D01   1 <FROWN:D01\><h_><p_>Theology and the Physical Sciences<p/><h/>
D01   2 <p_>Until early modern times the relations between theology and 
D01   3 science were as harmonious as between theology and philosophy. 
D01   4 Indeed, no sharp line of demarcation existed between philosophy and 
D01   5 the natural sciences. As we have seen in the last chapter, 
D01   6 systematic theology has retained, even to the present day, very 
D01   7 close links with philosophy. The relations between theology and 
D01   8 science have, however, been strained by a number of crises such as 
D01   9 the Galileo affair in the early seventeenth century and the 
D01  10 controversies about human evolution in the mid-nineteenth century. 
D01  11 In our own century battles have continued to rage between 
D01  12 fundamentalist Christians and scientists, as the Scopes 'monkey 
D01  13 trial' of 1925 and the court cases about 'creation science' in the 
D01  14 early 1980s bear witness. These conflicts direct our attention to 
D01  15 the question of systematic theology's relation to the physical 
D01  16 sciences.<p/>
D01  17 <h_><p_>Blondel on Faith and Science<p/><h/>
D01  18 <p_>Vatican I, without speaking directly of the physical sciences, 
D01  19 laid down some general principles in its teaching on faith and 
D01  20 reason. It affirmed that the two types of cognition can never be at 
D01  21 odds and that they mutually support each other. Reason can assist 
D01  22 faith by enabling it to construct apologetic arguments and 
D01  23 theological systems. Faith assists reason by extending reason's 
D01  24 sphere into the realm of supernatural mysteries and by delivering 
D01  25 reason from errors, thanks to the surer light of revelation. Within 
D01  26 its own proper sphere, the council declared, scientific reason 
D01  27 enjoys a proper autonomy. Deriving from God, <quote_>"the lord of 
D01  28 the sciences,"<quote/> reason can, with the help of grace, lead 
D01  29 people to God.<p/>
D01  30 <p_>A generation after Vatican I, the French philosopher Maurice 
D01  31 Blondel attempted to apply the teaching of the council to the 
D01  32 academic situation of his own day. In the last two parts of a 
D01  33 four-part article on faith, first published in 1906, he took up the 
D01  34 linkage between faith and science. The relationship can be 
D01  35 variously conceived, he said, in correspondence with different 
D01  36 conceptions of science. According to the classical concept of 
D01  37 science, taken over by Thomas Aquinas from the ancient Greeks, the 
D01  38 concepts and theories of science are controlled by their objects 
D01  39 and are intended to reproduce the structures of external reality. 
D01  40 In that case science could directly confirm, or directly collide 
D01  41 with, philosophy and faith.<p/>
D01  42 <p_>According to a second view, held by some of Blondel's 
D01  43 contemporaries such as Pierre Duhem, science was a system of 
D01  44 symbols or notations devised for the purpose of accomplishing 
D01  45 certain practical tasks. Science in that case would make no 
D01  46 metaphysical claims. The only criterion would be its fruitfulness. 
D01  47 In that case science and faith could coexist in mutual 
D01  48 indifference.<p/>
D01  49 <p_>Blondel was dissatisfied with both theories. The first, 
D01  50 demanding concordism, failed to give science its proper autonomy. 
D01  51 The second theory, by divorcing science from the real, would 
D01  52 eliminate the possibility of any interaction between science and 
D01  53 faith. In Blondel's estimation, science was autonomous to the 
D01  54 extent that it was concerned with formal coherence, logical force, 
D01  55 and inner consistency. But insofar as science aims to serve the 
D01  56 needs of human life, it must insert itself into the real order. 
D01  57 Even though scientific discovery does not have directly 
D01  58 metaphysical significance, it does refer to the real order. Its 
D01  59 notations are not merely arbitrary or conventional. It yields an 
D01  60 authentic, though limited, grasp of truth. Moral and religious 
D01  61 thinkers must take account of certitudes acquired through science: 
D01  62 for example, that the firmament is not a solid vault; that there 
D01  63 are antipodes.<p/>
D01  64 <p_>According to Vatican I, Blondel notes, science and faith must 
D01  65 cooperate, even while following their distinct methods. Conflict 
D01  66 can arise, as the council stated, either from a misunderstanding of 
D01  67 faith or from false conclusions of reason. Faith gives rise to 
D01  68 confusion when it is falsely reduced to exterior formulations or 
D01  69 when people look for literal agreement with scientific statements, 
D01  70 overlooking the different modes of discourse. Science can be 
D01  71 responsible for conflicts when it usurps the competence of 
D01  72 faith.<p/>
D01  73 <p_>A measure of friction between science and faith, said Blondel, 
D01  74 is inevitable. Such friction can lead to advances. When science 
D01  75 operates rightly in its own proper sphere, its findings can help 
D01  76 believers over<?_>-<?/>come their unconscious narrowness. By 
D01  77 adjusting to the progress of geology, archaeology, and other 
D01  78 sciences, faith gains in solidity. For the same God, as Vatican I 
D01  79 declared, is the lord of science and of theology. God never 
D01  80 contradicts himself.<p/>
D01  81 <p_>Vatican II, in its Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the 
D01  82 Modern World, extended the teaching of Vatican I along lines that 
D01  83 Blondel would have welcomed. After affirming with Vatican I that 
D01  84 the sciences have legitimate autonomy within their proper spheres 
D01  85 of competence (GS 60), the Pastoral Constitution went on to 
D01  86 admonish theologians to cooperate with experts in the various 
D01  87 sciences and to propose the Church's teaching on God, humanity, and 
D01  88 the world in ways that take advantage of recent scientific advances 
D01  89 (GS 62).<p/>
D01  90 <h_><p_>Message of John Paul II<p/><h/>
D01  91 <p_>John Paul II, even before becoming pope, had a keen interest in 
D01  92 the sciences; as pope he has maintained close relationships with 
D01  93 leading scientists through instrumentalities such as the Pontifical 
D01  94 Academy of Sciences. In 1983, at the 350th anniversary of the 
D01  95 publication of Galileo's <tf_>Dialogues Concerning Two New 
D01  96 Sciences<tf/>, John Paul II remarked that the Church's experience 
D01  97 during and after the Galileo affair <quote_>"has led to a more 
D01  98 mature attitude and a more accurate grasp of the authority proper 
D01  99 to her."<quote/> He added: <quote_>"It is only through humble and 
D01 100 assiduous study that she learns to dissociate the essentials of 
D01 101 faith from the scientific systems of a given age, especially when a 
D01 102 culturally influenced reading of the Bible seemed to be linked to 
D01 103 an obligatory cosmogony."<quote/> Already in 1979 the pope had 
D01 104 established a commission to make a careful examination of the 
D01 105 Galileo question. A member of the commission has interpreted the 
D01 106 condemnations of 1616 and 1633 as having merely disciplinary, 
D01 107 rather than doctrinal, force.<p/>
D01 108 <p_>A new phase in the development of the Catholic understanding of 
D01 109 the relationship between religion and science was inaugurated by 
D01 110 the Vatican-sponsored study week held at Castelgandolfo on 
D01 111 September 21-26, 1987, to mark the 300th anniversary of the 
D01 112 publication of Isaac Newton's <tf_>Philosophiae Naturalis principia 
D01 113 mathematica<tf/>. In a message of June 1, 1988, reflecting on this 
D01 114 conference, Pope John Paul II presented a very open, confident, and 
D01 115 encouraging assessment of the relations between religion and 
D01 116 science. Ernan McMullin, an expert in the field, calls this message 
D01 117 <quote_>"without a doubt the most important and most specific papal 
D01 118 statement on the relations between religion and science in recent 
D01 119 times."<quote/> Without preempting the prerogatives of working 
D01 120 theologians, philosophers, and scientists to make their own 
D01 121 applications, the Holy Father proposes a program that appears to be 
D01 122 feasible, valuable, and even necessary for the good of all 
D01 123 concerned.<p/>
D01 124 <p_>The general position taken by John Paul II may be indicated by 
D01 125 reference to the standard typology of the relationships between 
D01 126 religion and the sciences: conflict, separation, fusion, dialogue, 
D01 127 and the like.<p/>
D01 128 <p_>Very clearly the pope rejects the position of conflict, in 
D01 129 which it would be necessary to choose either science or religion to 
D01 130 the exclusion of the other. This rejection can take either of two 
D01 131 forms. One form is a 'scientism' such as that of Thomas Henry 
D01 132 Huxley, who asserted in a sermon in 1866: <quote_>"There is but one 
D01 133 kind of knowledge, and but one method of acquiring it,"<quote/> 
D01 134 namely, science. By the universal application of scientific method, 
D01 135 positivists believed, it would be possible to dispel the dark 
D01 136 clouds of dogma and inaugurate a bright new era of free assent to 
D01 137 universally acknowledged truth. This triumphalist variety of 
D01 138 scientism is not yet dead. The periodical <tf_>Free Inquiry<tf/>, 
D01 139 for example, promotes science and reason as opposed to faith and 
D01 140 religion. The 'scientistic' program tends to reduce quality to 
D01 141 quantity and to emphasize the technological aspects of life. But it 
D01 142 also makes room for a certain mystical exaltation of science, to 
D01 143 the point where it becomes a pseudoreligion, involving what the 
D01 144 pope in his message calls an <quote_>"unconscious theology"<quote/> 
D01 145 (M 14). Jacques Monod and Carl Sagan are sometimes cited, though 
D01 146 not by the pope, as examples of scientists who tend to extrapolate 
D01 147 beyond the proper limits of their own discipline.<p/>
D01 148 <p_>On the other hand, the pope no less firmly rejects the 
D01 149 alternative possibility - the religionism of those who oppose 
D01 150 science in the name of faith. In this framework theology becomes, 
D01 151 as the pope warns, a pseudoscience (M 14). This may be judged to 
D01 152 have occurred in the case of the 'creation science' taught by some 
D01 153 American fundamentalists. The 'creationist' position, as Langdon 
D01 154 Gilkey and others have shown, is in fact antiscientific. According 
D01 155 to the sounder view, held by the pope in his message, faith cannot 
D01 156 do the work of science, nor can the Bible function as a textbook of 
D01 157 astronomy or biology.<p/>
D01 158 <p_>The second major position that the pope rejects may be called 
D01 159 separationism. Some thoughtful Christians solve the problem by 
D01 160 relegating religion and science to separate spheres. This kind of 
D01 161 separation has become almost axiomatic in Protestant theology since 
D01 162 Immanuel Kant, who confined the competence of theoretical reason to 
D01 163 the order of phenomena and regarded religious beliefs as 
D01 164 deliverances of practical reason. Not only liberal theologians, 
D01 165 such as Albrecht Ritschl and Adolf Harnack, but neo-orthodox 
D01 166 thinkers such as Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, and Paul Tillich 
D01 167 accepted this division into two spheres. In an extreme reaction 
D01 168 against the excesses of Galileo's judges Tillich writes:<p/>
D01 169 <p_><quote_>Knowledge of revelation cannot interfere with ordinary 
D01 170 knowledge. Likewise, ordinary knowledge cannot interfere with 
D01 171 knowledge of revelation. There is no scientific theory which is 
D01 172 more favorable to the truth of revelation than any other theory. It 
D01 173 is disastrous for theology if theologians prefer one scientific 
D01 174 view to others on theological grounds. And it was humiliating for 
D01 175 theology when theologians were afraid of new theories for religious 
D01 176 reasons, trying to resist them as long as possible, and finally 
D01 177 giving in when resistance had become impossible. This ill-conceived 
D01 178 resistance of theologians from the time of Galileo to the time of 
D01 179 Darwin was one of the causes of the split between religion and 
D01 180 secular culture in the past centuries.<quote/><p/>
D01 181 <p_>McMullin, in a recent article, notes that<p/>
D01 182 <p_><quote_>at the height of the 'creation-science' dispute in the 
D01 183 U.S. some years ago, the National Academy of Sciences issued a 
D01 184 declaration maintaining that religion and science are, in 
D01 185 principle, entirely separate domains, one pertaining to faith and 
D01 186 the other to reason, and hence of no possible relevance to one 
D01 187 another. The new papal message takes issue with this convenient and 
D01 188 popular way of avoiding the risks of conflict.<quote/><p/>
D01 189 <p_>In our own day philosophers and theologians influenced by 
D01 190 Ludwig Wittgenstein frequently assert, as does Richard Braithwaite, 
D01 191 that religious language is not intended to communicate cognitive 
D01 192 truth but to recommend a way of life and to evoke a set of 
D01 193 attitudes. In a somewhat similar vein, George Lindbeck maintains 
D01 194 that doctrinal statements are <quote_>"communally authoritative 
D01 195 rules of discourse, attitude, and action."<quote/> In all these 
D01 196 theories the dogmas of the Church, even though they may seem to 
D01 197 describe objective realities, are reinterpreted as symbolic 
D01 198 expressions either describing the inner experience of the speaker 
D01 199 or regulating the conduct of the worshiping community.<p/>
D01 200 <p_>Some philosophers of science regard science as directly 
D01 201 informative about the real order. But others, as we have noted in 
D01 202 our discussion of Blondel, hold that science has a purely pragmatic 
D01 203 aim, and thus that it cannot deny any claims of revealed religion 
D01 204 about objective reality. Thus they rule out the possibility of 
D01 205 conflict from the side of science.<p/>
D01 206 <p_>Peace between religion and science is achieved in these 
D01 207 systems, but only at the price of depriving religion or science of 
D01 208 its capacity to say anything true about the world of ordinary 
D01 209 experience. Wisely in my judgment, John Paul II takes a position 
D01 210 akin to that of Blondel. He refuses to settle for a world divided 
D01 211 into two cultures, literary and scientific, as described by C.P. 
