Shelfie

I woke up to an email from a student, asking for a list of ten or so books "that you have found essential in the formation of what we know as Donna." Having taken a few minutes to put together a briefly-annotated list, I thought I might as well share it here. Links are to the Goodreads page, so you can add whatever takes your fancy to your "to-read" shelf or click on through to buy from Amazon.

Paula Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ -- a very readable account of the transformation of Jesus' message in the first few centuries of the common era, not just philosophically and religiously but also politically.

Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics -- an entire aesthetic and media theory in the guide of a comic book about how comic books work. Amazing.

Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms -- using records from the Inquisition, historian Ginzburg reconstructs the diversity of the intellectual enterprise from the side of both commoners and elites during the tumult of Reformation. A constant reminder that intellectual history isn't just the record of great thinkers, it's also the story of how ideas were received and transformed by the population, and how that transformation boomeranged back on the elites.

Erasmus, Enchiridion -- Erasmus is my favorite Reformation writer, and this is his great work on the life of faith. He's just such an amazing prose stylist, even in translation.

David Hume, The Natural History of Religion -- Hume demolishes the idea that religion began with pure revelation and has degraded to the conditions we see today, with wit and irony, in this brief little treatise. Essential to my understanding that every reality we encounter has an evolutionary history.

Elizabeth Moon, The Deed of Paksenarrion -- my favorite book, which I reread every couple of years, a fantasy trilogy about a soldier who becomes an instrument of the gods. You may find it very silly if fantasy isn't your thing, but it's undeniably the work of fiction that has most shaped me.

Shusako Endo, Silence -- For years Martin Scorsese has been trying to make a movie of this novel about Jesuit missionaries in 19th c. Japan. The most powerful portrayal I know of the sacrifice of Jesus.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, The Age of Homespun -- an examination of women's lives in colonial America through the objects they made. Reads like a detective story, uncovering something previously anonymous and subterranean.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead -- A pastor reflects on life and faith and relationships as he nears his own death. Engages with all kinds of great thinkers, but never ceases to be an unfolding revelation of a novel.

Paul Collins, Not Even Wrong -- One of the great non-fiction writers tries to understand his autistic son by digging back into the prehistory of autism.

A weekend away

For almost all of the last twelve years -- I don't think I've missed one since I moved to Arkansas -- I've been coming to Dallas on this weekend. It's the annual meeting of the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies, an umbrella organization that organizes a conference for the members of the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Schools of Oriental Research, and the Association for the Scientific Study of Religion in Texas and surrounding states.

Soon after I started attending, some of the organizers asked me to take leadership roles. I started as a chair of one of the program sessions, then served on the executive committee for the AAR's local branch, then agreed to become the AAR coordinator for the region. The six years of that job are almost up; next year will be my last in that position.

When I come to this meeting, I have a lot of jobs to do. Make decisions as a director of the Commission. Liaise between the AAR portion of the meeting and the meeting planner. Drum up attendance for the plenary. Give most of the reports at the AAR region's annual business meeting. And almost always, give a paper, moderate a session, sit on a panel.

This same weekend, my dad is going to a meeting that he's been attending for years. He's a member of the Kairos team that goes into a prison and spends three days with a group of inmates. The meeting involves months of preparation, like mine. It's packed with activities and a tight schedule, like mine. My dad has several leadership roles to enact, like I do. And there's a connection, too, with the premise of the meeting being religious. Mine is about the study of religion in an academic setting, and his is about practicing one religion's mandate to visit those in prison.

I'm sure readers will have their own opinion about which one is more in sync with their values and more salutary for society. As for me, well, we do good work here at the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies, but it's certainly neither as risky nor as courageous as the work of Kairos. I dare say that while our meeting may reach more people to advance their understanding in ways that improve their teaching of thousands of students, those people reached are already committed to that path, and so the advance is not revolutionary for most or all.

