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e-mail: ...Monday, March 13th, 2006
I went to a concert on Saturday afternoon which reminded me what live music can do. The concert was held at the new Disney Hall in Los Angeles. This is a beautiful venue. The architect, Frank Gehry, likes flowing, organic curves. The exterior is curved steel, and the interior curved wood. The wood warms up this modern space quite nicely.
But the visual decreases before the aural quite quickly. When I was first invited to the concert, I was told over the phone that it would be Beethoven, Bartok, and Schumann. That was what I heard anyway. When I sat down with the program, it was not Robert Schumann (German 1810-1856), but William Schuman (American 1910-1992). Schuman's piece was called New England Triptych. Schuman found inspiration in the work of the American composer William Billings. I knew of Billings first through the Ken Myers Mars Hill tapes, and later from discussion of Sacred Harp music when the movie Cold Mountain came out. Schuman gave what was definitely a twentieth century interpretation of Billings. But it was a tuneful one. I tend to like modern music when it is tuneful. I only really despise it when I feel that the composer is purposely withholding any traditional enjoyments of music (e.g. melody) from his philistine audience who should forsake the flesh for contemplation of the pure mathematical forms. This Schuman did not do this. He chose some very touching melodies (my favorite was called When Jesus Wept), and gave them interesting instrumentation. I will be buying a recording of this some time in the not-too-distant future.
Next came the highlight of the concert, Beethoven's great Piano Concerto No. 5 (the Emperor). I have a recording of this. And one that I have enjoyed and played quite a bit. But now I see just how much more there can be to this piece. While I would never have thought my recording was a stiff rendition, Joseph Kalichstein at the piano gave it a more flowing treatment. All the precision of my recording was there. But there was more heart behind the exact timing.
After an intermission, Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra was performed. This was enjoyable mostly for the wide range of instruments which were used. There was not much by way of memorable melody. So it is difficult to remember the piece when you leave. But it is clear that the piece was written to be enjoyed for its sounds. I do remember hearing the brass section boom in at points and being pleased. And the percussion was also quite enjoyable. I love timpani. A couple of harps were also used. I could imagine getting more out of hearing this piece in concert if I were more familiar with it. Though it was not completely unfamiliar to me. I had recently purchased a recording of it since it came along with Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta.
The concert received a standing ovation. James DePriest returned and the Julliard Orchestra performed an encore. It was a movement from a famous symphony, but I recognize the melody as La Marche des Rois or The March of the Kings. In fourth grade we learned it as a French Christmas carol. (Oh for the good old days when even in a public school you could sing about waiting for Christ for four thousand years. At least if you sung it in French you could. And the teacher would tell you what it meant.) What a great afternoon.
My greatest disappointment comes when I look around and see almost no one my age. This has not always been the case. The scary thing about this is, it seems that when I was twenty, I was more likely to see other of my cohorts around than I do now at forty. Rather than more people picking up a liking for classical music as they grew older, I have the impression that the few who had it mostly dropped it. In part because there are so few others to share the pleasure with.
11:19 am Pacific Standard Time
[ posted by Rick Ritchie | 7 comments | Permalink ]
Friday, March 10th, 2006
I have a term I've invented that I'd like to share. The term is "vanilla speculation." This is a term I use to describe what people often do when they don't even know they are speculating. The reason they don't know they are speculating is that their guesses are so uninteresting. They are minimalist guesses. They see something described in Scripture, and imagine it using the fewest component parts. Their speculation is vanilla, almost flavorless. But it is most certainly there.
The way to discover vanilla speculation is to consciously decide to speculate. And to speculate in a more flavorful way. (My own choice is to do pistachio speculation. I love the nut flavors, especially when they come from extracts.) We take wilder directions. And we see what we come up with. Perhaps we won't adopt our new speculation, but it may bring elements of the old one into a different light.
A couple of recent blog posts I've read drove me to write this now. One was a post from Josh S. which dismissively asked of Genesis Did God use magic air to literally turn mud into flesh?. (I don't blame him for asking this in such a way. He uncovers how many of us picture more literal versions of Genesis.) Then other was a comment from the Reverend Cwirla on a post on the Cranach blog regarding the finding of water on Cassini. "As Genesis indicates, water alone is not sufficient for life. You also need the Word."
