) And that's why I spend all my time with a liturgical tradition, the RCC, even though it is a hundred times too conservative--both in its politcs and in its metaphysics/theology--for me.

Of course, I am 300 miles away from my family in central NY and supposed to be working on my thesis, but I do my best to recapture the effect. My parents have the DVD at home and I assume they and my brother watched it last night; I have a bootlegged VHS copy of a videocassette that we rented once.

I watched it today because yesterday was a crazy day full of craziness. First of all there was a class of course, and once I had finished class it was time to walk the Stations of the Cross. Only I had dressed for the spring days we've had lately, and it decided to rain instead, so I was shivering the entire way. Luckily I had my umbrella, the one the Red Cross sent me to thank me for donating blood right before I went to London and became inelligible for life.

I went down the hill and changed into the red dress shirt I actually think of as my "Good Friday" shirt, even though I had to iron it. (I'm sure it was still wrinkled when I was done ironing it, but at least not so bad.) Then I went back up the hill and attended the traditional Catholic service, and in the process of kneeling during all the intercessions I managed to put holes in the knees of both of the pant legs of my jeans. I went back down the hill again, drove downtown to pick up a sewing kit, then sewed up the holes in a way that screams lower class chic.

Then it was late enough in the day that I got to drive up the hill, which I did. Broke my fast at the Good Friday dinner and stayed around for Tenebrae. Afterwards, I went over the appartment of friends of my roommates and watched A History of Violence after playing Taboo. For antisocial me, this was a very busy day.

Because I am basically in the same situation of fox1013, having to write 30 more pages of thesis in the course of the next week, I'm going to repeat her meme here:

See. Okay. I have 30 pages of thesis to write. I have a week to do it in. I now have thirty prompts here. Unlike, say, Jules, who was smart and picked one character, I'm leaving it open to any female character that I know and can write (labeled as "girl" but women, dolls, chicks, dames, etc. are all fine as well), or that I at least know and you want to BELIEVE I can write. So just request one, and specify with it what girl you want and what number.

So, basically, you claim one, I write under 500 words of it in the comments. If I get over 30 requests and you haven't requested yet, feel free to ask for any prompt in a different fandom than was first started, becaues it is totally possible that my thesis will go over, but let's cover all 30 first, shall we? That'll be fun. And, theoretically, will finish my thesis in the process.

Let's give it a try, shall we? (Although I must admit I'm utterly clueless as to how this is uppose to help me get the thesis done.)

1. Naughty Girl
3. Sly Girl
4. Angsty Girl
5. On-Vacation Girl
6. Horny Girl
7. Changing-In-The-[someplace-canon-specific; please specify] Girl
8. Excited Girl
9. Book-Reading Girl
10. Dancing Girl
11. Jealous Girl
12. Turned-On Girl
13. Caring Girl
14. On-Her-Knees Girl
15. Obedient Girl
16. Dominant Girl
17. Losing-Her-Virginity Girl
18. Naive Girl
19. Eating-Her-Lunch-And-Drinking-From-A-Soda-Bottle Girl
29. Greedy Girl
21. Daring Girl
22. Exploring Girl
23. Swimming-In-The-Buff Girl
24. Bath-Time Girl
25. Disheveled Girl
26. Exhausted Girl
27. Well-Shagged Girl
28. Kick-Ass Girl
29. Injured Girl
30. Protective Girl

Comments

part 2

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I'm curious for an elaboration on this statement since my understanding is that the core of Christianity for most people is a belief that two millenia ago God Incarnated (and died for their sins).

Ah, you see phrases like "the core of Christianity" are some of the things that hit my buttons and my issues like whoa start to come to the surface. For example, I absolutely refuse to define "religion" because I don't feel comfortable telling a Mormon or a Scientologist or a Satanist what they believe isn't a religion even though the very concept (if it can be called a concept) of a non-transcendental religion boggles my mind. Of course, "the core of Christianity" does recognize that Christianity is a nebulous field rather than a black-and-white category, but to me there's still an implication in it that if we could only find the centrist position we'd arrive at some kind of One True Christianity.

Anyway (especially since those are my issues and not what you meant at all), you're right insofar as the homily at mass yesterday was on how Christianity requires a literal resurrection to be meaningful (although I still don't get why that should be so), and the vast majority of people who self-identify as Christians believe in

But when people phrase Christ's resurrection as an empirical fact, my response is the same I take towards all empirical claims, which is a skeptical and scientific one--what is the evidence? Or even more so, a pragmatic one: I don't look to science for truth, but for systems of models which help to get me through the day. I'm willing to be an agnostic on whether Jesus died and rose from the dead, just as I'm willing to be an agnostic as to whether you actually exist--all I know and need to know that when I hit "post" on this comment "you" (the phenomenon, no matter if anything underlies it) will probably respond. Scientific paradigms shift and change--I don't need or want a "fact of the matter" as a post-structuralist.