I dare say that the 40 inmates this Kairos weekend will reach are much more in need, and the effect on those men of being listened to and loved is potentially enormous, life-changing. College professors are used to being listened to. We have high social status. We are respected. The opposite is true, in all cases, for men in prison.

You might want to read about my dad's experience this weekend in his blog: http://walkinganewpath.blogspot.com. I am always humbled by what he relates. He may be the most self-critical blogger I read among the hundreds of feeds I follow. While serving others and seeking truth, he's always questioning his own motives and actions -- sometimes to a fault. I need to have more of that in my life, though. My confidence and ambition frequently lead me to believe that I'm a much better, more worthy person than anyone has a right to think themselves.

My dad has always been my role model. These days we often start from different premises in terms of our political and religious stances. The measure of our sincerity and effort surely is that sometimes we end up in the same place.

Those who are with Dad on his Kairos weekend don't have the same doctrine or politics as he does, either. Kairos is interdenominational, and folks participate from the liberal mainline churches, the nondenominational fellowships, the evangelicals and fundamentalists. When they read the Bible, some are reading God's dictation while others are reading human efforts to bear witness. But all are convinced that following the example of Jesus and Paul to pay special attention to society's outcasts is a good idea, good enough to take lots of time and effort and risk to undertake.

I'm convinced of it, too, and convicted. Here I am doing the work given me to do, and I'll do it with all my might, and I know it will make a difference and be appreciated. But how thankful I am that those rockier fields have found their laborers, too, and that I have some insight into their efforts through my dad.

Step by step

Something inside me is highly susceptible to method.  I read about a Regimen or Process or Diet or Discipline, and I start feeling a deep longing.  I want to push all my chips in and follow the plan.  I want to devote myself singlemindedly to its rituals and ways.  I sense that all the meaning one could want is buried there for the patient seeker, that it would only take steadfast resolve and dedication to peel back a lifetime's worth of layers.

Mysticism, therefore, exerts a pull on me.  Highly complex texts attract me because they are well-suited for structural analysis; I remember one of my teachers noting how well I took to the study of Aquinas.  But so do instructions on how to wash your face correctly, or get a book written, or train a child to sleep through the night, or declutter your desk.  It's not the significance of the goal, but the assertion by some confident person that they know how to get there.

In a word, orthodoxies.  Always this, never this, and for God's sake, if you value your life, avoid that.  Two of these, then one of those, unless the moon is full.  Make it a way of life and you will find what you seek.  Failure is not the fault of the method but of those who fail to follow it religiously.

I would have made an excellent nun, in other words.  I am more prone to blame myself for any lack of success than the advice I'm following.  I resent the multitasking necessitated by my many responsibilities, and believe I'd be able to fulfill my desires if my life were simplified to a single goal and a clear process. Even though I know that longing is mythological to some extent, I still look forward to retirement when I  can test out the theory.

Meanwhile, I try to remember that the methods that attract me so powerfully do so not on the basis of their promise, but simply the rigor that they demand -- for their elitism, selectivity, and demands for complete commitment.  They are avatars of the authority I wish I did not have to exercise over myself, the freedom I want to escape, the choices I would prefer were taken out of my hands.

On the bookshelf

Thanks to my recent travels, I've been getting a lot of reading done. And probably not coincidentally, a lot of it has been about religion.

First up was The Believers, Zoe Heller's new novel about the family troubles of a gaggle of radical leftists. One of the most affecting subplots is about a daughter who begins to move toward Orthodox Judaism, much to her aggressively secular socialist mother's dismay. I loved it.

Then came William Lobdell's Losing My Religion, a suspenseful and sad memoir about the conversion then backsliding of the Los Angeles Times religion reporter, who found himself unable to maintain his faith in the face of the Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandals. I couldn't put it down.

And now I'm reading The Unlikely Disciple, Kevin Roose's account of a semester at Liberty University, where he finds the student body generally inspiring and the spiritual tone uplifting, but the atmosphere of absolute certainty (and gay-bashing) impossible to acclimate to. I'm stealing moments during my day to devour it.