D01 212 Snow in his classic essay. Interaction, according to the pope, is 
D01 213 necessary for the proper functioning of both religion and science.
D02   1 <FROWN:D02\><h_><p_>CHAPTER FIVE<p/>
D02   2 <p_>RECONSTRUCTING CHRISTIAN NARRATIVE ETHICS<p/>
D02   3 <p_>ETHICAL PARADOX AFTER AUSCHWITZ<p/><h/>
D02   4 <p_>Despite the case I have made for the influence of Luther's 
D02   5 two-kingdom ethic on the formation of the demonic double among the 
D02   6 Nazi doctors, I would argue that the failure of Christian ethics 
D02   7 during the Shoah can be thought of as a failure to maintain its 
D02   8 two-kingdom ethic. Although Christianity began as a holy community, 
D02   9 a separated community embodying an anthropological ethic of being 
D02  10 in but not of the world, from the time of Constantine its ethic 
D02  11 largely collapsed into a cosmological ethic of sacred cosmic order. 
D02  12 Luther's Reformation theology, which significantly shaped the ethos 
D02  13 of Germany, attempted to reinstitute a two-kingdom ethic. Opting 
D02  14 for a paradoxical relation between the church and the world, he 
D02  15 separated the realms of the sacred and the secular, which he 
D02  16 believed had been dangerously fused together in the medieval 
D02  17 hierarchical order of Christendom. The way in which he separated 
D02  18 the two realms of church and state, however, permitted the 
D02  19 paradoxical relation between them to collapse once again into a 
D02  20 cosmological ethic and prepared the way for the eventual formation 
D02  21 of the <foreign|>Deutsch Christian gospel of the Aryan Jesus.<p/>
D02  22 <p_>The collapse of Luther's two-kingdom ethic is primarily the 
D02  23 result of his privatization of religious experience. As the 
D02  24 secularization of public order expanded during the Renaissance and 
D02  25 Reformation, the public dimension of religious experience 
D02  26 contracted. For Luther, the language of religion is the language of 
D02  27 the inner person, and the language of the secular public order (of 
D02  28 politics, science, etc.) belongs to the outer person. Because the 
D02  29 kingdom of God is restricted to the inner and the kingdom of this 
D02  30 world to the outer, the relation between the two ethical orders is 
D02  31 rendered complementary rather than dialectical. The essential 
D02  32 element of dialectical tension between the two ethical orders is 
D02  33 eliminated. As a result the two kingdoms fit together too 
D02  34 comfortably. The ethical tension between the cosmological and 
D02  35 anthropological orders collapses into a sacral ethic of 
D02  36 unquestioning obedience. The result is a pseudo-two-kingdom 
D02  37 ethic.<p/>
D02  38 <p_>Luther's instincts were right in attempting to recover a 
D02  39 two-kingdom ethic, but his own version failed to alter 
D02  40 substantially the Constantinian model of church-state relations. 
D02  41 After Auschwitz, Luther's paradoxical two<?_>-<?/>kingdom ethic 
D02  42 must undergo a fundamental revision. What is at stake here is more 
D02  43 than restructuring Protestant ethics. As I suggested in the 
D02  44 introduction, a two-realm or two-kingdom ethic is an essential 
D02  45 feature of every anthropological tradition (e.g., Jewish, 
D02  46 Christian, Buddhist, Socratic) and essential to the critique of 
D02  47 culture. Therefore, understanding what went wrong with two-kingdom 
D02  48 ethics in the Christian tradition can point the way to a viable 
D02  49 reconstruction that is of value to all holy communities.<p/>
D02  50 <p_>Jacques Ellul offers a reconstruction of two-kingdom ethics 
D02  51 which directly addresses the weakness of Luther's ethic. Ellul, a 
D02  52 sociologist as well as a theologian in the Barthian tradition, has 
D02  53 written over forty books on the social and ethical aspects of our 
D02  54 technological civilization. As a sociologist, Ellul took on the 
D02  55 task of identifying, analyzing, and articulating the 
D02  56 <quote_>"cosmological ethic"<quote/> of our technological 
D02  57 civilization. But as a theologian, Ellul then responded to that 
D02  58 ethic by developing his own desacralizing <quote_>"anthropological 
D02  59 ethic."<quote/> Like Richard Rubenstein and Arthur Cohen, Ellul 
D02  60 sees the cold and calculating technobureaucratic structure of 
D02  61 modern civilization as demonic and dehumanizing. The technicist 
D02  62 ideal of efficiency subverts all other values, for once a society 
D02  63 has opted for the most efficient solution in every area of human 
D02  64 activity (his definition of a technicist society), human beings 
D02  65 must conform to technical requirements, no matter how dehumanizing, 
D02  66 for less efficient solutions simply cannot compete. Ellul's 
D02  67 sociological work seems to suggest that human existence is 
D02  68 determined by and conformed to technical and social forces, but 
D02  69 that remains true only within the horizon of a cosmological ethic. 
D02  70 Within the horizon of an anthropological ethic of transcendence, 
D02  71 individuals may yet find it possible to exercise the freedom to 
D02  72 call society into question and initiate a social transformation - 
D02  73 one that brings the Is under the judgment of the Ought. This 
D02  74 possibility occurs, Ellul insists, not when a cosmological ethic is 
D02  75 replaced by an anthropological ethic but, as Eric Voegelin would 
D02  76 agree, when one embraces both in a paradoxical relationship.<p/>
D02  77 <p_>This paradox is expressed in Ellul's contrast of the sacred and 
D02  78 the holy, which parallels Voegelin's distinction between 
D02  79 cosmological and anthropological ethics (distinctions that I have 
D02  80 adopted as foundational for my own work). Ellul departs from 
D02  81 ordinary usage here by treating the terms <tf|>sacred and <tf|>holy 
D02  82 as antonyms rather than as synonyms. The sacred performs the 
D02  83 sociological function of integration and legitimation. Its positive 
D02  84 function is to create a sense of order within which human life can 
D02  85 be carried on. But its demonic propensity is to create an absolute 
D02  86 or <quote|>"closed" order (in which Is = Ought) that prevents the 
D02  87 continuing transformation of self and society. Without such a 
D02  88 self-transcending openness to the future, life ceases to be either 
D02  89 human or free.<p/>
D02  90 <p_>Thus for human life to be creative, Ellul argues, the claims of 
D02  91 the social order to be sacred and unalterable must be relativized 
D02  92 by that which is its opposite - the holy. The holy is that which is 
D02  93 Wholly Other than society. Where the sacred demands integration and 
D02  94 closure, the holy (as the Hebrew word <foreign|>qadosh indicates) 
D02  95 demands separation and openness to transformation. A consciousness 
D02  96 of the holy creates a feeling of tension and separateness between 
D02  97 self and society. That tension prevents the social order from 
D02  98 becoming absolute because it prevents the total integration of the 
D02  99 self into society. This, in turn, forces the institutional 
D02 100 structures of society to remain fluid and open to further 
D02 101 development.<p/>
D02 102 <p_>The paradox of freedom is that it is always an act of revolt 
D02 103 against a limit. But the real limit, for Ellul, is a 
D02 104 <quote_>"combination of what is actually impassable and the 
D02 105 inviolably sacred."<quote/> Our sense of sacral awe makes us accept 
D02 106 the limits of a given social order as absolute and also makes us 
D02 107 seek to conform to these limits. Only our consciousness of the holy 
D02 108 can enable us to desacralize and rehabilitate the sacred so as to 
D02 109 open a social order to further development in the name of the 
D02 110 infinite. The possibility of ethical freedom depends on the 
D02 111 possibility of having a hope in something radically other than our 
D02 112 technological civilization and its promises of fulfillment. For the 
D02 113 hopes promoted by the mass media of our civilization serve only to 
D02 114 integrate us into the collective social order as a sacred status 
D02 115 quo. By contrast, a radically other hope would individuate persons, 
D02 116 set them apart from the collectivizing influences of mass media, 
D02 117 and give them the critical autonomy that belongs to an 
D02 118 anthropological ethic.<p/>
D02 119 <p_>Ellul's designation for this unique hope is 
D02 120 <quote_>"apocalyptic hope."<quote/> When he speaks of apocalypse, 
D02 121 however, he is not speaking of it in the literal and popular sense. 
D02 122 On the contrary, <quote_>"hope ... can be situated only in an 
D02 123 apocalyptic line of thought, not that there is hope because one has 
D02 124 an apocalyptic concept of history, but rather, that there is 
D02 125 apocalypse because one lives in hope."<quote/> Hope is apocalyptic 
D02 126 not because it expresses a literal expectation of the end of the 
D02 127 world but because the hope expressed in the book of Revelation 
D02 128 breaks radically with the present order of things in order to 
D02 129 inaugurate a new creation. An apocalyptic hope is a hope in the one 
D02 130 who is both Wholly Other and the end (<tf|>telos) of all things. 
D02 131 Every person who is moved to embrace such a hope participates in 
D02 132 the transcending freedom of God and inserts that freedom into 
D02 133 society as a limit on its claims to absoluteness. Such a hope 
D02 134 ruptures one's psychological dependence on 'this (technological) 
D02 135 world' and permits one to break free and engage in acts that 
D02 136 violate the sacral status of efficient technique, the ideological 
D02 137 or mythological hopes of consumerism, and the political illusions 
D02 138 that dominate our technical civilization.<p/>
D02 139 <p_>When Ellul speaks about this kind of hope, he takes Judaism to 
D02 140 be the model and argues that Christians must also learn to live a 
D02 141 diaspora style of existence as a holy community. <quote_>"Israel is 
D02 142 a people centered entirely on hope, living by that alone .... As 
D02 143 the one hoping people of the world, it is Israel which provides us 
D02 144 with the model for this age ... an example of the incognito [i.e., 
D02 145 its hidden presence as a holy community within the larger society]. 
D02 146 In this age ... I think that Christians ... should take that as a 
D02 147 model."<quote/> Indeed, <quote_>"if history is looked at closely, 
D02 148 and without the usual Christian prejudice, it turns out to have 
D02 149 been forged at least as much by the Jewish incognito as by 
D02 150 Christian activism."<quote/> <quote_>"There is only one political 
D02 151 endeavor on which world history now depends; that is the union of 
D02 152 the Church and Israel. ... These two communities ... must join 
D02 153 forces so that, in effect, this Word of God might finally be 
D02 154 written. ... It would be written in counterpoint to the 
D02 155 technological history of these times."<quote/> Ellul is speaking 
D02 156 not of an institutional merger but of a conversion of the church to 
D02 157 share the same hope so as to support Israel <quote_>"in its long 
D02 158 march through the same night and toward the same Kingdom."<quote/> 
D02 159 The Christian community is the wild olive branch that has been 
D02 160 grafted onto the cultivated olive tree of Judaism precisely to 
D02 161 share in this hope.<p/>
D02 162 <p_>Ellul's importance for post-Shoah Christian theology and ethics 
D02 163 is linked to the fact that he is one of those rare Christian 
D02 164 theologians who takes the Jewish experience of faith seriously in 
D02 165 its own right. The essence of apocalyptic hope is embodied, for 
D02 166 Ellul, in the Jewish tradition of chutzpah or wrestling with God. 
