The Body Apocalyptic

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We are all products of our upbringing. Our early assumptions, although sometimes challenged and overcome, are generally with us for life. So it was that my progression of education led me to a small, conservative college to major in religion. Compared to what I learned at Grove City, the historical criticism firmly in place at Boston University sounded downright sinful. Nevertheless, it made sense, so I followed reason. At Edinburgh we were way beyond historical criticism in that wonderful, European way. Somehow in the midst of all the excitement, I missed Post-Modernism. “Po-Mo” has, like most recent movements, been quickly added to the pile of the passé, but I find it refreshing. I just finished reading Tina Pippin’s Apocalyptic Bodies (Routledge, 1999). This may have been one of the first truly Post-Modern biblical critiques I have read, and it was fascinating. Pippin is taking on especially the book of Revelation. If more people had read her book there would have been less panic back around May 21.

I find feminine readings of the Bible enlightening. As a member of the gender largely responsible for a book filled with sex and violence, it is often difficult to see how the other half of the human race might read that same text. Having grown up with a literal understanding of Revelation, I never questioned whether it was a good or a bad thing. The end of the world must be God’s will, therefore, by definition, good. One of the beauties of a Post-Modern interpretation is that everything is thrown open to question. Pippin does just that. Noting the ennui associated with eternity, she asks a question that always lurked in my mind—isn’t too much of anything eventually a problem? Eternity itself becomes problematic. Where do we go from here?

Perhaps the most striking comment Pippin makes is in the context of her chapter on the monsters of the apocalypse, “Apocalyptic Horror.” She compares Revelation to horror movies and demonstrates how all the elements are there in the Bible. She notes, “There are many monsters in the Apocalypse, but the real bad ass monster sits on the heavenly throne.” Pippin explains that God, in Revelation, joys in killing off humankind. As many of us have come to learn, people are generally good; at least most people have done nothing to deserve the heinous punishments gleefully doled out in Revelation. That, of course, raises the sticky question of ethics as applied to the divine. Here the book of Job comes to mind where our hapless hero declares that even though he is innocent, God still can count him guilty. It is the human situation. And Job was a good guy. Pippin’s little book challenged many of the assumptions with which I’d grown. Anyone who can read such a book and not worry about being a good parent is more Po-Mo than me.

Anvil Chorus

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Last night I watched Les Choristes, the 2004 film that received two Academy Award nominations. The story, set in a school for troubled boys in France, felt eerily familiar. Not only did it resurrect the ghosts of Dead Poets Society, it felt like a page – or a substantial chapter – from my own life. The movie was recommended to my wife by one of my colleagues at Nashotah House, an institution that the film strangely resembles. The more I pondered the implications of a small school run by an authoritarian headmaster full of students with malevolent tendencies, the more I realized how much my Nashotah House experience has set the tone for much of my life. While I was at Nashotah, P. D. James’ murder-mystery novel, Death in Holy Orders came out. Immediately students and faculty began to speculate that James must have known of or have visited the seminary. Similarly, the Harry Potter novels led many to compare Nashotah to a decidedly less magical Hogwarts. Some of the students even honored me as the putative master of Ravenclaw.

My personal experience with religious institutions has led me to conclude that they indulge themselves in doling out the abuse that only religious sanction permits. I had attended the Presbyterian-affiliated Grove City College where chapel attendance was mandatory. My experience at Boston University School of Theology convinced me that seminaries were not a good fit for most people, particularly those like myself. I left declaring I would teach anywhere but a seminary. There is no balm in Gilead.

Forever after, any small, religious school with dark secrets would be my Nashotah House. But the problem is much wider than that. Religions seek to control. Some manage to do so benevolently, but too often the human element eclipses the divine. It is a temptation, when in positions of religious leadership, to insist that one’s personal outlook is correct. We all believe that our views are right. Those who receive the holy unction of an institution have the means to make it so. It is not Nashotah House, but human nature. When religious leaders confuse divinity and authority, that is when trouble inevitably begins.

Acts of God Algorithm

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One of the oddest industry-standard phrases in use in secular contexts is “acts of God.” In a recent edition of Bostonia, the Boston University alumni magazine, an article entitled “The Acts of God Algorithm” seemed to promise some insight into this bizarre phenomenon. The piece, it turns out, is about an insurance analyst named Karen Clark. Of course, the place where “acts of God” are regularly invoked is in the insurance business. The reason this is so interesting is that in a nation as religiously motivated as the United States, people simply accept the slush-pile, default “act of God” as a given. The phrase, however, betrays a depth of fuzzy thinking and bad theology.

Does an “act of God” apply to an atheist? Does a devout Hindu have to accept any disaster that the monotheistic god and insurance companies present her or him with? Who tests to see if “God” is behind any of these acts? Given that monotheists differ widely on the day-to-day involvement of God in the natural world – certainly the world of insurance companies – how are any acts allocated to God? Legally! Predestinarians would assert that all acts are acts of God, and thus their insurance companies should be prepared for all such contingencies (they would, of course, have been predestined to deny this). Even those who accept less regular interference from on high would have trouble discerning whether a human-caused accident might or might not have had some hidden message from God. Are insurance moguls the ones qualified to decide?

To call any natural event an “act of God” betrays a level of jaded, if not indolent thinking that is inappropriate to all except those in the business of making money. Life is uncertain; it comes with no guarantees. Somehow our society accepts that if we pay good money to top-heavy, overly wealthy companies, bad things won’t happen to us, and if they do we get paid back. This kind of theology is diametrically opposed to the worldviews of the Bible and many monotheistic religious outlooks. Yet we accept that hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods are “acts of God.” The sneeze that causes a motorist to accidentally run a red light is not. And insurance brokers are weeping all the way to the bank.