Maybe it's that I, too, feel like I'm living in the cracks between faith communities. But these tales of the religious bonds forged among us and the religious differences that wedge us apart are deeply moving to me. I recommend all three of these books, no matter where you find yourself on the spectrum of faith.

The big D

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I'm off to Dallas for the annual meeting of the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies. This has long been one of my favorite meetings, full of bright and friendly people, compact and easily navigable.

My pleasure in it is partly diminished and partly enhanced by my office as secretary-treasurer of one of the commission's constituent organizations, the American Academy of Religion Southwest Region. That position requires me to coordinate with the secretary-treasurer of the commission (always a pleasure) and oversee the ever-rotating executive officers of my organization. I arrange for the plenary speaker and wrangle the business meeting.

These duties can be nerve-wracking, minimal as they are compared to what my counterpart on the commission does. (Heaven save me from any office where I have to negotiate contracts with hotels.) Some of my enjoyment of the meeting is sapped away by having to cluck over the details, which keeps me away from the sessions where interesting papers are read and lively discussions of intellectual points are had.

But on the other hand, I'm always attracted to positions of responsibility, because it's so rewarding to make things happen. As nice as it is to be a tourist, it's a whole different pleasure to be a guide -- or a host. I received one of the most astounding compliments of my professional life this past week from a senior scholar I contacted about a nomination to the organization's executive line. He wrote that he'd always admired my grace interacting with others (and quoted Twelfth Night into the bargain).

Now that's a quality I've never thought I'd be able to brag about. Given the friction of my interactions with some of my colleagues here, I'm not sure it's one that some would ever consider ascribing to me. Yet from this man -- who is the very definition of generosity and graciousness -- it means the world. Maybe as I fumble through these obligations and responsibilities, I am not destined to alienate everyone. Maybe for some, my way of proceeding actually makes their experiences smoother, their lives momentarily better. That would certainly be worth the effort.

Snapshots from Chicago

• It was a beautiful day in the Second City, and I spent it inside a windowless board room voting on things. Thank goodness for lunch and a stroll in Grant Park, where the Obama campaign has taken over a huge chunk of land to set up their election night celebration. Gazing out over the city tonight from the balcony of the organization's penthouse suite, full of the conviction of shared ideals, was almost overwhelmingly emotional.
• One of the strangest experiences of a meeting like this is having your name recognized by someone you don't know. The meeting has barely begun, but in the elevator, a Virginia graduate student introduced himself by saying that my name was still bandied about in the department. (I hope the stories are positive.) At the book exhibit, a person whose name I knew because he's a committee chair knew my name from reading my work.
• While browsing the book exhibit, a voice at my elbow said, "Nice Clapotis." Yes, there was a knitter making herself known, someone who recognized the famous pattern and correctly pronounced the secret password. Turns out she's a grad student in North Carolina who's known on Ravelry by the name Lazuli. Wearing a popular handknit is like flashing a gang sign-- instant bonding.
• Sure, Chicago is beautiful (67 degree weather and brilliant fall sunshine today). Sure, my colleagues are marvelous and I care for them and our common enterprise deeply. But is this a pleasure cruise? As I told my students, I'll be awakening before dawn tomorrow for an ungodly 7 am breakfast meeting. Not my idea of a vacation, no matter how wonderful the company or the cause.
  

Notes before takeoff

• Tomorrow I head north to the great city of Chicago -- the city with the big shoulders, that toddlin' town -- for the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion. It will be an easier trip than the Denmark jaunt of a couple of weeks ago, of course. But I told my students that they shouldn't envy me. Almost as soon as I check into my hotel, there's a 5 pm - 10 pm meeting. Then on Friday, a 9 am - 5 pm meeting. Then -- the real killer -- the Saturday morning 7 am meeting. It's not going to be a restful jaunt. But I hope to break away long enough to see my Chicago colleagues for dinner or a drink. Don't worry, guys, I'll be in touch.
  