D02 167 In an age of God's silence and abandonment, hope assaults God and 
D02 168 wrestles with God. Prayer, which Ellul calls <quote_>"the ultimate 
D02 169 act of hope,"<quote/> is the <quote_>"demand that God not keep 
D02 170 silence. ... [It is] a striving with God, of whom one makes 
D02 171 demands, whom one importunes, whom one attacks constantly, whose 
D02 172 silence and absence one would penetrate at all costs. It is a 
D02 173 combat to oblige God to respond, to reveal himself anew."<quote/> 
D02 174 It is motivated by a <quote_>"commitment on behalf of man [that] is 
D02 175 decisively bound to the commitment with God,"<quote/> from which 
D02 176 <quote_>"all further radicalism, of behavior, of style of life and 
D02 177 of action"<quote/> comes.<p/>
D02 178 <p_>For Ellul, a Christian ethic emerges out of this shared 
D02 179 paradoxical hope against hope. The only force that is a match for 
D02 180 the integrating power of the fascination and hope inspired by the 
D02 181 sacred is an apocalyptic hope inspired by the holy. Herein lies the 
D02 182 ethical power of the dualistic symbolism of anthropological ethics. 
D02 183 Only one whose hope is not in this world would even dare to 
D02 184 contravene the present sacred order. Every act of inefficiency in 
D02 185 the name of human dignity, every act of intelligent compromise in a 
D02 186 world of politically absolute positions, is an audacious act that 
D02 187 serves to delegitimate the present order and introduce new 
D02 188 possibilities of ethical freedom.<p/>
D02 189 <p_>Apocalyptic hope gives birth to an ethic of holiness, that is, 
D02 190 of separation from the world. But unlike the sectarian, Ellul is 
D02 191 not speaking of physical separation but of psychological and 
D02 192 spiritual separation - that is, a change of hopes, from the claims 
D02 193 for hope and meaning mediated by mass media to a hope in the Wholly 
D02 194 Other. It is <quote_>"separation ... only for the sake of mission. 
D02 195 The break has to come first, but it implies rediscovery of the 
D02 196 world, society, and one's neighbor in a new type of 
D02 197 relationship."<quote/><p/>
D02 198 <p_>Ellul's intellectual roots are in the work of the 
D02 199 twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth and the nineteenth-century 
D02 200 philosopher S<*_>o-slash<*/>ren Kierkegaard. But his fundamental 
D02 201 stance on Christian ethics goes back even further, to the 
D02 202 theologies of the Reformation and especially to Martin Luther's 
D02 203 two-kingdom ethic. According to H.R. Niebuhr, Christians have 
D02 204 historically responded to the problem of the two kingdoms in one of 
D02 205 five different ways. At one extreme, Christians have preached a 
D02 206 'Christ against culture.' This is the sectarian option that sees 
D02 207 the world as totally evil and seeks to withdraw from the larger 
D02 208 culture into its own separate world.
D03   1 <FROWN:D03\><h_><p_>Toward a Postliberal Religious Education<p/>
D03   2 <p_>BY OWEN F. CUMMINGS<p/>
D03   3 <p_>Cummings argues the need for a postliberal religious education 
D03   4 that immerses the learner in Christian culture.<p/><h/>
D03   5 <p_>There is a considerable degree of division and confusion in 
D03   6 Catholic circles about the nature, role, and function of religious 
D03   7 education. At the international level, for example, there is the 
D03   8 debate surrounding the proposed <tf_>Catechism for the Universal 
D03   9 Church<tf/>. At a national level, in England, there is a degree of 
D03  10 interdiocesan controversy over the recent religions syllabus for 
D03  11 high school, <tf_>Weaving the Web<tf/>. Questions are asked: Is it 
D03  12 too experiential? Is there enough Christian doctrine in it? Is the 
D03  13 method too phenomenological? Something of this unease lay behind 
D03  14 the contributions of Padraic O'Hare and Francis D. Kelly in 
D03  15 <tf_>The Living Light<tf/> in 1984.<p/>
D03  16 <p_>The purpose of this essay is to address that unease through a 
D03  17 critical application of George Lindbeck's <tf_>The Nature of 
D03  18 Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age<tf/>. This 
D03  19 book has given rise to wide-ranging analysis and criticism since 
D03  20 its publication, and has been described by Walter Kasper as the 
D03  21 <quote_>"... most noteworthy advance on the level of systematic 
D03  22 theology"<quote/> on discussions of foundational theology, and by 
D03  23 David Ford as <quote_>"a proposed 'paradigm shift' for conceiving 
D03  24 the nature of religion, doctrine, and theology."<quote/><p/>
D03  25 <h_><p_>What Is Postliberal Theology?<p/><h/>
D03  26 <p_>The term 'postliberal' is ambiguous. It seems to connote 
D03  27 conservatism in the pejorative sense of the word, insularity, and 
D03  28 even fundamentalism. Nothing could be further from Lindbeck's 
D03  29 intention and position. Described by David Tracy as <quote_>"... 
D03  30 <tf|>the major theological contributor to genuine ecumenical 
D03  31 dialogue among the major confessions,"<quote/> the core of 
D03  32 Lindbeck's postliberalism is best outlined in his own words:<p/>
D03  33 <p_><quote_>The four centuries of modernity are coming to an end. 
D03  34 <}_><-|>the <+|>The<}/> individualistic foundationalism 
D03  35 rationalism, always wavering between skeptical relativism and 
D03  36 totalitarian absolutism, is being replaced ... by an understanding 
D03  37 of knowledge and belief as socially and linguistically constituted. 
D03  38 Ideologies rooted in Enlightenment rationalism are 
D03  39 collapsing.<quote/><p/>
D03  40 <p_>The liberalism to which Lindbeck is opposed is 
D03  41 <quote_>"individualistic foundational rationalism,"<quote/> the 
D03  42 child of the Enlightenment. 'Postliberalism' is probably best 
D03  43 understood as a heuristic term, representing a more nuanced 
D03  44 approach to knowledge and belief as socially rather than 
D03  45 individually rooted.<p/>
D03  46 <p_>While Lindbeck has coined the term 'postliberal theology,' and 
D03  47 is its best known representative, it is a way of doing theology 
D03  48 that is shared by others, for example, the late Hans Frei, David 
D03  49 Kelsey, Ronald Theimann, and Brevard Childs, all having some 
D03  50 connection with Yale. At the same time, it is not a school in the 
D03  51 usual sense of that word. These theologians (and others) share a 
D03  52 methodological family resemblance in refusing to allow the modern, 
D03  53 'enlightened' secular world as such to determine the agenda for 
D03  54 theology or for the church. To plot a more detailed profile of 
D03  55 postliberal theology, the best way to proceed is to attend to 
D03  56 Lindbeck's own categories for theology as presented in <tf_>The 
D03  57 Nature of Doctrine<tf/>.<p/>
D03  58 <h_><p_>Models of Doctrine<p/><h/>
D03  59 <p_>Lindbeck describes three types or theories of doctrine: 
D03  60 cognitivist-propositional, experiential-expressivist, and 
D03  61 cultural-linguistic. One of the most articulate commentators on 
D03  62 postliberal theology, William Placher, advocates a somewhat simpler 
D03  63 nomenclature. Placher speaks of the cognitive model, the 
D03  64 revisionist model (= experiential-expressive), and the postliberal 
D03  65 model (= cultural-linguistic). For the sake of simplicity I shall 
D03  66 rely for the most part on Placher's terminology.<p/>
D03  67 <p_>The cognitive model of doctrine insists that doctrines make 
D03  68 truth claims about objective states of affairs. There is little or 
D03  69 no historical awareness or perspective for the doctrinal 
D03  70 cognitivist: <quote_>"For a propositionalist, if a doctrine is once 
D03  71 true, it is always true, and if it is once false, it is always 
D03  72 false."<quote/> The lack of informed historical perspective often 
D03  73 has the effect of making doctrine extrinsic to the believing 
D03  74 community, impedes a sensitive perception of the evolution of 
D03  75 doctrine, and is ecumenically sterile.<p/>
D03  76 <p_>The revisionist model of doctrine posits that doctrines express 
D03  77 experiences and attitudes of the believing subject. They are 
D03  78 noninformative symbols of inner feelings, attitudes, existential 
D03  79 orientations. Theologians from Schleiermacher through Rahner and 
D03  80 Lonergan to David Tracy exemplify this approach, according to 
D03  81 Lindbeck. This approach sits ill with the cognitive approach 
D03  82 because it underplays the objective status of doctrines. There is a 
D03  83 common assumption among revisionists that we have experience and 
D03  84 then search for a suitable language in which to express the meaning 
D03  85 of the experience. Christian doctrines are the expression of the 
D03  86 prelinguistic experience of Christian people. Presumably, for 
D03  87 revisionists, the same would hold true of Buddhist doctrines or 
D03  88 Muslim doctrines.<p/>
D03  89 <p_>Lindbeck articulates a third model of doctrine, the postliberal 
D03  90 or cultural-linguistic model, which he judges to be the most 
D03  91 appropriate. In this model, doctrines specify rules for Christian 
D03  92 speech and action. Taking his cue from the philosophy of language 
D03  93 of the latter Wittgenstein, Lindbeck insists that language does not 
D03  94 express an experience that precedes it. On the contrary, language 
D03  95 makes experience possible. Doctrines, whatever else they may be, 
D03  96 are language. And so, Walter Kasper can comment that 
D03  97 <quote_>"dogmas or theological doctrines do not have an expressive 
D03  98 meaning, but primarily a regulative and performative 
D03  99 meaning."<quote/> This regulative character of doctrine insists 
D03 100 that the primary function of church doctrines <quote_>"is their use 
D03 101 ... as communally authoritative rules of discourse, attitude, and 
D03 102 action."<quote/> Whereas in the revisionist or experiential model 
D03 103 the movement is from internal experience to external expression; in 
D03 104 the postliberal model it is the reverse. We <quote_>"internalize 
D03 105 through stories, symbols, rituals, behavior, and many other 
D03 106 influences, the 'language' through which we experience 
D03 107 reality."<quote/><p/>
D03 108 <h_><p_>Some Criticisms of Lindbeck<p/><h/>
D03 109 <p_>Lindbeck's work has met with criticism, the clearest sign that 
D03 110 he is being taken seriously by the <quote_>"public of the 
D03 111 academy,"<quote/> to use a prominent revisionist phrase! Kasper has 
D03 112 made the point that labeling Lindbeck as neo-orthodox or 
D03 113 neo-conservative advances nothing: <quote_>"Such strategies of 
D03 114 labeling and dismissing contribute nothing ... to true 
D03 115 understanding and to progress in constructive discussion of the 
D03 116 issues that we are, after all, faced with."<quote/> Kasper's point 
D03 117 is well taken, but, of course, it applies with equal force to 
D03 118 Lindbeck's labeling of others.<p/>
D03 119 <p_>Perhaps the major criticism of Lindbeck has to do with the 
D03 120 <tf_>a priori<tf/> difficulty of representing the irreducible 
D03 121 particularity and complexity of anyone's thought in clear-cut 
D03 122 categories such as cognitivist<?_>-<?/>propositionalism or 
D03 123 experiential-expressivism. Commentators of different theological 
D03 124 persuasions have lodged versions of this critique. Colman O'Neill, 
D03 125 a Thomist, believes that any Thomist <quote_>"will have a basic 
D03 126 sympathy for the cultural-linguistic analysis."<quote/> At the same 
D03 127 time, O'Neill is doubtful whether <quote_>"any theory of religion 
D03 128 or doctrine exists, at least within Christianity, which corresponds 
D03 129 to the description given of cognitivism ...."<quote/> A 
D03 130 propositionalist account of faith and doctrine is sometimes 
D03 131 considered a major characteristic of pre-Vatican II Catholicism. 