Now what does the idea of vanilla speculation have to say about this? It suggests that when we read Genesis in a vanilla fashion, we get the invisible God doing things directly to create Adam. Yet, if God is intangible, then how does he make Adam out of mud? (From whence comes Josh's question about magic air.) Why the preexisting material and then the direct action? Perhaps our picture here is unnecessarily simple.
Pastor Cwirla's comment got me thinking. In Lutheranism, the word of the pastor is taken as the word of Christ. Scripture's own use of language shows how interchangeably God and the speaker are when what is spoken is the Word of God. When Moses addresses Pharaoh in Exodus, St. Paul uses the words "Scripture said to Pharaoh" (Romans 9:17). Scripture? But it was Moses! How can he say Scripture said this? It wasn't written yet! But our natural manner of speech is not shared by God.
For it is based upon faulty conceptions of the world.
Now if this is the case, then why does the creation of man have to be so direct? Perhaps there are other direct ways than the evolutionary to make man. Perhaps the Word was spoken by a priest. (Yes, I know. "Where did the priest come from?" My point is not to construct a perfect theory here, but to show that assuming no figure is as speculative as assuming one.) God may have sent another race to do his work. At the end of whatever process, whether it involved seeding earth with DNA, or whatever, perhaps the priest came and said, "Receive ye the Holy Spirit" to Adam. And Adam could have been put to sleep using a syringe when Eve was cloned from him.
I am not really committed to thinking that the above happened. Many of the elements are implausible. But it is very likely they got that way because vanilla speculation invaded my attempt at any number of other points. But this exercise does show how just one unnecessary assumption had narrowed my view of the possibilities. Were I able to divest myself of several other unnecessary assumptions, I might have a view of Genesis that was in accord with all of Scripture.
In the meantime, I hold somewhat of the magical picture of Genesis, holding to each element lightly as a picture, but trying to hang onto the text itself with a firm grip. While I don't think Genesis gives me a clear picture of early human history, I think it teaches me what I need to know about it.
1:32 pm Pacific Standard Time
[ posted by Rick Ritchie | 4 comments | Permalink ]
Thursday, March 9th, 2006
Posted both on Here We Stand and Three Hierarchies is a discussion of Erasmus and Luther on grace. Josh S. began with noting that Erasmus's Diatribe was a better piece of work than Luther had led him to expect. Christopher Atwood decided to defend Luther. I like Luther, but I had the same impression of the Diatribe that Josh did when I first read it. While I didn't agree with its key argument, I thought many of its individual readings of Scriptural texts were more sound than those of Luther. And as a confessional Lutheran, I think I have good grounds for being able to take a more critical stance toward Luther without ceasing to be a good Lutheran
So here I want to offer a comparison of just a few passages. Sorry about doing truncated citations, but this is blogging.
In one section of The Bondage of the Will, Luther attacks Erasmus's warning against teaching the doctrine that everything that happens in us happens of necessity. He notes that Augustine's statement that God works in us good and evil was one such statement that Erasmus rejected. And then Luther counters that Scripture teaches these things plainly, without regard to how people take it. Luther says to Erasmus, "What could be harsher (to the carnal nature at any rate) than Christ saying: 'Many are called, but few chosen' (Matt. 22:14), or: 'I know whom I have chosen' (John 13:18)? We have it, of course, on your authority that nothing more profitless could be said than things like these, because ungodly men are led by them to fall into desperation, hatred, and blasphemy." (Luther and Erasmus: Free Will and Salvation , p. 135 [this section of the book is The Bondage of the Will.]) Luther makes an interesting shift here, from defending his own and Augustine's statements to statements of Scripture which he suggests teach the same thing. Either he is right in saying these Scriptures teach what he and Augustine teach, or his shifting of the argument is misleading, as Erasmus has not said these Scriptures should not be taught. Luther further states that those who are driven to dark thoughts by these matters are the ungodly—"even the most ungodly men at that", about whom we should not worry. Yet the Formula of Concord is very concerned not to treat of these matters in such a way to drive people to despair. It states that not only the ungodly, but pious hearts are driven to desperation (SD XI 11). Against Augustine, it says that "The source and cause of evil is not God's foreknowledge (since God neither creates nor works evil, nor does he help it along and promote it), but rather the wicked and perverse will of the devil and of men..."[emphasis mine] (SD XI 7). And citing the same verse that Luther said was a harsh teaching of necessity, offers an explanation, "The reason 'many are called and few are chosen' is not that in his call, which takes place through the Word, God intended to say: 'Externally I do indeed through the Word call all of you, to whom I give my Word, into my kingdom, but down in my heart I am not thinking of all, but only of a certain few. For it is my will that the majority of those whom I call through the Word are not to be illuminated or converted, but are to be and remain under condemnation, although I speak differently in my call to them.' In this way it would be taught that God who is the eternal Truth, contradicts himself." The Formula of Concord has repudiated Augustine's idea that evil happens of necessity, and rejected Luther's ridiculing of the idea that we have to be careful how we speak for fear of driving people to desperation.