Cryptid Be Thy Name

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While poking around the internet last night to take my mind off the heat and humidity surrounding me, I stumbled across an article entitled “The Religious Struggle over Cryptozoology” on a site called Science and Religion Today. The piece was written by Joe Laycock, a doctoral candidate at one of my alma maters, Boston University. Having just finished Bruce Hood’s Supersense, there was a pleasing euphony in the coincidence. Cryptozoology is the study of unknown animals, and is not necessarily based on the supernatural (although it may fall within Hood’s definition of it). Laycock notes that two religious elements in society have latched onto this study: New Agers and Creationists. Creationists, it seems, see in certain cryptids, such as the Loch Ness Monster, hold-overs from the Mesolithic Era that prove the Mesolithic Era never existed. God can still make dinosaurs today, therefore the Bible (which doesn’t mention dinosaurs at all) must be true.

The draw of the unknown

One of the most welcome parts of Hood’s thesis was its consonance with Stephen Asma’s On Monsters, a book I’ve posted on before. Both authors explore how the human psyche reacts against what it perceives to be “strange mixes,” beings that cross-over between readily defined categories. Hood addresses this by tackling the concept of “essence” while Asma notes a dread accompanied by a sense of wonder. Hood demonstrates that from a scientific point of view, there is no such thing as the “essence” of a person, object, or living thing. Such ideas are the cling-ons from the era of souls and radically distinct species and genders. Closer observation has taught us that many such things are more of a continuum than a series of sharply defined types. Religions prefer to have fixed categories. Religious ethics often depend on them.

Laycock suggests that both New Ageism and Creationism “can be read as a religious response to the cultural authority of science.” Religions fear that which can be empirically demonstrated since it throws the god-of-the-gaps into the dryer and he comes out smaller each time. This is so, despite the fact that Creationists crave scientific respectability. While teaching my course on Myth and Mystery at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, I dwelt on cryptids for a few sessions. They are indeed often surrounded with a religious mystique. I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss the possibility of undiscovered species, many new ones are described by science every year. Nor would I say that they are supernatural. Nature has ways of surprising us still, and as Asma clearly demonstrates, we still have a need for monsters.

Mystery of Mystic

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Ever since my school days at Boston University, even before a movie made the town famous, I wanted to visit Mystic, Connecticut. Perhaps it was the draw of the name that evoked foggy harbors and suggested the possibility of some kind of enlightenment. Perhaps it was because Mystic is near the gray waters of the north Atlantic that so captivate me. Perhaps because I am innately attracted by the sense of place. Whatever the reason, since we needed a break from my perpetual quasi-unemployment and my wife’s demanding hours, we have come to Mystic at last. Since traffic was exceptionally heavy, we haven’t had a chance to explore much beyond Mystic Pizza, now an iconic stop for all visitors.

She wasn't there

Curious about the name with its quasi-religious overtones, I tried to find in the town’s literature some hint of its origin. Nobody knows for sure. Like many “American” toponyms, however, Mystic likely derives from native American roots. The suggestion has been made that it means “great river whose water is driven in waves” (missi tuk). To the colonial ear ever alert for religious significance, this may have become “Mystic.” The true origin of the name may never be known.

Religious enthusiasm among early European colonists and their scions further west often inspired quasi-spiritual toponyms. Devil’s Tower and Devil’s Lake (Wyoming and Wisconsin, respectively) had no associations with the dark lord, but rather were locations of spiritual significance for the native populations. Grasping for a way to express this, the best evangelical Christianity could come up with was “Devil.” At least Mystic sounds much less diabolical. As we explore this town I will, by dint of natural disposition, keep an eye open for the religious implications. If I, perchance, uncover the true origin of the name, my readers will be the first to know.

Biblical Outlooks and Science Fiction

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Alumni magazines depress me. Between my wife and I, we receive a half-dozen every month. I thumb through and see the cheery faces of classmates, most of whom I don’t know, who’ve gone on to great things – writing books, world travel, scientific breakthroughs. They’re not on the couch Saturday afternoons in New Jersey watching 1950’s sci-fi and wandering what went wrong. Especially bad is Bostonia, since I attended Boston University with many noteworthy individuals. Being forced from academia early in my career because of petty religious differences, I just want to bury my head and grab the remote. An article in this month’s BU shame-fest, however, pictured a professor, younger than myself, who joined the school of theology after I left. The title of the piece is “Biblical Sexuality.” Well, the connection with this blog couldn’t be more obvious.

Dr. Jennifer Knust is a professor of Christian Scriptures at BU who has written a couple of books on sexuality and the Bible. I’ve read widely on this topic in the Hebrew Bible, and was curious as to what the post-Jesus crowd was saying these days. The article specifically addresses homosexuality, but I did applaud one of Dr. Knust’s statements: “My main argument is that biblical texts do not speak with one voice.” Amen. Bravo. Goal! Our society is so imbued with the bibliolatry of the Religious Right that it is difficult for most Americans to understand that the Bible was written by many people over a few centuries and these people did not always share the same outlook. The Bible is an exercise in multiple voice-overs. Specific religions, as many denominations of Christianity testify, have harmonized these divergent voices into a coherent, if biblically untrue, theology. Some voices must be stifled so that others may dominate.

We live in a religiously plural world. There are about as many religions as there are believing people. We experience the world through our own lenses and within our own gray-matter. Our perspectives are uniquely our own. And yet religious leaders bend, worry, and force views closer to their own so that they might have a theological quorum, a consensus that one viewpoint is right. They silence the Bible’s divergent voices and claim they do not exist. I wish Dr. Knust well. She’s got the right perspective, in the opinion of my own weary gray-matter. And speaking of gray, where did I put the remote?