D03 132 This may be true of some of the manualists, but even there caution 
D03 133 is required because of Catholicism's heightened emphasis on 
D03 134 symbolism, not least in sacramental theology.<p/>
D03 135 <p_>At the other end of the theological spectrum, the position of 
D03 136 revisionism, David Tracy considers that thinkers in the tradition 
D03 137 have moved on in at least the last fifteen years to an explicitly 
D03 138 hermeneutical position, providing a more nuanced view of experience 
D03 139 and language than Lindbeck allows for. Tracy notes that in the text 
D03 140 of <tf_>The Nature of Doctrine<tf/>, for example, that Hans-Georg 
D03 141 Gadamer is not mentioned at all and that Paul Ricouer is referred 
D03 142 to only once, and yet the more significant revisionists have 
D03 143 engaged the thought of such hermeneutical thinkers and have moved 
D03 144 on from earlier views. Tracy himself is the best example of this 
D03 145 shift, and his <tf_>Plurality and Ambiguity<tf/> securely 
D03 146 establishes him as a hermeneutical theologian.<p/>
D03 147 <p_>Kasper contrasts Tracy and Lindbeck in the following way:<p/>
D03 148 <p_><quote_>The real difference between Tracy's and Lindbeck's view 
D03 149 ... does not lie so much in the inversion of the internal and the 
D03 150 external word, of experience and language. It lies rather in the 
D03 151 fact that, for the sake of universal intelligibility, hermeneutical 
D03 152 and political theology interpret the texts within a modern, largely 
D03 153 secular horizon of understanding, while Lindbeck trusts their 
D03 154 performative power, that is, their self-evidence and internal 
D03 155 plausibility.<quote/><p/>
D03 156 <p_>Tracy trusts the texts of the Christian tradition to mediate 
D03 157 meaning to contemporary people. Lindbeck trusts the performative 
D03 158 power of these texts in the Church to proclaim a clear message. 
D03 159 Both trust the texts. Therefore, the relationship between at least 
D03 160 these two representatives of revisionism and postliberalism does 
D03 161 not seem to be polarized in an absolute sense.<p/>
D03 162 <p_>Some may wonder whether Lindbeck's postliberal theology does 
D03 163 justice to the truth claims of Christian doctrine. Wittgensteinian 
D03 164 philosophy has led to a certain relativism with respect to 
D03 165 questions of religious truth. A stress on the 'use' of statements 
D03 166 rather than on their 'meaning' may allow that Christian doctrines 
D03 167 have a use without conceding that they have a cognitive meaning, 
D03 168 that is, that they describe or give information about the real 
D03 169 world. Would this be a consequence of Lindbeck's use of 
D03 170 Wittgenstein in postliberal theology? I think not.<p/>
D03 171 <h_><p_>Truth and Action<p/><h/>
D03 172 <p_>Lindbeck distinguishes <quote|>"intrasystematic" truth from 
D03 173 ontological truth. Intrasystematic truth is the truth of coherence; 
D03 174 ontological truth is correspondence to reality. Christian doctrines 
D03 175 are intrasystematically true when they cohere with the total 
D03 176 relevant context, include the correlative forms of life. They are 
D03 177 ontologically true, that is, they correspond to reality, when they 
D03 178 intend and enable a conformity of the self to God. Or, one might 
D03 179 say, Christian doctrines are ontologically true when they are 
D03 180 performed:<p/>
D03 181 <p_><quote_>... a religious utterance ... acquires the 
D03 182 propositional truth of ontological correspondence only in so far as 
D03 183 it is a performance, an act or deed, which helps create that 
D03 184 correspondence.<quote/><p/>
D03 185 <p_>The only way to assert a Christian doctrine as ontologically 
D03 186 true <quote_>"is to do something about it, i.e., to commit oneself 
D03 187 to a way of life ..."<quote/><p/>
D03 188 <p_>This is no sophisticated version of doctrinal reductionism. 
D03 189 Rather, it is the acknowledgement that there can be no neutral 
D03 190 judgment in matters of religious truth. To profess belief in the 
D03 191 Trinity is not in the first place to make an objective theistic 
D03 192 statement; it is to commit oneself to living life and to 
D03 193 understanding reality in the light of the Trinity. Finally, not 
D03 194 only Lindbeck, but Frei, Kelsey, Thiemann, and other postliberal 
D03 195 thinkers are theologically committed to the absolute priority of 
D03 196 God. This Barthian emphasis stands as a corrective, if such be 
D03 197 needed, to the methodological influences of Wittgenstein.<p/>
D03 198 <h_><p_>Immersion in Tradition<p/><h/>
D03 199 <p_>As far as I am aware, no postliberal theologian as such has 
D03 200 turned toward articulating a postliberal religious education. There 
D03 201 are <tf_>ad hoc<tf/> remarks here and there, but a profile of 
D03 202 postliberal religious education as such has yet to emerge. A 
D03 203 passage from E.D. Hirsch's <tf_>Cultural Literacy<tf/> -and, 
D03 204 indeed, a paradigmatic expression of his entire project of cultural 
D03 205 literacy -provides a point of entry for seeing some of the 
D03 206 implications of postliberal theology for religious education:<p/>
D03 207 <p_><quote_>Believing that a few direct experiences would suffice 
D03 208 to develop the skills that children require, Dewey assumed that 
D03 209 early education need not be tied to specific content. He mistook a 
D03 210 half-truth for the whole. He placed too much faith in children's 
D03 211 ability to learn general skills from a few typical experiences, and 
D03 212 too hastily rejected <quote_>"the piling up of 
D03 213 information."<quote/> Only by piling up specific 
D03 214 community<?_>-<?/>based information can children learn to 
D03 215 participate in complex co-operative activities with other members 
D03 216 of their community.<quote/><p/>
D03 217 <p_>Whether it is exclusively or even principally to be associated 
D03 218 with Dewey, there can be little doubt that a close engagement with 
D03 219 many contemporary educational texts and philosophies reveals a 
D03 220 deep-rooted skepticism about the <quote_>"piling up of 
D03 221 information."<quote/><p/>
D03 222 <p_>Society at large is frequently being told that knowledge is 
D03 223 exploding so fast that it is more important to teach a student 
D03 224 <tf|>how to learn, to gain knowledge, than to teach them 'facts' as 
D03 225 such. The theologian/religious educator will see here the helpful 
D03 226 and truthful traditional distinction between <tf_>fides qua<tf/> 
D03 227 and <tf_>fides quae<tf/>. An emphasis on one at the expense of the 
D03 228 other makes a nonsense of <tf|>fides. It is epistemologically 
D03 229 impossible, in fact, it is something of a performative 
D03 230 contradiction, to divorce the one from the other. Or, in a word, 
D03 231 people do not simply learn; they learn something.<p/>
D03 232 <p_>One result of this rampant skepticism is a widespread 
D03 233 illiteracy with regard to the humanities.
D04   1 <#FROWN:D04\><h_><p_>INTERIOR MONOLOGUE AS A NARRATIVE DEVICE IN 
D04   2 THE PARABLES OF LUKE<p/>
D04   3 <p_>PHILIP SELLEW<p/>
D04   4 <p_>University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455<p/><h/>
D04   5 <p_>Six of the parables told by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke use a 
D04   6 narrative device that is otherwise rarely if ever employed in the 
D04   7 gospel tradition. When faced with a moment of decision, usually in 
D04   8 a moral crisis, the central characters in each of these little 
D04   9 stories address themselves through the use of the literary 
D04  10 technique of 'interior monologue.' The Rich Farmer, the Unfaithful 
D04  11 Servant, the Prodigal Son, the Crafty Steward, the Unjust Judge, 
D04  12 and the Owner of the Vineyard all think out their plans and 
D04  13 strategies in private moments that are nonetheless simultaneously 
D04  14 displayed for other characters in Luke's story to see and hear. The 
D04  15 motivations and personal viewpoints of these actors in the parables 
D04  16 are laid bare to give the reader direct access to their unspoken 
D04  17 thoughts. The use of this device grants privileged insight into the 
D04  18 human dilemma in a fashion not ordinarily available.<p/>
D04  19 <h_><p_>I. Interior Monologue in Narrative<p/><h/>
D04  20 <p_>Luke has characters in Jesus' parables voice their inner 
D04  21 thoughts as a way to dramatize their private interior debate. The 
D04  22 'soul' disputes with itself, but its arguments are broadcast 
D04  23 through Jesus' special insight. The true feelings and inner 
D04  24 workings of the characters within these stories are made 
D04  25 transparent, not only to the reader but to Luke's other characters 
D04  26 as well, who act as the parables' audience within the larger story. 
D04  27 This and similar techniques of self-address had long been employed 
D04  28 in Greek mimetic or dramatic literature, especially in epic poetry, 
D04  29 tragedy, and the Hellenistic novels, as well as in some of the 
D04  30 biblical tradition, as a means for an author to paint more vivid 
D04  31 and poignant portraits. But the use of such a device in writings of 
D04  32 a more historical, philosophical, or rhetorical flavor is rare. 
D04  33 When a Thucydides or a Xenophon (or the Luke of the NT Acts) 
D04  34 composes a public speech by an individual character, this is very 
D04  35 different in intent and effect from presenting the private thoughts 
D04  36 of a Pericles or a Paul, even when we realize that the speeches are 
D04  37 the creation of the historian rather than of the presumptive 
D04  38 orator.<p/>
D04  39 <p_>When a narrator renders his or her characters' thoughts and 
D04  40 decision<?_>-<?/>making processes so directly, the reader or 
D04  41 dramatic audience is able to grasp their self-understanding and 
D04  42 moral dilemmas with increased psychological depth and empathy. 
D04  43 Awareness of this technique and its effects is not just a modern 
D04  44 event. The distinction between a distanced or 'plain' narration 
D04  45 (translitGwapl<*_>e-macron<*/> di<*_>e-acute<*/>gesistranslitG/) 
D04  46 and imitative narration (translitGm<*_>i-acute<*/>mesis), where the 
D04  47 narrator speaks in the person of a character, was already a matter 
D04  48 of interest for Plato. The philosopher was primarily concerned with 
D04  49 the moral effects of imitation of unworthy persons, emotions, or 
D04  50 forms of behavior. His chief example was Homeric epic. Heroes in 
D04  51 the <tf|>Iliad will at times speak inner monologues to express 
D04  52 their deepest emotions, especially fear. The Homeric characters are 
D04  53 pictured as <quote_>"disputing with their hearts"<quote/> 
D04  54 (translitGvall<*_>a-grave<*/> t<*_>i-acute<*/>e moi 
D04  55 ta<*_>u-tilde<*/>ta f<*_>i-acute<*/>los diel<*_>e-acute<*/>xato 
D04  56 thum<*_>o-acute<*/>stranslitG/), a phrase that has its echo in some 
D04  57 of Luke's portrayals. Achilles, a man of wrath rather than of fear, 
D04  58 will question in his heart about his unburied friend Patroclus 
D04  59 (<tf|>Il. 22.385). The interior monologues of the <tf|>Iliad show 
D04  60 how the heroes struggle from unworthy emotions to worthy 
D04  61 actions.<p/>
D04  62 <p_>Hellenistic epic and romance preferred to reserve the interior 
D04  63 monologue for desperate lovers at moments of crisis. All of our 
D04  64 known examples are from women. Medea in Apollonius's 
D04  65 <tf|>Argonautica attempts to resolve her dilemma of torn loyalties 
D04  66 between her lover, Jason, and her father, King Aeetes, in a lengthy 
D04  67 interior monologue (3.772-801). There is a similar scene in 
D04  68 Vergil's <tf|>Aeneid: when Dido is confronted with conflicting 
D04  69 demands, she considers her difficulties in interior monologue 
D04  70 before ultimately choosing suicide as her only escape (4.534-52). 
D04  71 Ovid and the novelists Xenophon of Ephesus and Longus use the same 
D04  72 technique.<p/>
D04  73 <p_>Narrative in the Hebrew Bible is typically more laconic (or 
D04  74 'reticent') and more hesitant to provide direct access to its 
D04  75 characters' thoughts, but self-address is sometimes used in 
D04  76 interesting ways. The deteriorating relationship between David and 
D04  77 Saul as portrayed in 1 Samuel 18, for example, and especially their 
D04  78 negotiations about Saul's daughters Merab and Michal, is described 
D04  79 for the most part using the techniques of distanced, external 
D04  80 narration (techniques that will be discussed below). The exception 
D04  81 is when the narrator begins to use the device of the interior 
D04  82 self-address to expose the deceitful thoughts and strategies of 
D04  83 King Saul (18:17b, 21a). Saul expects that David will fall in 
D04  84 battle against the Philistines while displaying his valor for his 
D04  85 prospective royal father-in-law. The reader is told precisely what 
D04  86 is so crucially left unsaid to the other characters in the 
D04  87 story.<p/>
D04  88 <p_>Though this focus on the inner workings of an unheroic 
D04  89 character will also find echoes in Luke's parables, the technique 
D04  90 for the most part remains alien to gospel narration. Luke is the 
D04  91 exception, and indeed only a partial exception: his Jesus will 
D04  92 occasionally employ the device of inner speech when one of his 
D04  93 characters is at a point of crisis or decision, but these are only 
D04  94 very brief 'conversations,' running but a sentence or two in 
D04  95 length, like Saul's in 1 Samuel 18, unlike the often very lengthy 
D04  96 soliloquies or inner debates of classical mimetic literature. 