Treating Christianity as a series of empirical statements really harkens back to my issues with non-transcendental religions (see above re: Scientology etc.). If religion is simply a set of claims about empirical reality, then I don't see why we need it--i.e. why science and history and so forth can't fill that function just as well.

But I think there is still a function for religion in human life--actually I'm absolutely sure of it as I realize just how much 20th century atheistic philosophy has been unable to shed from itself a very basic mysticism. And while I suppose that I could represent those mystic truths to myself solely in terms of Wittgenstein and Derrida, the fact of the matter is that I live in a society in which yummy sugar and fuzzy animals are (rightly or wrongly) an integral part of our cultural heritage, and these are the symbols which are the closest to my heart.

Re: part 2

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Huh. I've been enculturated to think of Mormonism and Scientology as religions and don't actually think of them as non-transcendental.

Outside of the issue of religious exemptions granted by the government, I don't tend to get into the difficult issue of defining what constitutes a "religion."

but to me there's still an implication in it that if we could only find the centrist position we'd arrive at some kind of One True Christianity

I think the popular idea that the True Christianity is to be found in the center or in the lowest common denominator or whatever is problematic. However, I think if Christianity is True, then God does have a certain idea of what is Right and Wrong and how we should live in the world, including worship. I don't think any human being ever knows all of those for sure, and we do the best we can to discern them, but I think most religion is predicated upon the idea that there is an absolute standard.

how Christianity requires a literal resurrection to be meaningful (although I still don't get why that should be so)

I remember sk8eeyore writing some about the idea of a metaphorical resurrection (something she was reading for some class) but I can't remember much about it and don't remember enough context to attempt to hunt down the LJ link. I find the idea of believing in Christianity without believing in Christ's literal resurrection a bit strange since Christ's triumph over death seems to me to be one of the major (perhaps the major) components which made the community of followers of Jesus into more than just a variant on Judaism.

If religion is simply a set of claims about empirical reality, then I don't see why we need it--i.e. why science and history and so forth can't fill that function just as well.

I think religion makes claims about how we should live in the world, some of which are predicated on empirical claims (example: prophecies were made, Christ fulfilled them, Christ himself made claims and then fulfilled them, therefore he and his tradition are reliable). I certainly don't think religion is just empirical claims, but I do think many religions make empirical claims and that those need to be dealt with (perhaps "engaged with" would be a better phrase).

Re: part 2

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I don't think any human being ever knows all of those for sure, and we do the best we can to discern them, but I think most religion is predicated upon the idea that there is an absolute standard.

If by "most religion" you mean religion as an empirical phenomenon (i.e. as it is practiced in the world) then I have to agree with you, but that doesn't prevent me from regretting the fact.

I've been enculturated to think of Mormonism and Scientology as religions and don't actually think of them as non-transcendental.

Well, it's my understanding that that is how they understand themselves.

I don't think any human being ever knows all of those for sure, and we do the best we can to discern them, but I think most religion is predicated upon the idea that there is an absolute standard.

Ah, yes. That's the standard line, as per Augustine and Aquinas, but it's just not cotenable with my metaphysics. I am most certainly not an absolutist, but indeed a pluralist, so this is one of the tropes of conservative theology that I reject.

I find the idea of believing in Christianity without believing in Christ's literal resurrection a bit strange since Christ's triumph over death seems to me to be one of the major (perhaps the major) components which made the community of followers of Jesus into more than just a variant on Judaism.

Well, I'm not sure what it means to be "more" or "less" than a variant on Judaism. Of course Christianity is a variant of Judaism, and there've been plenty of variants of Christianity since then.

To me the most important element of being a Christian is self-identifying as such--it's a type of identity politics (cf. "queer"). Admittedly calling onself a Christian without associating one's theology with Christ at all would be linguistically idiosyncratic, but I don't think there is any such thing as a major (and certainly not the major) component to be contrasted with extraneous elements. Certainly I don't see any reason why a community who looks to a non-historical Christ shouldn't call themselves Christian. You can see my poststructuralism coming to the surface again here, of course.

And of course Christ's triumph over death != the literal ressurrection of the historical Jesus. I believe in the former with all my heart, of course; I was celebrating it yesterday with joy in my heart.

I think religion makes claims about how we should live in the world, some of which are predicated on empirical claims

I used to think that ethics should be completely logically prior to theology, that is we should have the "right" (i.e. feminist) ethics in place before we approach the text, since our moral intuition would strongly influence the type of hermeneutical stance we would take in interpreting the text. My problem is that I don't really have a developed enough feminist metaethic that can allow ethics to take such a foundational position, so I now think that theology and ethics need to be in some way coeval, but I still tend to think that the way in which we interpret Scripture should be and must be strongly influenced by our ethical standards, and that those who think that Scripture can transparently provide ethical precepts are at some level idolatrizing the text.