I would remind people that the Lutheran Confessions were drafted by a committee. On the committee was Jacob Andreae. Andreae preached things that the Formula of Concord did not teach, but his influence should be considered. Citing Christ's lament over Jerusalem "'How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wing, and you did not want to!" (Matthew 23:37). There not God's help and aid but man's will is accused of not wanting to. That would be a purposeless indictment if man could not will to turn himself to God." (Andeae and the Formula of Concord: Six Sermons on the Way to Lutheran Unity, trans. by Robert Kolb, p. 85.)
We have several things to resolve here. We can attempt a harmonization between Luther and the Formula of Concord where we smooth over the apparent problems. Most likely this will involve showing that the exegetical positions taken on texts are not contradictory. But this cannot be done. Luther offers the text from Matthew as a text teaching necessity, while the Formula of Concord rejects necessity, and offers a softer reading of the verse, a reading whose necessity Luther denies, as it has no real audience. In Luther's mind, only the reprobates despair.
I'm putting this out there not because I think that Luther or the Formula of Concord is right or wrong. I want to offer it as an example of why we cannot assume they agree with each other. My own method of harmonizing these things has to do with an understanding of how Law and Gospel shape discourse. Law is preached as if there is no Gospel. Gospel is preached as if the Law has most assuredly been dealt with. Further, both Law and Gospel are to be preached. But the Law only is to be preached to the secure, and the Gospel only to the broken. I expect Luther, coming against a secure Erasmus, to offer more legal readings of the text. I expect the authors of church confessions, addressing a churchly audience, to offer more evangelical readings of the text. These may contradict each other in the ways that Law and Gospel have always contradicted each other.
My deeper concern here stems from a growing conviction that we DO need to be careful about how we speak of doctrines. They don't just exist as data floating about. The doctrine of Law and Gospel describes a dynamic form of discourse where everything is not appropriate for every audience. Many will immediately assume that I am advocating not teaching the whole counsel of God (since this is what many Arminians argue). No. That is not my position. I would if anything be happy to hear more about Predestination from Lutheran pulpits. But I do think that a pastor should know his flock. And when he is down at the individual level, even more personal care is necessary.
As to the doctrines about which Luther and Erasmus speak, I am more on Luther's side. The key reason I would not sign Dordt is that I have no intention of becoming a Calvinist pastor. As a Lutheran layman, I was only required to accept the Augsburg Confession and the Small Catechism. I became a confessional Lutheran because of its stance on the Lord's Supper. I see benefits and liabilities about how both Dordt and Concord speak of election. But in a dynamic sense, I will choose Concord. I would rather go to church and sit next to the kinds of fuzzy people our confessions allow than go to church and sit next to the kind of John Owen puritan that Dordt allows. Even if I am closer to a Hodgean Predestination than I am to either of those positions. But Concord offers an approach to discourse that I find even more helpful than the individual readings it offers of Bible texts. While insisting that we must preach the whole counsel of God, it forbids certain ways of picturing Election (e.g. as a military muster) and insists on proper use of the doctrine.
3:59 pm Pacific Standard Time
[ posted by Rick Ritchie | 7 comments | Permalink ]
Monday, March 6th, 2006
I saw the Disney movie Eight Below over the weekend with some friends. All three of us loved the movie. I had wanted to see it since a very few seconds into the first trailer. It looked like Snow Dogs, only it didn't look stupid. (I didn't see Snow Dogs, despite the subject matter being attractive.) I'm a sucker for anything to do with dogs or winter. Combine them and you have me. (Unless it looks stupid.)