D04  97 Luke's descriptive narrative is broken only briefly, within a few 
D04  98 parables, a break made possible perhaps by the parables' more 
D04  99 dramatic or fictive mode of presentation as contrasted with their 
D04 100 surrounding, more matter-of-fact narration.<p/>
D04 101 <p_>One of the few writers to take much notice of the use of this 
D04 102 literary convention in Luke's parables has been John R. Donahue: 
D04 103 <quote_>"For Luke, the human condition is a stage on which appear 
D04 104 memorable characters.... Luke invites us into this world by 
D04 105 frequent use of soliloquy ... where we are made privy to the inner 
D04 106 musings of the characters. Luke eschews allegory and expresses 
D04 107 realistic sympathy for the dilemmas of ordinary human 
D04 108 existence."<quote/> This is very well put, but I cannot agree with 
D04 109 how Donahue then continues: <quote_>"His memorable characters offer 
D04 110 paradigms of discipleship for ordinary Christian 
D04 111 existence."<quote/> This may well be true for some of the parables 
D04 112 in Luke, but is generally not the case for those in which interior 
D04 113 monologue is employed, including those classically labeled 'example 
D04 114 stories.' What great difficulties the leading characters of 
D04 115 precisely these stories have long posed for those seeking exemplary 
D04 116 Christian heroes -including the gospel writer! None of the 
D04 117 personalities whose thoughts are described is particularly 
D04 118 commendable; indeed they tend to embody anything but noble 
D04 119 characteristics. The self<?_>-<?/>satisfied, amoral, or even 
D04 120 immoral individuals who star in these portrayals, who are looking 
D04 121 out for their own interests above all, sometimes encounter 
D04 122 unexpected divine intervention or retribution (the Farmer, perhaps 
D04 123 also the Owner of the Vineyard), but more often they seem able to 
D04 124 use their craftiness or amoral reasoning to escape punishment (the 
D04 125 Prodigal, the Steward, and the Judge).<p/>
D04 126 <h_><p_>II. Techniques of Characterization in Descriptive 
D04 127 Narration<p/><h/>
D04 128 <p_>The Gospel of Luke, together with its companion literature both 
D04 129 within and outside of the New Testament, has ordinarily only two 
D04 130 means of letting its readers learn of its characters' thoughts, 
D04 131 intentions, or motivations. (1) The characters can speak their 
D04 132 minds aloud or act in a decisive manner that will itself clarify 
D04 133 their feelings and intent; or else (2) the narrator can inform the 
D04 134 reader of the characters' moods or motivations through third-person 
D04 135 description. These are the techniques commonly employed by the 
D04 136 ancient historians and biographers, practitioners of the literary 
D04 137 art of translitGdi<*_>e-acute<*/>gesis, the ancient term for 
D04 138 'narrative description' (Luke 1:1). The intentions and opinions of 
D04 139 characters in third-person narration are made clear only 
D04 140 externally.<p/>
D04 141 <p_>Contemporary literary analysis speaks of variations in depth of 
D04 142 characterization in narrative texts, ranging from the 
D04 143 two-dimensional cardboard figures found in stock folk tales to the 
D04 144 fully realized psychological portraiture expected in the modern 
D04 145 novel. <quote_>"Characterization in the Gospels tends toward the 
D04 146 'flat' and 'static' end of the spectrum."<quote/> Third-person 
D04 147 description <tf|>tells us about a character; first-person speech or 
D04 148 thought <tf|>shows us a character's inner life. Accordingly, as we 
D04 149 read Luke's story of Jesus, the narrator will frequently provide a 
D04 150 general statement about individuals who <quote|>"wonder," 
D04 151 <quote|>"ponder," or become <quote|>"amazed" or 
D04 152 <quote|>"astonished," but the specific content or wording of those 
D04 153 thoughts or emotions is revealed only by having the characters 
D04 154 utter them aloud or take some illustrative action. In contemporary 
D04 155 terms, Luke <tf|>tells us about his characters.<p/>
D04 156 <p_>Luke's use of this common narrative technique can be briefly 
D04 157 illustrated by surveying the infancy stories. In the opening scene 
D04 158 of the Gospel, we learn of Zechariah's terror at the appearance of 
D04 159 the angel through the narrator's description (1:12). The people's 
D04 160 wonder outside the Temple is related in similar fashion (1:21-22). 
D04 161 Elizabeth's understanding of her conception at an old age is 
D04 162 expressed through her voiced opinion (1:25), even though the 
D04 163 narrator does not mention any other character to whom she might be 
D04 164 speaking. Her voicing of a statement out loud is the customary way 
D04 165 in which the Gospel writers can allow a character to express 
D04 166 internal judgments. Mary's perplexity at Gabriel's announcement is 
D04 167 expressed indirectly by the narrator (1:29) and then voiced aloud 
D04 168 through the question she puts to the angel (1:34). In the later 
D04 169 scene of the naming of Zechariah's and Elizabeth's son, the wonder 
D04 170 of those who heard the temporarily mute father now speak is 
D04 171 expressed not as thought but as speech: <quote_>"All who heard them 
D04 172 pondered them and said, 'What then will this child 
D04 173 become?'"<quote/> (1:66).<p/>
D04 174 <p_>In chapter 2, we learn by means of the narrator's descriptions 
D04 175 of the shepherds' fright before the angels (2:9), the amazement of 
D04 176 Jesus' parents at their report (2:18) and at the prophecy of Simeon 
D04 177 (2:33), and the wonder of the crowds listening to the adolescent 
D04 178 Jesus in dialogue with the teachers at the Temple (2:47). Other 
D04 179 thoughts are expressed through direct speech. We learn of his 
D04 180 parents' worry at losing track of their son Jesus in Jerusalem from 
D04 181 Mary's words of consternation in 2:48. And twice in this section we 
D04 182 read of Mary <quote_>"keeping and pondering"<quote/> events in her 
D04 183 heart (2:19, 51b), but tellingly the specific content of her 
D04 184 thoughts is neither described by the narrator nor voiced by the 
D04 185 character. The narrator knows <tf|>that Mary is thinking, and 
D04 186 probably <tf|>what she is thinking too; but we are left in the 
D04 187 dark.<p/>
D04 188 <h_><p_>III. Lucan Parables That Employ Interior Monologue<p/><h/>
D04 189 <p_>The external descriptive technique just described is employed 
D04 190 throughout the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles and 
D04 191 needs no further discussion here. I shall now turn instead to the 
D04 192 more interesting topic of how and why at a few specific moments the 
D04 193 Lucan narrator has Jesus the Parabolist move beyond third-person 
D04 194 narration to employ the more direct mimetic device of giving voice 
D04 195 to his characters' inner debates. Our understanding and 
D04 196 appreciation of Luke's literary artistry can be deepened by doing 
D04 197 some comparative and historical analysis. Luke did not invent the 
D04 198 device of self-address, of course, but a few comparisons will show 
D04 199 that this author has at places emphasized or elaborated his 
D04 200 characters' internal monologues to good effect. Our ability to see 
D04 201 Luke's technique at work will be enhanced by starting with a 
D04 202 parable that is also attested in an independent source. The other 
D04 203 three full examples are known to us only from this Gospel.<p/>
D04 204 <h_><p_>The Foolish Farmer (Luke 12:16-20)<p/><h_>
D04 205 <p_>In Luke 12 we encounter our first example of how a character in 
D04 206 one of Luke's parables thinks out his strategy of action when faced 
D04 207 with a dilemma: the story of the rich farmer who foolishly expects 
D04 208 to be able to live to store and enjoy his wealth. Luke includes the 
D04 209 parable in the context of a discussion about proper attitudes 
D04 210 toward possessions, daily sustenance, indeed toward threats of 
D04 211 bodily harm or even death. After an exchange with <quote_>"someone 
D04 212 from the crowd,"<quote/> in which Jesus refuses to act as mediator 
D04 213 in a dispute over inheritance (12:13-15), he addresses the parable 
D04 214 <quote_>"to them,"<quote/> meaning either his <quote|>"friends" the 
D04 215 disciples (present for the remarks about fear in 12:4-7 and then in 
D04 216 12:22-31 for the words on anxiety), or the crowd, or both.<p/>
D05   1 <#FROWN:D05\><h_><p_>Love, Religion, and Sexual Revolution<p/>
D05   2 <p_>Stephen G. Post / Case Western Reserve Medical School<p/><h/>
D05   3 <p_>Philip Rieff comments that, <quote_>"in the classical Christian 
D05   4 culture of commitment, one renunciatory mode of control referred to 
D05   5 the sexual opportunism of individuals."<quote/> While we should 
D05   6 avoid prejudice against the human body per se, I contend that the 
D05   7 modern cultural assumption that happiness is achieved as a matter 
D05   8 of course through liberation from sexual control has proved 
D05   9 unfounded. Moreover, as Max Scheler wrote, the relaxation of 
D05  10 restraint can hinder the realization of sacred values and lead to a 
D05  11 culture that <quote_>"envisages man the external phenomenon, his 
D05  12 sensual well-being. And increasingly it envisages this well-being 
D05  13 in isolation from the objective hierarchy of real and spiritual 
D05  14 goods."<quote/><p/>
D05  15 <p_>Since Scheler's four modalities of value underlie the present 
D05  16 analysis, I shall state them at the outset. According to his 
D05  17 schema, pleasure values pertain to the individual seeking what is 
D05  18 physically agreeable; welfare values to the promotion of health and 
D05  19 social well-being; spiritual values to justice and truth; and 
D05  20 sacred values to holiness, or love for God. In a holy person, 
D05  21 sacred values occupy the highest level. The fundamental problem of 
D05  22 human existence is the inversion of the correct <foreign_>ordo 
D05  23 amoris<foreign/> within the person, so that the objective order of 
D05  24 values toward which human beings are ontologically structured is 
D05  25 violated. In short, <quote_>"Loving can be characterized as correct 
D05  26 or false only because a man's actual inclinations and acts of love 
D05  27 can be in harmony with or oppose the rank-ordering of what is 
D05  28 worthy of love."<quote/> Scheler argues that <quote_>"God and only 
D05  29 God can be the apex of the graduated pyramid of the realm of that 
D05  30 which is worthy of love, at once the source and the goal of the 
D05  31 whole."<quote/><p/>
D05  32 <p_>Modernity, Scheler contends, not only suffers from a disorder 
D05  33 of values, but has deliberately chosen the inverse of the proper 
D05  34 value hierarchy. This note of deliberate inversion goes beyond the 
D05  35 less severe charge that most persons <quote_>"will acknowledge no 
D05  36 hierarchy of values"<quote/> and <quote_>"will live for the moment 
D05  37 in a chaos of pure sensation."<quote/> Granted that sexual 
D05  38 restraint and the culture of control can be unduly morbid and 
D05  39 dualistic, it is not mere frivolity that the likes of Saint Paul 
D05  40 and Augustine, as well as the Buddha and Socrates, all asserted 
D05  41 that unrestrained sexual desires can intoxicate the whole 
D05  42 personality to the exclusion of spiritual values and interests. 