Re: part 2

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Granted, the idea that there exists an absolute standard encourages humans to install such a standard, which is problematic, and I can certainly see the appeal of a religion (or spiritual belief, or however one wants to define it) that doesn't include such an idea. But to find Christ appealing while rejecting the idea of an absolute standard? This causes me some cognitive dissonance.

Okay, you're right that Christianity is in large part a matter of identity politics. And one could easily argue that it was the idea of God Incarnating as Jesus that his followers believed to be the defining characteristic of their variant that set them apart, but incorporate a belief in the physical resurrection if they didn't actually believe it happened?

Admittedly calling onself a Christian without associating one's theology with Christ at all would be linguistically idiosyncratic, but I don't think there is any such thing as a major (and certainly not the major) component to be contrasted with extraneous elements.

So affiliation with Christ is not a major component but merely a factor defining one's self-identity as a Christian as being "linguistically idiosyncratic" or not? This is where post-structuralism begins to become a bit much for me and begins to feel like it's sliding toward a conclusion that nothing means anything.

And of course Christ's triumph over death != the literal ressurrection of the historical Jesus.

True. I was realizing that as I was writing up the reply but didn't check to make sure my terminology was consistent through what I had already written, as my brain was already reaching its limits.

My ethics draw largely from lived experience, but they're definitely heavily influenced by my religious background as well. I'm curious about this idea that we should develop our ethics before we go to theology since I think of religion's major purpose as telling/showing people how to live in the world. Certainly our ethics are influenced by other factors even if we grew up in a solid religious tradition, and I do think that testing texts against lived experience has value. But I worry that approaching Scripture with intent to interpret it based on pre-existing ethics leaves us with a religion that makes us comfortable but not one that challenges us -- though yes, one can believe that one should be better than one is and challenge oneself that way. As a bigger issue, we get back to the idea that I believe in an absolute standard behind a religion such as Christianity, so I think that we elevate ourselves too much if we insist that we know better than the text. (Unless one believes the text is entirely human-created, in which case I wonder why one is engaging with the text as a theology rather than as literature/philosophy.) My understanding is that the Bible claims itself to be revealed Word of God, so I'm not sure how one can get away from an idea of an absolute standard in Christianity.

It is entirely possible that I have misunderstood you on any number of points, so apologies in advance if that is the case.

Re: part 2

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Well, if you tell to me get you a toaster but mean a microwave, and I bring back a toaster and ou begin to complain, any witnesses will defend me saying "But you told him to get a toaster!" To me, that's enough meaning for all practical purposes. There may not be eternal unchanging truths (although I don't know if I automatically reject the possibility completely), but local truths tend to be pretty stable.

Where for me it gets complicated is when identity politics is brought into the mix. I have no problem with saying wrt a microwave "That's not a toaster, it's a microwave; your decision to call the toaster a microwave is linguistically idiosyncratic and thus wrong." (I'm a [radical] feminist--if I don't have right and wrong, what do I have? "Personally, I don't like sexism"?) But if a straight friend begins to call herself queer, I might feel that her usage is idiosyncratic, but I wouldn't feel comfortable telling her that she isn't queer because that would be in some way disempowering to her. Who am I to tell her who she is? Same with "Christian" or even "religious." The fundamental difference, I suppose, is that the microwave doesn't have any inner convictions (that we know about) as to whether it is a toaster or not.

And one could easily argue that it was the idea of God Incarnating as Jesus that his followers believed to be the defining characteristic of their variant that set them apart, but incorporate a belief in the physical resurrection if they didn't actually believe it happened?

I'm struggling with how to respond to this. Because there still seems to be a discussion of the historical Jesus here, but what is being claimed about him isn't really an empirical claim, since there isn't really any way to empirically test whether someone is the Incarnation of the Godhead. Still, this is close enought to an empirical claim to make me become uncomfortable. To me, taking religion as making empirical claims it was leads to exactly the sort of spiritual slump you've been describing, because I don't think it provides a satisfactory answer to why we should believe these empirical claims.

I'm curious about this idea that we should develop our ethics before we go to theology since I think of religion's major purpose as telling/showing people how to live in the world.

Well, insofar as ethics requires a notion of the transcendental I suppose agree with this. There are still those who turn to some type of variety of naturalism for a feminist ethics--that is, entirely from lived experience--but I tend to think that approach is flawed. So after a long intellectual journey I think I agree up to a point.