The movie had received mixed reviews, though most reviewers liked it. I use the Tomatometer at Rotten Tomatoes to see an overall score. But I look to see who wrote what. Lately I have trusted Roger Ebert more than most. (That was not the case twenty years ago. I haven't figured out who changed, him or me. Perhaps both?) Ebert's review was solid. His criticisms were accurate, but didn't really count much against the movie. This is also the kind of movie where the super sophisticated reviewers can be trusted if they like the movie. Rex Reed loved it, which suggests that it avoided being a piece of manipulative schlock.
The movie allowed me more time to consider the relationship between humans and canines. I may have mentioned this in a previous post, but Temple Grandin in her book Animals in Translation offers evidence that the relationship has been a deep one for 150,000 years. Both human and canine brains changed as a result of the partnership, as each party specialized. They took over the job of being our noses, so the portion of the human brain dedicated to smell shrunk after dogs were domesticated. (Or did that happen just so we could stand being around them when they hadn't bathed?) We took over some of their brain functions as well. Grandin says that dogs and wolves are almost identical genetically, dogs being the equivalent of wolf puppies with arrested development. The less wolflike in appearance the dog (think King Charles Spaniel), the earlier the wolf stage at which it stopped. The more wolflike in appearance the dog (think Husky), the more adult wolf behaviors it grows into.
Eight Below featured more wolflike dogs. Even the movie posters show dogs with raised (as opposed to floppy) ears like those on an adult wolf. But wolflike does not mean savage. In fact, wolves have somewhat of a worse reputation than they deserve. Socially, wolves have one of the better kinds of societies in the animal kingdom. More forms of kinship seem to be recognized by their behavior than is true of most primates. Eight Below was especially good at showing canine loyalty at its best. No member of the pack was left behind by the rest if there was anything that could be done.
This was the most moving animal acting I've ever seen. We've seen great depictions of horses in the last few years. Seabiscuit was a great horse movie, but mostly because of the human drama. Some of the horses in the Lord of the Rings trilogy were quite impressive. I liked the horse Viggo Mortensen rode as Aragorn. But he had an even more moving relationship with Hidalgo in the movie by the same name. Yet I would put the eight animal actors of Eight Below above any of these.
1:32 pm Pacific Standard Time
[ posted by Rick Ritchie | 1 comment | Permalink ]
Sunday, March 5th, 2006
7:35 pm Pacific Standard Time
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Wednesday, March 1st, 2006
I've been enjoying various posts on Crunchy Cons that I have seen on Christopher Atwood's Three Hierarchies, Jeremy Abel's Living Among Mysteries, and NRO's Crunchy Con Blog. Most recently, Jeremy posted a list of books from Crunchy Cons, the book.
It was an intriguing list, and I don't know if it was just a shorter selection at the back of the book, or a more comprehensive list. What I noticed was missing was C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, and most notably That Hideous Strength. Although come to think about it, The Last Battle is also in the running.
That Hideous Strength portrays a nearly apocalyptic future in which mankind has accelerated in its evil pursuit of raw power. One way in which we see this is in polution. In contrast to the evil forces, at the Director's House, we see a harmonious balance achieved between man and the natural world. Mice and men peacefully coexist. (This was something Lewis himself practiced in his study. In one of his Letters to Children he mentions a little mouse coming out to greet him. It was clear he adored the creature, rather than seeing him as an intruder. The kind of truce between man and nature that is described was something I had at one time attributed to the New Age movement. This was like Findhorn described in that 1980's movie My Dinner with Andre. Yet this view of nature predated Findhorn, and can be traced back in Christianity at least as far back as St. Francis of Assisi and his relationship to brother wolf.
The Last Battle probably mirrors familiar New Testament apocalyptic more closely (This neither makes it better or worse. I think portraying an Old Testament Day of the Lord which is not the ultimate Last Day, as Lewis did in That Hideous Strength is a worthwhile endeavor, and may restore a lost category of Biblical thought to our generation.) than That Hideous Strength. Tirian, the last king of Narnia, is tipped off on the encroachment of evil when a tree spirit comes to warn him that the sacred trees are being chopped down. Again, this in a book loved by conservatives.