D05  43 Walter Lippmann puts the point simply: <quote_>"Religious teachers 
D05  44 knew long ago what modern psychologists excitedly rediscovered: 
D05  45 that there is a very intimate connection between the sexual life 
D05  46 and the religious life."<quote/> Around sexual desire, he 
D05  47 continues, the churches have <quote_>"built up a ritual, to 
D05  48 dominate it lest they be dominated by it."<quote/><p/>
D05  49 <p_>In this article, I propose a broadly applicable 
D05  50 theological-ethical argument in favor of sexual restraint as an 
D05  51 aspect of the human good, though my immediate focus lies within 
D05  52 Christian ethics. As my aims are constructive rather than 
D05  53 expository, I do not intend a full-scale interpretation of the 
D05  54 thinkers referred to, including Kierkegaard and Tolstoy. My 
D05  55 intention is to elaborate a criticism of the assumption that sexual 
D05  56 desires are <quote_>"so quintessentially, immediately, and 
D05  57 irresistibly natural that it is as futile to deny, suppress, or 
D05  58 sublimate them as it would be the contractions of the heart 
D05  59 muscle."<quote/> The argument moves from an appraisal of sexual 
D05  60 control as viewed by modern culture and recent religious ethics to 
D05  61 a recovery of the sexual interpretation of the Fall narrative.<p/>
D05  62 <p_>Our culture can be described as manifesting a mass flight from 
D05  63 beneficial sexual restraint. Although such flight is not new, its 
D05  64 ubiquity in modernity may be. While Saint Paul proclaimed the human 
D05  65 body as the temple of God, the flight from sexual restraint 
D05  66 proclaims it as sportive. Sexual intimacy, which manifests a rich 
D05  67 and beautiful significance when sought within the proper hierarchy 
D05  68 of values, is debased by a culture gone awry.<p/>
D05  69 <h_><p_>FLIGHT FROM SEXUAL RESTRAINT: A CULTURAL APPRAISAL<p/><h/>
D05  70 <p_>Traditions of sexual discipline and control indicate a 
D05  71 widespread understanding that sexual desire can impede spiritual 
D05  72 values. The Pauline notion of a conflict between the law of one's 
D05  73 members and the pursuit of sacred values is veridical, as common 
D05  74 experience attests. Bodily desires can easily muscle aside 
D05  75 spiritual ones.<p/>
D05  76 <p_>In addition to the tension between unrestraint and the 
D05  77 realization of sacred values, sexual desire often reduces its 
D05  78 objects to mere means. Kant commented at length on how morally 
D05  79 problematic the <quote_>"appetite for another human being"<quote/> 
D05  80 can be and added that <quote_>"there is no way in which a human 
D05  81 being can be made an object of indulgence for another except 
D05  82 through sexual impulse."<quote/> It is a simple fact, Kant 
D05  83 contends, that through sexual appetite one human being often 
D05  84 plunges another into <quote_>"the depths of misery,"<quote/> 
D05  85 casting him or her aside <quote_>"as one casts away a lemon which 
D05  86 has been sucked dry."<quote/> The analogy is powerful and 
D05  87 fitting.<p/>
D05  88 <p_>Beyond the de-emphasis on spiritual values and the exploitation 
D05  89 of the sexually oppressed, the modern sexual revolution is 
D05  90 responsible for increased disease, as psychiatrist Willard Gaylin 
D05  91 describes:<p/>
D05  92 <p_><quote_>While the final score is not yet in, the results so far 
D05  93 of this so-called 'sexual revolution' are less than reassuring. The 
D05  94 Freudian view of human behavior laid the positive groundwork for 
D05  95 the liberation of the sexual aspirations of women from both an 
D05  96 oppressive personal sense of guilt and the shame and humiliation of 
D05  97 social stigmatization. But the only empirical results of that 
D05  98 illegitimate offspring of Freudian philosophy, the sexual 
D05  99 revolution, seem to be the spread of two sexually transmitted 
D05 100 diseases, genital herpes and AIDS; an extraordinary rise in the 
D05 101 incidence of cancer of the cervix; and a disastrous epidemic of 
D05 102 teenage pregnancies.<quote/><p/>
D05 103 <p_>The extent to which Freud was responsible for the revolution 
D05 104 may be exaggerated, but the prevalence of the diseases on Gaylin's 
D05 105 list is beyond doubt.<p/>
D05 106 <p_>A final result of the sexual revolution is emotional despair 
D05 107 and a sense of meaninglessness. Psychiatrist and theologian Paul R. 
D05 108 Fleischman writes that if sexual repression dominated the 
D05 109 psychological landscape in Freud's Vienna, the current problem is 
D05 110 quite the reverse: <quote_>"Among the hurt and pained in need of 
D05 111 help, who may suffer from broken marriages, fluctuating or fallen 
D05 112 self-esteem, obsessive constrictions, panicky attachments to 
D05 113 parents, bewildering isolation, uncontrolled rages, and haunting 
D05 114 depressions, the common denominator is an inability to transcend 
D05 115 themselves with care and delight, to reach over and touch another 
D05 116 heart."<quote/> Fleischman's patients report that they suffer 
D05 117 emotionally because they have assumed that genuine love requires 
D05 118 sexual intimacy. They then pursue such relations, even when 
D05 119 inappropriate, and suffer the consequences. Their experience may be 
D05 120 summed up thus: <quote_>"The binding together, the touch of person 
D05 121 to person, is sought concretely, rather than spiritually, and 
D05 122 dyadically rather than communally. The substitution of sexuality 
D05 123 for religious life constitutes one of the most prominent and 
D05 124 pervasive elements of cultural pathology that a psychotherapist 
D05 125 encounters."<quote/> Many people seek to touch physically for the 
D05 126 sake of sexual intimacy alone, failing to see physical touch as at 
D05 127 all expressive of a deeper spiritual meaning. They make sexual 
D05 128 intimacy rather than spiritual values the center of their lives.<p/>
D05 129 <p_>The toll of unrestraint on physical and emotional well-being 
D05 130 has already been lamented. C. S. Lewis, for one, writing in the 
D05 131 early 1950s, warned against the loss of any serious moral caution 
D05 132 regarding sexual intimacy: <quote_>"Poster after poster, film after 
D05 133 film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence 
D05 134 with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good 
D05 135 humour. Now this association is a lie."<quote/> It is a lie, wrote 
D05 136 Lewis, because sexual indulgence without commitment and steadfast 
D05 137 love has always been associated with disease, deception, 
D05 138 jealousies, and emotional pain. Lewis claimed that our society has 
D05 139 lost sight of definitions of love that do not place sexual intimacy 
D05 140 at their center, that it has illusory expectations of this 
D05 141 intimacy, and the result is oppressive. He rejected the practice of 
D05 142 sexual union when it is isolated <quote_>"from all the other kinds 
D05 143 of union which were intended to go along with it and make up the 
D05 144 total union."<quote/> He complained against the 
D05 145 <quote_>"contemporary propaganda for lust"<quote/> that makes it 
D05 146 appear perverse to resist sexual union out of respect for a lasting 
D05 147 and total union.<p/>
D05 148 <p_>Criticism of unrestraint is neither irrational nor peculiar to 
D05 149 Christian thought, for as Michel Foucault has emphasized, this 
D05 150 suspicion was in place in Greco-Roman culture by the second century 
D05 151 <tf|>A.D. and was intertwined with Christian belief. Foucault 
D05 152 writes, <quote_>"A whole corpus of moral reflection on sexual 
D05 153 activity and its pleasures seems to mark, in the first centuries of 
D05 154 our era, a certain strengthening of austerity themes. Physicians 
D05 155 worry about the effects of sexual practice, unhesitatingly 
D05 156 recommend abstention, and declare a preference for virginity over 
D05 157 the use of pleasure. Philosophers condemn any sexual relation that 
D05 158 might take place outside marriage and prescribe a strict fidelity 
D05 159 between spouses, admitting no exceptions."<quote/> Numerous 
D05 160 thinkers, including Plutarch, virtually all the Stoics, and the 
D05 161 Physicians, also articulated a growing skepticism of unrestrained 
D05 162 sexual activity and its consequences for the individual and for 
D05 163 society.<p/>
D05 164 <p_>Pride, the desire to dominate others, self-assertion, and 
D05 165 egocentrism - all radically inconsistent with love - animate the 
D05 166 sexual preoccupations that destroy love. Our culture of flight from 
D05 167 restraint disguises these grim realities in order to reject sacred 
D05 168 values, though it does not seem to recognize that voluntary 
D05 169 restraint is not exclusively a religious practice. Religion may 
D05 170 function as a motive for restraint, but it need not be the sole or 
D05 171 even principle justification of it.<p/>
D05 172 <p_>The aim of restraint, as Kierkegaard argued, is the affirmation 
D05 173 of good rather than the prohibition of evil. The task is to bring 
D05 174 sexuality <quote_>"under the qualification of the spirit (here lies 
D05 175 all the moral problems of the erotic)."<quote/> The sexual 
D05 176 revolution rejects all such qualification; its roots lie partially 
D05 177 in nineteenth-century materialism and a view of the psychic life of 
D05 178 human beings as the manifestation of processes in the physical 
D05 179 organism. <tf|>Eros, this materialism claimed, always aims at 
D05 180 genital pleasure, the model of all human happiness; in the process, 
D05 181 Plato's <quote_>"heavenly <tf|>eros"<quote/> lost its classical 
D05 182 ground. Historians John D'Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman have shown 
D05 183 that by the mid-1910s assumptions were commonplace that the sexual 
D05 184 instinct demands constant expression, that restraint is harmful, 
D05 185 and that gratification is a more worthy ideal than self-control. 
D05 186 Thus, <quote_>"the shift from a philosophy of continence to one 
D05 187 that encouraged indulgence was but one aspect of a larger 
D05 188 reorientation that was investing sexuality with a profoundly new 
D05 189 importance."<quote/> Sin was redefined as <tf|>not expressing 
D05 190 libido, and all restraint was construed as negative and repressive. 
D05 191 The possibility of arguing for sexual restraint without diminishing 
D05 192 the glory of sexual <tf|>eros was not contemplated.<p/>
D05 193 <p_>To be seriously religious, one must constantly ask the 
D05 194 question, 'What is the source of happiness?' When one has 
D05 195 determined that the true human good rests in God, one must demand 
D05 196 much of oneself to achieve that good. Augustine was right to 
D05 197 acknowledge God as the ultimate source of lasting happiness. He 
D05 198 would agree with Freud that human beings show by their behavior 
D05 199 that they strive after happiness that gives purpose to their lives. 
D05 200 Augustine and Freud would disagree, of course, about the source of 
D05 201 that happiness. Augustine believed we should seek our happiness in 
D05 202 God: <quote_>"For our good, about which philosophers have so keenly 
D05 203 contended, is nothing else than to be united to God."<quote/> 
D05 204 Freud, by contrast, held that sexual love affords human beings the 
D05 205 central experience of happiness, that it constitutes the 
D05 206 <quote_>"prototype of all happiness,"<quote/> and is the 
D05 207 <quote_>"central point"<quote/> of life. A materialistic philosophy 
D05 208 of the self, conjoined with atheism and the 'pleasure principle,' 
D05 209 made sexual intimacy the highest good of Freudian theory. 
D05 210 Augustinian thought, which established the Christian view of the 
D05 211 self as ontologically structured toward God, the Highest Good, lost 
D05 212 its cultural force. But if 're-ligio' or 're-binding' of human 
D05 213 beings to God constitutes the essential path of the restoration of 
D05 214 right order (<foreign_>ordo amoris<foreign/>) in our lives, then 
D05 215 the assumption that sex is the highest good must be rejected.<p/>
D05 216 <p_>Licentious sexual expression is ultimately the mainfestation of 
D05 217 a meta<?_>-<?/>physical problem, that is, materialism, which 
D05 218 presumes that there is no transcendent reality and no transcendent 
D05 219 dimension in our being.