But. Still. I rejected the hope of a feminist ethics acting as a foundation for all other fields of knowledge: metaphysics, theology, epistemology, politics, etc. (I always kind of exempted aesthetics from this list, which was my signal to myself that something wasn't right with it). So I tend to think that replacing ethics with theology (or, as many atheist philosophers attemot to do, with metaphysics or epistemology or philosophy of language or whatever) is just as bad. So I'm now trying to work with a sense of all these disciplines influencing each other, and thus in some way being coeval with no single foundation: my politics influences my theology which influences my ethics which influence my politics which influences my aesthetics. (But isn't that meta-theological statement still acting as some type of foundational philosophy? It's something that I--alongside 21st century thought in general--am struggling with.

Re: part 2, part 2

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

But I worry that approaching Scripture with intent to interpret it based on pre-existing ethics leaves us with a religion that makes us comfortable but not one that challenges us -- though yes, one can believe that one should be better than one is and challenge oneself that way.

As I said, I've relaxed my position somewhat in the last two years to acknowledge that theology can and should challenge us. That said, turning to Scripture for ethics makes it too much of an empirical issue for me. Saying "I insist that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality" to me implies that the Bible could condemn homosexuality, but--whew!--it happens to be a fact about the actual world that it doesn't. To me, that's conceding too much.

Before I am a Christian, I am a (radical) feminist (although the Christianity is temporally prior). If there is an element of Christianity (or Hinduism or Islam or Buddhism or whatever) in contradition with the ethical precepts of (radical) feminism, then it is in error. So, I guess I feel that to some degree a religion that "makes us comfortable" as feminists and doesn't challenge feminist convictions is a good thing. (Of course, I like to think that feminism is self-challenging.) In a way, it's almost as if I make "(radical) feminism" act as its own absolute truth; however, I also recognize the way in which that sort of foundationalism would be antithetical to radical feminism itself. (And again, this is the reason for the shift to the more dialogical approach to the relation between ethics and theology.)

Unless one believes the text is entirely human-created, in which case I wonder why one is engaging with the text as a theology rather than as literature/philosophy.

Again, I'm left wondering what that means. It can't be an empirical statement; there isn't any way to test it; therefore it must be a truth about us. (Yes, I realize I'm being a little bit coy.)

Also to approach Scripture solely as literature/philosophy is to say that humanity no longer requires religion, and I don't accept that. As I said above, mysticism has not been able to be exorcized from atheistic philosophy, after all. (To some degree, claiming "That's not theology, it's philosophy!" is a sort of "to-may-to"/"to-mah-to" moment for me. The line between the too desciplines is so blurry as to be useless for anything but political/academic/administritative purposes. But then, that could be said for a large number of academic disciplines.)

My understanding is that the Bible claims itself to be revealed Word of God, so I'm not sure how one can get away from an idea of an absolute standard in Christianity.

Well, that one is easy. "The Bible is true because the Bible say so" is a circular argument anyway, y'know? Which doesn't mean it's automatically false, but it does mean that one isn't automatically forced to accept it, either.

I don't pretend to be in any way centrist in my theology--my theology is distinctly (radical) feminist and post-structuralist in its character. My LJ interests pretty clearly specify that I'm interested in liberal theology and liberal Catholicism. (Because, and this is where I seem to slip back into some sort of foundationalism [perhaps maybe a strategic essentialism of the Spivakian sort? Except I find that sort of schema very problematic], that's the right way to do theology, he claims and believes.)

But then my difficulty is really with rendering coherent a radical feminist anti-foundationalism, and that's an issue which is, if one accepts the distinction, perhaps more philosophical than theological in character. Except of course, these are precisely the issues with which many feminist, postmodernist, poststructuralist, and even liberationist theologians are dealing.

Re: part 2, part 3

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I make a pretty horrible apologetician, since my sense of intellectual honesty makes it so that I always end up outing myself as a radical even when I think the initial point I'm arguing isn't really controversial. I'm not the person to send to a bunch of evangelicals to convince them that homosexuality isn't a sin. Sometimes when I'm arguing with Roman Catholics I am able to start with a Catholic (metaphysical realist) position and make a case using Augustine and Aquinas, Scripture, various church documents, etc. but it's always ultimately more of an intellectual argument, since I don't believe what I am saying even if I do believe in that for which I am arguing. (Of course, the objective of this conversation was never apologetics, but to better understand my theological positions; I hope this has been helpful to you and look forward to continuing.)

I hope I've also made it clear that I don't think I have all the answers; my theology and metatheology are works in progress, as is my entire philosophy. I do have, however, a fairly strong conviction that much of contemporary religion, especially that which I would call "conservative," is asking the wrong questions. (This is not to say that it is a problem of the modern age, that there was some kind of past in which religion was practiced properly. Indeed, I think it is only in the postmodern age that we are able to ask the questions which are so important to our age.)