I am happy with the Crunchy Con phenomenon. I have my doubts as to its use as a political block. But I find its cultural recognition to be a good sign. Perhaps we can now engage in some discussion of passages like these.
10:37 pm Pacific Standard Time
[ posted by Rick Ritchie | 2 comments | Permalink ]
A friend's blog mentioned the term "living document" (negatively) in relation to the U.S. Constitution. I started to think about the subject again, and decided to do some research into what people mean when they use the term. I had the general impression that twenty years ago, this term was used in a way that was not destructive, while today, it was mostly used destructively. I decided Google might be a way of discovering its actual use in our own day to see if there was still more than one way of using the term, and to offer suggestions for how we can speak on this matter in such a way to create more light than heat.
On my first results page, I found some quality treatments from an Originalist perspective. Arguments why we should not consider the Constitution a living document. Yet I also found some educational sites that suggested that the Constitution was a living document. Only they had a conservative argument for why this was so. They differed from most that I have heard in defining in what way the Constitution was living: it can be amended. This is an acceptable use of the term. Or it would be in an earlier time.
This brings up my real question. Even if we discover that some people who use a term like "living document" are on the side of the angels, does that mean that we should adopt this language? I would argue overall that it doesn't. In the best case scenario, good people who use the term use it unambiguously, so that whenever they use it they define what they mean by it. "A Living Document: It Can Be Amended" would be such a use. Everyone knows now what "living" means. But now some people think, "Oh, that's what living means" and they proceed to use the term without such careful definition.
Some Supreme Court Justices have offered arguments as to what it means to say that the Constitution is living. And they don't agree with each other. Liberal Justice Thurgood Marshall argued that Originalism was a bad idea because it is clear that in the minds of the eighteenth century writers, "We the people" did not include blacks. On the other hand, conservative Antonin Scalia says that "The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things"
The difference between these positions seems to be in where we found the flexibility to form a better society than the one the Founders had in the eighteenth century. Scalia would find it in amendment, and the ability the Constitution gives to legislate. Marshall would say that we reinterpret the language of the Constitution so that we bring better meanings to the words than they originally had.
I think there has to be a middle way here. A lawyer friend of mine suggested that "Textualism" will offer you much of what "Originalism" claims to offer, but without some of the nasty drawbacks. My only knowledge of Textualism comes from a discussion with him, so what follows is not a nuanced academic discussion of Textualism as it exists, but my own thought since the discussion.
Let's take Marshall's example of the original meaning of "We the People". Some understandings of Originalism would suggest that we have to know what the Founders were picturing in their minds in order to fix a meaning for this phrase. And their solution is to say that if that was the meaning in the Eighteenth Century, then we must correct it with a Twenty-first Century meaning that includes all people.
But is that really even true to the Eighteenth Century definition of "person"? I haven't found a good online 18th century dictionary, but Webster's 1828 Dictionary offers the following definition: "An individual human being consisting of body and soul. We apply the word to living beings only, possessed of a rational nature; the body when dead is not called a person. It is applied alike to a man, woman or child." Whatever would be pictured when an 18th Century person read the United States Constitution, if they consulted a dictionary to determine the meaning of the document, they would have the same definition that we use. At worst, they were wrong in how they saw this definition as being applicable to certain people. The definition of person never changed, as race was never part of the definition.
Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin contains many passages of dialog where there is discussion of the status of black people. And the discussions make clear that what is in question is whether blacks have souls or not. The most enlightened of the characters would all answer unhesitatingly yes. The less consistent characters waffled, offering a grudging yes with lots of caveats. Those who answered no were clearly persons of depraved mind. But all of these people could have subscribed to Webster's definition. They would have said that anyone who had a soul was a person. Where they would have disagreed was as to whether blacks had souls or not. Equality did require a change in the application of the Constitution. But it could be argued that the Eighteenth Century document allowed the current reading, and that in fact the modern reading is a more natural reading even given the Eighteenth Century language usage.