D06   1 <FROWN:D06\><h_><p_>A Prayer That Availeth Much<p/>
D06   2 <p_>Jeremiah 20:7-13<p/>
D06   3 <p_>Psalm 10:12-18.<p/>
D06   4 <p_>Hebrews 12:1-2,12-17.<p/>
D06   5 <p_>Walter Brueggemann<p/><h/>
D06   6 <p_>THESE SEVEN verses from Psalm 10 plunge us into the midst of 
D06   7 the prayer of a <quote_>"poor person,"<quote/> who speaks for 
D06   8 <quote_>"the oppressed,"<quote/> <quote_>"the helpless,"<quote/> 
D06   9 <quote_>"the orphan"<quote/> and <quote_>"the meek"<quote/> - 
D06  10 perhaps all the same person or the same class of persons. The 
D06  11 prayer sounds the faith cadences of the marginated who are without 
D06  12 hope in the normal arrangements of social power.<p/>
D06  13 <p_>According to the partisan rhetoric of this poor petitioner, the 
D06  14 <quote|>"wicked" who are greedy and powerful have already had their 
D06  15 say. The petitioner imagines the wicked being arrogant, autonomous 
D06  16 and untamed in their use of exploitative power. Their arrogant 
D06  17 autonomy denies and disregards God and abuses the poor. That is, 
D06  18 <quote_>"without God, everything is possible"<quote/> against the 
D06  19 neighbor. In this view of <quote_>"the wicked,"<quote/> there is 
D06  20 only <quote|>"I" and <quote|>"them," and <quote|>"I" will surely 
D06  21 prevail over <quote|>"them." There are only two parties to social 
D06  22 reality, and there is never any doubt who will prevail in such a 
D06  23 simple scheme.<p/>
D06  24 <p_>In verse 12, however, the poor person does not accept this 
D06  25 two-party scheme, and everything depends upon the petitioner's 
D06  26 courage to resist it. Indeed, if he or she accepted the definition 
D06  27 of social reality given by the wicked, there would be no prayer and 
D06  28 no Psalm. The very act of uttering verses 12-18 is itself a 
D06  29 courageous and subversive way of redefining social reality. The 
D06  30 prayer of the poor person insists that there are three players in 
D06  31 social relations, not two. In addition to the abusive wicked and 
D06  32 the oppressed poor, there is Yahweh, a joker in the deck who 
D06  33 destabilizes and reorders the relation between the other two 
D06  34 parties. The immediate problem, however, is that the third party 
D06  35 has been absent, silent, indifferent and dormant. The poor person 
D06  36 hopes to arouse and mobilize Yahweh, to alter drastically the 
D06  37 relation of the other two.<p/>
D06  38 <p_>The beginning of the prayer in verse 12 is daring and abrupt; 
D06  39 the God of the Exodus is summoned, the one who is 
D06  40 characteristically evoked by the cries of the wretched, by those 
D06  41 who have no hope in the world. Every time it is sounded this 
D06  42 Psalm-prayer reconvenes the drama of the Exodus in which the God of 
D06  43 liberation is mobilized by and for the oppressed against the 
D06  44 oppressor. This glorious name is matched by the enormous 
D06  45 imperative: <quote_>"Rise up"<quote/> - to power, sovereignty, 
D06  46 vitality. The term is and Easter word, echoed in Christian talk of 
D06  47 resurrection, in which God's power for new life overcomes all the 
D06  48 pretensions of death. The very sovereignty of God is evoked by the 
D06  49 daring courage of the poor and weak who utter the name that will 
D06  50 reshape social reality.<p/>
D06  51 <p_>In the verses that follow, the speaker maintains initiative 
D06  52 over against God. It is as though the speaker must line out in 
D06  53 great detail for Yahweh exactly who Yahweh is and what Yahweh does. 
D06  54 On the one hand, God is reminded of a characteristic past: 
D06  55 <quote_>"You have helped the orphan."<quote/> On the other hand, 
D06  56 God is summoned to a characteristic future: <quote_>"You will do 
D06  57 justice to the orphan and the oppressed."<quote/> Both God's past 
D06  58 and God's future are marked by this 'preferential option,' for that 
D06  59 is who Yahweh is. Without this petition and its pressure, however, 
D06  60 that 'option' might have been neglected, the dismissal of God by 
D06  61 the powerful might have prevailed. The past and the future of 
D06  62 transformation are focused on a present moment of <quote_>"trouble 
D06  63 and grief,"<quote/> wherein the wicked must be harshly overcome, so 
D06  64 that the poor and meek may prosper.<p/>
D06  65 <p_>SUCH IS the innocent, simple prayer of this petition. In its 
D06  66 innocence and simplicity, however, the prayer is an act of enormous 
D06  67 daring and resolve. The prayer refuses to accept the way the world 
D06  68 seems to be and is said to be. An act of evangelical imagination, 
D06  69 it refuses to let visible power drive out the trusted reality of 
D06  70 God.<p/>
D06  71 <p_>But who could pray that way against assured social reality? 
D06  72 Many of us are 'children of Feuerbach,' who have come to accept 
D06  73 that such primitive 'God-talk' is empty talk. Indeed, it has been 
D06  74 suggested recently that such prayers are in fact only theater, 
D06  75 designed to be 'overheard' by the powerful. An address to God is 
D06  76 only a rhetorical device. Such assumptions about prayer follow from 
D06  77 our intellectual sophistication that is in turn a function of our 
D06  78 economic affluence. In a hospital room of the affluent, prayer is 
D06  79 more likely a matter of casual indifference. For the 
D06  80 unsophisticated (poor), such prayer is a matter of life and death. 
D06  81 For the latter, everything hangs upon this daring redefinition of 
D06  82 reality that refuses to accept apparent power relations.<p/>
D06  83 <p_>Those of us who are more affluent and more sophisticated talk 
D06  84 sometimes of <quote_>"solidarity with the poor."<quote/> This 
D06  85 prayer suggests to me that there will be no serious solidarity with 
D06  86 the poor until there is liturgical solidarity, until we are able to 
D06  87 move through and under our intellectual sophistication and imagine 
D06  88 that such a prayer is real speech, addressed to a real listener who 
D06  89 is summoned as a live third force in social reality. Of such 
D06  90 prayer, Harold Fisch has written:<p/>
D06  91 <p_><quote_>The Psalms are not monologues but insistently and at 
D06  92 all times dialogue poems ... The Psalms are not exercises in 
D06  93 existential philosophy ... The 'Thou' <tf|>answers the plea of the 
D06  94 'I' and that answer signals a change in the opening situation. The 
D06  95 Psalms are in this sense dynamic, they involve action, 
D06  96 purpose.<quote/><p/>
D06  97 <p_>And Karl Barth asserts that God <quote_>"is not deaf, he 
D06  98 listens; more than that he acts. He does not act in the same way 
D06  99 whether we pray or not. Prayer exerts an influence upon God's 
D06 100 actions, even upon his existence. This is what the word 'answer' 
D06 101 means."<quote/><p/>
D06 102 <p_>We do not choose such prayer; we are drawn toward it when we 
D06 103 finally notice that our usual pattern of prayer and powerlessness 
D06 104 is killing, and when, in the exercise of our passion, we dare to 
D06 105 anticipate a decisive agent. In such prayer we join the company of 
D06 106 hopers and resisters who, like Jeremiah, rage (Jer. 20:7-10), trust 
D06 107 (vv.11-12) and finally praise (v.13). Such prayer may indeed be the 
D06 108 end of drooping hands, weak knees and lame joints (Heb. 
D06 109 12:12-13).<p/>
D06 110 
D06 111 <h_><p_>A Choice Amid Doxologies<p/>
D06 112 <p_>Joel 2:22-30<p/>
D06 113 <p_>Psalm 107:1<p/>
D06 114 <p_>1 Timothy 6:6-19<p/>
D06 115 <p_>Luke 16:19-31<p/>
D06 116 <p_>Walter Brueggemann<p/><h/>
D06 117 <p_>THE READING in 1 Timothy asserts a stringent either-or about 
D06 118 gospel faith. It is, however, an either-or that seems to mix 
D06 119 categories badly. The premise of verse seven is that we bring 
D06 120 nothing, we possess nothing, we depart with nothing; it is all a 
D06 121 gift and therefore we should not seek contentment in our things. 
D06 122 The tempting, rejected choice is wanting to be rich, which plunges 
D06 123 one into <quote_>"ruin and destruction"<quote/> and pierces 
D06 124 <quote_>"with many pains."<quote/><p/>
D06 125 <p_>Whatever the original crisis and context of this text, we have 
D06 126 no difficulty hearing it amid our consumerism and preoccupation 
D06 127 with commodities. We have no trouble noticing the poignancy of the 
D06 128 text in a society that is more and more affluent for some (while 
D06 129 others drop out), in a church where old luxuries become urgent 
D06 130 necessities, where church conversations are desperately about 
D06 131 budgets, salaries and benefits, where 'media Christians' embarrass 
D06 132 the rest of us while our world of deprivation groans.<p/>
D06 133 <p_>We have no trouble with the text touching us in heavy ways. 
D06 134 This old text, however, is as powerless as we feel we are in an 
D06 135 economy where our feeble efforts at an alternative are outflanked 
D06 136 by the pressures, demands and desires in which we are full and 
D06 137 often willing participants. The writer thinks the problem is not 
D06 138 terribly complex. The alternative to <quote_>"wanting to be 
D06 139 rich"<quote/> is a series of unadorned imperatives: <quote_>"Shun 
D06 140 all this, pursue [and then follows a catalog of covenantal acts and 
D06 141 attitudes], fight for faith, take hold of the eternal life you have 
D06 142 already confessed, keep the commandments."<quote/><p/>
D06 143 <p_>The alternative to the destructive service of mammon is an act 
D06 144 of disciplined will whereby the gospel-confessed are fully 
D06 145 disengaged from the temptation. The writer dares to imagine and 
D06 146 confess that while believers may be timid imitators of a covetous 
D06 147 society, they have in fact started from a different premise. The 
D06 148 apples of economic greed are countered by the oranges of a clear 
D06 149 theological intentionality. That odd choice, which has always vexed 
D06 150 the church, is now staring us in the face. The church has recently 
D06 151 given much attention to issues of sexuality, but the writer of 1 
D06 152 Timothy knows that the key issues of life and faith are fought in 
D06 153 the economic realm. We face the same old deal and same old choice 
D06 154 about God, mammon and anxiety.<p/>
D06 155 <p_>So far only didacticism. So far only a kind of unbothered, 
D06 156 oversimplified Pelagianism. The options are not new to us, and we 
D06 157 wonder if the text offers anything more than good advice and urgent 
D06 158 imperative. Then in verses 15 and 16 the writer breaks out of a 
D06 159 tight, instructional either-or into a lyrical doxology about 
D06 160 <quote_>"the only sovereign, the king of kings and Lord of 
D06 161 lords"<quote/> - immortal, unapproachable. The doxology is geared 
D06 162 to an eschatological hope, with a high, extravagant affirmation of 
D06 163 God, who, when inserted into the either-or of love of money or 
D06 164 fighting the good fight, makes a decisive difference.<p/>
D06 165 <p_>I don't want to focus on an eschatological claim, however, nor 
D06 166 on the decisive difference made by God's sovereignty (albeit in 
D06 167 male imagery), for I find such cognitive, substantive affirmations 
D06 168 are less than decisive in this difficult struggle against 
D06 169 commodity. I suggest rather that it is the bodily <tf_>act of 
D06 170 doxology<tf/>, the sheer lyrical, unembarrassed yielding of an 
D06 171 unguarded self to a prerational claim that matters most in taking 
D06 172 the 'or' of faith rather than the 'either' of love of money. The 
D06 173 very concrete, physical act of doxology is a social, personal, 
D06 174 public <tf_>ceding of self<tf/> over to realities that the world 
D06 175 will not honor and that I, in my fearful calculation, strident 
D06 176 morality and settled creedalism, often find silly and trivial.<p/>
D06 177 <p_>Think what it requires to utter a genuine doxology. This ceding 
D06 178 over of self in an irrational act of singing praise I also find, 
D06 179 sometimes, to be silly and trivial, because I don't want to commit 
D06 180 an overt, nonrational act and I don't want to lose control of self, 
D06 181 or give up the reasonableness of my calculated economics or my 
D06 182 rather sure morality. But if I cannot yield even in this lyrical 
D06 183 act, it is likely that I will always choose the love of money over 
D06 184 a good confession. I am increasingly convinced that for myself and 
D06 185 my church, it is only a doxological mode of discourse that will 
D06 186 break the power of commodity - even as I know that doxology is also 
D06 187 readily co-opted to become a commercial jingle for 
D06 188 commoditization.<p/>
D06 189 <p_>Daniel Hardy and K.L. Ford argue in <tf_>Praising and Knowing 
D06 190 God<tf/> that praise is difficult in a technological society. 
D06 191 Indeed, the more affluent and less generous a church is, the more 
D06 192 muted its congregation's praise, because the very act of praise is 
D06 193 itself an act of relinquishment. We end up with only paid soloists 
D06 194 to render our praise for us, to whom we listen with respect and 
D06 195 appreciation, but without foot-tapping, hand-clapping, bodily 
D06 196 movement or bodily relinquishment. Maybe <quote_>"white men can't 
D06 197 jump,"<quote/> and maybe rich people (or those of us who wish we 
D06 198 were) cannot sing praise with any abandonment of self, body or 
D06 199 money.<p/>
D06 200 <p_>The doxology acknowledges a character other than those of us 
D06 201 who can be trusted. Psalm 107 recites the specificity of the 
D06 202 <quote_>"Lord of Lords"<quote/> in whom Israel invests mightily. 