• I finally got away from the office long enough to get a haircut this afternoon. The stylist plucked something from the back of my head and held it up to show me. It was a gray hair, but not just a gray hair -- a crinkled, curly gray hair. In other words, a terrifying glimpse of the near future, when my thick, slightly wavy, easy-to-manage strawberry blond coif turns into a colorless mass of kinks.
• Following an intriguing recommendation from Boing Boing, I bought ABC3D (only $11.97 with free Amazon Prime two-day shipping when I ordered!), the stunning and elegant alphabetical pop-up book by Marion Bataille. Check it out -- my favorites are the U and Z.
  

Thoughts on church and state

John McCain: "I think the number one issue people should make [in the] selection of the President of the United States is, 'Will this person carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?' ... I admire the Islam. There's a lot of good principles in it. I think one of the great tragedies of the 21st century is that these forces of evil have perverted what's basically an honorable religion. But, no, I just have to say in all candor that since this nation was founded primarily on Christian principles.... personally, I prefer someone who I know who has a solid grounding in my faith. But that doesn't mean that I'm sure that someone who is Muslim would not make a good president. I don't say that we would rule out under any circumstances someone of a different faith. I just would--I just feel that that's an important part of our qualifications to lead. ... I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation."

Mike Huckabee: "[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards."

James Madison: "If Religion be not within the cognizance of Civil Government how can its legal establishment be necessary to Civil Government? What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not. Such a Government will be best supported by protecting every Citizen in the enjoyment of his Religion with the same equal hand which protects his person and his property; by neither invading the equal rights of any Sect, nor suffering any Sect to invade those of another. ... What a melancholy mark is the Bill of sudden degeneracy? Instead of holding forth an Asylum to the persecuted, it is itself a signal of persecution. It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority. Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree. The one is the first step, the other the last in the career of intolerance."

The risks of progress

A couple of students invited me to speak to the Mid-South Conference of the Left, a series of meetings and workshops being held on campus this weekend bringing together various leftist and progressive organizations. The topic I was assigned: "Religion and Progressivism: Contradiction In Terms?"

Naturally (these provocative titles are almost almost destined to be answered in the negative) I argued that they are not, that rightly understood, religion challenges every status quo. My audience ranged from those who have already allied with mainstream denominations for social action, to those who have abandoned or reinterpreted their religious upbringing because of its association with social conservatism, to those who have embraced scientism or militant atheism.

Now I'm on record as agreeing with much of the reasoning of the latter group, the ones who oppose religion per se. Yes, religion tends to lose its prophetic voice when allied with temporal power. Yes, belief in absolute supernatural authority cannot be safeguarded from violence in that authority's name.

But there are two reasons I can't follow Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett et al. to what they feel is their logical conclusion.

1. Exactly how is the vacuum of values creation and meaning generation to be filled once religion has been swept into the dustbin of history? Science has done a pretty poor job at that necessary transition from is to ought, as forcibly impressed on previous generations by eugenics, trench warfare, the atomic bomb, The Bell Curve, etc. Yet that's clearly what Dawkins, at least, would have us install as the sole source of data for human thought.

2. The Enlightenment thought this problem had been solved. Reveal the natural history of religion, its superstitions and foibles and ignominious heritage, and it would wither away as the human race matured past the stage of needing such a crutch. Obviously, they couldn't have been more wrong. What should we learn from religion's refusal to die? Perhaps that we need to remain connected with our heritage, our traditions, our communities past and present. Perhaps that the values that religion has fostered, nurtured and proclaimed are deep in the selves and in the cultures that formed ourselves. Perhaps that cutting ourselves off from what gave us birth, proclaiming emancipation and divorce, is neither healthy nor sustainable. Why not try to find a way to live with this part of ourselves instead of expending all our energy fighting it? Siggie Freud, have you taught us nothing?