This is an important point. The reason it is important is that much of the progress we have made has to do with becoming more consistent in our application of moral principles that we already knew. It really didn't require new principles of morality to recognize the equality of blacks. It required the application of principles that people already held. A novel like Uncle Tom's Cabin was powerful precisely because it demonstrated to its readers how inconsistent their society was with its own values.
Yet some discussions of Originalism almost call for Thurgood Marshall's argument in response. When they bring forth a conception of original intent that means that the picture in the framers' minds is what really counts, it is clear that we need something other than Originalism. Our question has to be "What does the text say?" And we can use Eighteenth Century definitions to determine the definitions. But there will be more questions.
Part of the reason I think this works has to do with the nature of definitions. Definitions are supposed to be somewhat philosophical in nature. The chief error is what is called "defining by an accidental quality." That is, you add some feature into your definition that is not true of all instances. Say you define a teacher as "A woman who imparts knowledge to children in a school." This is a bad definition. As true as it is in many cases, it fails to encompass all. What about men teachers? What about teachers who teach somewhere other than a school? What about teachers whose students are adults? "A person who teaches or instructs, especially as a profession" is better, as it encompasses almost all known cases. (There may still be exceptions, but this is not a poor definition.) Now, if the problem with moral thought is that we tend to make unnecessary exceptions, then it seems that definitions are part of our way out. For a definition should admit of no exceptions.
I think the Founders were political realists yet also idealists. They left a lot of immorality enshrined in their practice. But their documents don't bear the marks of small-mindedness. They use language that does little to aid in institutionlizing evil, and would in the future tend towards greater freedom as the moral inconsistencies were worked out of the society. If we insist on having a document that is immediatly productive of a Utopia, then we will have to wait forever. The genius of the Constitution was that it was able to be ratified in a world that was far below the natural level of its language. It may have many virtues that have yet to be unpacked.
Take the example of "cruel and unusual punishments." What I like about such a phrase is that the language is broad. How do we determine what "cruel and unusual means"? I would say there are two parts to the process. First, determine what the definitions of the words are. Webster offers the following for cruel: "Disposed to give pain to others, in body or mind; willing or pleased to torment, vex or afflict; inhuman; destitute of pity, compassion or kindness; fierce; ferocious; savage; barbarous; hardhearted; applied to persons or their dispositions." He offers a passage from Jeremiah 6 to illustrate. "They are cruel, and have no mercy." Notice what this definition does not do. It does not list a bunch of punishments as examples. It does not list capital punishment, whipping, branding, jail time, community service, or having one's name printed in the newspaper. If we are not committed to an Originalism that says that we have to use the list of proscribed punishments from the 18th Century as our current list, we can have a civil discussion as to what really qualifies as cruel. And I would say we might best do to take the 18th century definition and some 21st century mores as our starting points.
How would this work? We might ask, "Is the punishment in question one that is destitute of pity?" Or "Does the punishment in question come from a desire to torment?" When we ask this question, we may come up with some different answers than they did in the Eighteenth Century. But we are asking basically the same starting questions that should have been asked back then.
Scalia is afraid that a living document philosophy will mean that the Constitution can be made to say anything. I share his fear. Justice Marshall is afraid that if we confine ourselves to the uses of the Constitution that the Eighteenth Century made of it, we will go backwards in our moral understandings. I share his fear. We need a Constitution that has a certain amount of meaning that is in no danger of moving around on us. But we also need to have heightened moral consciousness have its say in the application of the Constitution. Somehow I think this can be addressed in the understanding of original meanings being something a bit different from original intentions. A "meaning" could be taken as something public. Not a "What does this mean to you?" proposition, but "What do these words mean when we read them according to their accepted definitions?" This will give much of the Constitution a solidity that withstands the winds of time. But it will also allow room for current moral thought to influence application. The Constitution seems to have been written such that that would be the case.
I don't suggest that what I have written above solves all problems or does not have some of its own drawbacks. There are no doubt some legal minds out there who could offer a more nuanced approach. But I feel comfortable charging into this discussion as I think that what I offer may have benefits that are not to be found in certain discussions offered by such illustrious people as certain Supreme Court justices.
2:17 pm Pacific Standard Time
[ posted by Rick Ritchie | 3 comments | Permalink ]