The vision thing

Spending 11 hours in the company of a "strategic planning consultant" who differentiates between "driving" and "inspiring" and uses the acronym BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) without shame doesn't sound like fun to this corporate-averse, jargon-allergic academic. But you know what? It's been great. We've learned stuff about ourselves as an organization, and we've thought together about where we want to go. And to my delight, it's got a lot to do with that complexity hangup I have. (Turns out I'm not the only one.) So I couldn't be happier.

Plus, as Sonny noted in the comments to the last post, this is a beautiful weekend to be in Atlanta, and a gorgeous place in Atlanta to land -- the Emory Conference Center and Hotel. Our meeting room even has a window-wall that opens onto a balcony; we kept the doors open most of the afternoon and enjoyed the fresh air. You can't ask for more from a committee meeting.

One rather facetious idea that bubbled up from our discussion of public understanding of religion, a part of the AAR mission that is so contentious and yet so tenaciously advocated by some leaders that it has its own acronym (PUR), is the creation of a religion-in-media list that could be widely disseminated, like Blackwell's worst dressed or the Darwin Awards. The list would be "______ Most Clueless Statements About Religion Made in the Public Media."

Two came up right away.

1. "The Bible teaches that marriage is a permanent relationship between one man and one woman."
2. "The Bible was the foundation and blueprint for our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, our educational system, and our entire history until the last 20 to 30 years."

I love the idea of this list, and I decided then and there that even if the Academy didn't compile it, I would. What would you add to the list?

Aliens among us

Last night I started reading Shattered Dreams, the memoir of a woman who grew up in the forties in a polygamous Mormon sect and married into a polygamous relationship. At age 14, several chapters in, her story already has me shaking my head in amazement. The centerpiece of the religion into which her community indoctrinated her was "The Principle," a term familiar to Big Love viewers. The "people of the covenant" -- those who rejected the LDS repudiation of polygamy in 1904 -- see their task in the world as "living The Principle," marrying as often as possible (because only through "brethren" husbands can wives be "pulled through the veil," attaining goddesshood after death and ruling over their own worlds after death beside their husbands) and having as many children as possible (because their worlds will be populated by their spirit-children, and because pre-existing "noble spirits" await bodily "tabernacles" so that they too can achieve godhood).

I know all these Mormon doctrines from my own reading and training. But what poleaxes me is how thoroughly and viscerally a group of twentieth-century women can believe it. The memoir makes it clear that most people living this way are far from happy. Ever-burgeoning families mean no escape from scarcity. Men are pulled apart by the demands of wives for space, resources and time; women are made to be complicit in their own marginalization by the requirement to recruit new wives to the family. Given the unsustainability of this life and its failure to bring fulfillment to any of its participants, it's hard to imagine continuing to make it the centerpiece of faith and practice generation after generation.

But the writer presents a familiar rationalization: suffer now, or suffer later. Nobody said living The Principle was easy. In fact, Brigham Young said that plural marriage would damn more than it saved. But they believe that they're called to the difficult way, the higher way, the all but impossible way. Marry for love now ... try to keep a man for yourself alone ... and eternity is lost. Worse, the covenant of which you are a child is betrayed. Your obligation isn't just to your own salvation, but to those who passed down this opportunity to you, and to those to whom you could pass it on.

I can imagine my students reading this book gaping with incredulity at the things these people believed. But it's not what they believed, but how it pulled them into relationships with each other -- not necessarily relationships of happiness, but those of persecution, secrecy, and intimate understanding that no one outside could share. In the end, that's what the vast majority of religions do. They don't necessarily make people happy, they don't necessarily make people ethical, they don't necessarily give people a larger perspective on the common good. They are beliefs and practices, absolute nonsense from outside, unbelievable except in very specific contexts of mutual enabling, that put people in relationship to each other. And it's those bonds that are make them so hard for adherents to put in perspective, even in the face of despair, violence, massive social disapproval, persecution, and the failure of their ideals.