D06 203 The Joel reading is a promissory (I do not say eschatological) 
D06 204 assertion inviting gladness and joy for the God who has given rain, 
D06 205 who will <quote_>"act wondrously,"<quote/> and who will eventually 
D06 206 <quote_>"pour out my spirit"<quote/> - give the power of God's own 
D06 207 self to the world. Measured rationally and economically, doxology 
D06 208 is a feeble, futile gesture. Whenever the church has had missional 
D06 209 vitality, however, it has chosen the irrationality of doxology over 
D06 210 the rationality of commodity.
D07   1 <FROWN:D07\><h_><p_>Summary<p/><h/>
D07   2 <p_>Understanding conversion was a hermeneutic project in the 
D07   3 twelfth century as it is in our own day. One purpose of this work 
D07   4 has been to recover the broad outlines of that project as it was 
D07   5 grasped in that distant era. I have regained part, at least, of 
D07   6 what was read into St. Jerome's sentence <quote_>"Christians are 
D07   7 made, not born"<quote/> (<tf|>ep. 107,1). From beginning to end the 
D07   8 hermeneutic project was a task in metaphorical analysis. In the 
D07   9 languages of philosophy and theology, 'conversion' was a metaphor 
D07  10 taken over from arts and crafts, especially from those employed in 
D07  11 transforming raw materials into works of art or achieving some such 
D07  12 alteration of metals as occurs in the production of bronze.<p/>
D07  13 <p_>I found that those engaged in spiritual conversion employed a 
D07  14 parable of Jesus to describe their task as recovering a treasure 
D07  15 buried in another's field. The Apostle Paul provided an alternate 
D07  16 metaphor when he wrote: <quote_>"Now we see through a glass, 
D07  17 darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I 
D07  18 know even as also I am known"<quote/> (1Cor. 13:12). Paul added 
D07  19 what was taken to be a crucial gloss on this text when he wrote 
D07  20 that each person must think according to the measure of faith dealt 
D07  21 out by God (Rom. 12:3). Thus, spiritual enlightenment depended upon 
D07  22 grace, not on human traditions, laws, or actions. And inegalitarian 
D07  23 grace, bestowed in arbitrary proportions by God's hidden judgment, 
D07  24 established serried ranks of greater and lesser lights. In fact, 
D07  25 Paul's metaphor, expanded with this gloss, epitomized the entire 
D07  26 hermeneutic project.<p/>
D07  27 <p_>What conclusions can be proposed? Three seem obvious. Perhaps 
D07  28 too self<?_>-<?/>evident is that the word <tf|>conversion is not a 
D07  29 reliable tool of analysis. Far from being (so to speak) clinically 
D07  30 sterile, it comes laden with connotations rooted in Christian 
D07  31 history that transmit their coloration on contact to materials 
D07  32 under investigation. There is reason to assume that the word has no 
D07  33 equivalent in major languages outside Europe. The question is 
D07  34 certainly worth considering whether applying the word 
D07  35 <tf|>conversion can impose Western conceptions on non-Western 
D07  36 experiences and ideas.<p/>
D07  37 <p_>Further, what is called 'conversion' is defined by contexts of 
D07  38 time and place. Consequently, it is important to determine what is 
D07  39 called conversion, by whom it is so called, and the language used 
D07  40 to analyze it.<p/>
D07  41 <p_>I have discovered that ideas about conversion in 
D07  42 twelfth-century Europe had two senses. In the first, conversion was 
D07  43 obvious. It occurred within the confines of human nature, expressed 
D07  44 by the ideas and words and shaped by the capacities and 
D07  45 institutions that grew out of human nature. Sociologists, 
D07  46 anthropologists, and historians recognize this kind of conversion, 
D07  47 as manifested, for example, in acceptance of Christianity and 
D07  48 submission to the Church or in a change of affiliation or 
D07  49 discipline within the ecclesiastical order. However, these 
D07  50 inquiries have established that eleventh- and twelfth-century 
D07  51 writers recognized this variety as conversion only in a formal 
D07  52 sense.<p/>
D07  53 <p_>For them, authentic conversion was not formal but supernatural 
D07  54 and empathetic. The heart turned not to Christianity or Church but 
D07  55 to Christ; by mystic union, it turned into Christ. Indeed, it was 
D07  56 turned by grace, rather than by any logical deductions or emotional 
D07  57 discoveries of its own. Indemonstrable and mysterious, this mystic 
D07  58 turning of the heart into something else was not bound to formal, 
D07  59 institutional obedience, nor could its outcome, hidden in God's 
D07  60 foreknowledge, be predicted. To the contrary, reversing human 
D07  61 expectations, it frequently proved subversive of formal obedience 
D07  62 and customs.<p/>
D07  63 <p_>Thus, a second outcome of the work at hand has been to define 
D07  64 these twinned but entirely separable ideas of conversion and, 
D07  65 moreover, to identify them as historical artifacts, souvenirs of 
D07  66 the ascetic wing of a military, literary, and ascetic male 
D07  67 aristocracy in western Europe.<p/>
D07  68 <p_>The implications of insisting that the hermeneutics of 
D07  69 conversion is a historical artifact are wide, but they are quite 
D07  70 the same as some disclosed by the historical criticism of the Bible 
D07  71 and the 'quest for the historical Jesus.' They can only entail 
D07  72 asking whether the objects of faith, too, were historical fictions. 
D07  73 This is my third conclusion.<p/>
D07  74 <p_>Polemical experience with philosophical skepticism and the 
D07  75 critical demands of Christianity itself prompted the Church Fathers 
D07  76 to anticipate this query when they glorified in the great 
D07  77 improbabilities: that God revealed the truth needed by all to an 
D07  78 obscure and despised people in a remote corner of the world; that 
D07  79 God became man and submitted to death; that God long withheld 
D07  80 revealing the way of salvation, leaving whole nations to live and 
D07  81 die in their sins; and that, condemned by lying witnesses and 
D07  82 wicked priests and executed by a cowardly ruler and ignorant 
D07  83 soldiers, the crucified God would bring about universal redemption 
D07  84 through the crime of those who mocked and slew him. Given the first 
D07  85 two conclusions, I should stress that the Fathers addressed such 
D07  86 doubts not on the level of what could be demonstrated by natural 
D07  87 logic but on the indemonstrable grounds of supernatural revelation 
D07  88 and grace.<p/>
D07  89 <p_>Let me recapitulate how this point was reached. I first 
D07  90 distinguished the phenomenon (what was called 'conversion'), the 
D07  91 name ('conversion'), and the process by which the phenomenon came 
D07  92 to be called by the name. What began in esthetics, the realm of 
D07  93 inexpressible feeling and intuition, was transposed into that of 
D07  94 poetics, the realm of representation. It has been important to 
D07  95 realize that <tf|>conversion is a metaphor-word and, as such, a 
D07  96 historical artifact. Thus, whatever may be said about the 
D07  97 experience of conversion, the word <tf|>conversion and the 
D07  98 vernaculars used to define and express its meanings were by no 
D07  99 means universal. I assumed that like other works of art, the name 
D07 100 'conversion' contained elements of the process by which it was made 
D07 101 and that they could be unpacked by analyzing the artifact.<p/>
D07 102 <p_>As a technical word in the language of manufacture, 
D07 103 <tf|>conversion denoted a variety of processes. Correspondingly, as 
D07 104 a metaphor, it contained not one meaning but a large repertory of 
D07 105 them, each with its own history and paradigm of change. The 
D07 106 experience of the word in the world left its marks, especially 
D07 107 during persecutions suffered by the early Church. One result of 
D07 108 persecution was that for the survival of the institutional Church, 
D07 109 devices were invented that enabled believers who succumbed to 
D07 110 temptation, even to the point of denying their faith, to return to 
D07 111 the fold and that in time permitted the cycle of confession, lapse, 
D07 112 penitence, and reconciliation to be repeated throughout life. 
D07 113 Monasticism was the great institutional form of conversion as a 
D07 114 penitential way of life. Thus, in the repertory of paradigms, those 
D07 115 became dominant that represented conversion as a process of 
D07 116 transformation, full of perplexities and dangers, rather than a 
D07 117 sudden, decisive peripety. However, they were supplemented and 
D07 118 melded, in a highly eclectic way, with other patterns.<p/>
D07 119 <p_>I have not argued that understanding the metaphor-word 
D07 120 <tf|>conversion was, or is, a matter of playing with words, or 
D07 121 entirely a rhetorical exercise. Yet it seems inescapably true that 
D07 122 access to that understanding comes through texts, which are 
D07 123 written, historical documents, and that the ideas informing those 
D07 124 texts are set forth in words and syntax that are likewise bound by 
D07 125 time and place. I had to ask at the beginning whether Olav 
D07 126 Tryggvessn's words to Sigrid the Strong-minded - <quote_>"Why 
D07 127 should I wed you, you heathen bitch?"<quote/> - and his sharp blow 
D07 128 to her face were really part of the confrontation between 
D07 129 Christianity and paganism in tenth-century Scandinavia or a 
D07 130 reconstruction tailored to suit expectations in a 
D07 131 thirteenth-century Christian society.<p/>
D07 132 <p_>It seems indisputable, moreover, that the language in the text, 
D07 133 and the thoughts in the language, and the perceptions in the 
D07 134 thoughts are also creatures of time and place and, consequently, 
D07 135 that they have antecedents, possibly also consequences, that, being 
D07 136 historical, are not universal.<p/>
D07 137 <p_>This emphasis has had one further effect. To speak of language 
D07 138 as historical evidence is to ask whose language it was. By whom, 
D07 139 for whom, with whom did it signify, especially in concealed, 
D07 140 metaphorical senses? The vernaculars of conversion were used in 
D07 141 discourse. I have found correlations between the ways in which they 
D07 142 were used and the identities of those who controlled discourse and 
D07 143 its rituals and who, as a result, received, interpreted, enacted, 
D07 144 and conveyed tradition. Hermeneutic circles are made by social 
D07 145 circles.<p/>
D07 146 <p_>I have also been acutely aware that all of these qualifications 
D07 147 apply to me, seeking to understand how others understood conversion 
D07 148 and thus working within a two-tiered hermeneutic structure that 
D07 149 from some perspectives of hermeneutic circularity may resemble a 
D07 150 gallery of mirrors.<p/>
D07 151 <p_>Another object of these investigations has been to recover 
D07 152 guiding ideas. Here the real point of departure was the 
D07 153 proposition, inherited in different forms from Hebraic and Hellenic 
D07 154 traditions, that human nature was made for happiness but lived in 
D07 155 misery: What was called conversion was a way to survive and escape 
D07 156 the wretchedness of this world and achieve happiness. And yet 
D07 157 'conversion' stood at the juncture of imperative and impossibility. 
D07 158 Thus, understanding conversion was not susceptible to direct, 
D07 159 logical demonstration; true to the nature of metaphors, it required 
D07 160 poetic imagination - that is, fiction, built up by a strategy of 
D07 161 criticism. Universal myths (including that of the noble origins of 
D07 162 a people, its exile through catastrophe, and eventual return to a 
D07 163 land of milk and honey) were brought to bear. Faith was accepted as 
D07 164 a mode of knowledge, by no means opposed to reason. But among the 
D07 165 varieties of faith - such as intellectual assent, common sense, and 
D07 166 trust - only one was adequate to empathetic conversion. 'Believing 
D07 167 in' through love produced the union of believer with the object of 
D07 168 belief and therefore the transcendence of the believer's self and 
D07 169 circumstances. This was, specifically, the kind of faith granted by 
D07 170 God according to measure. In its poetics empathetic conversion was 
D07 171 of the heart, not the mind. Emotions were dominant; mind served 
D07 172 heart, each according to its own measure of faith.<p/>
D07 173 <p_>Because it was understood as a gradual process of formation, 
D07 174 rather than as an instant, irreversible event, what was called 
D07 175 conversion entailed pathology. Fear of error and apostasy among 
D07 176 professed believers demanded relentless, life<?_>-<?/>long 
D07 177 vigilance, for since carnal desires could not be plucked out by the 
D07 178 roots, one could only repeatedly shave off the wicked deeds that 
D07 179 kept growing out from them.<p/>
D07 180 <p_>Institutionalizing conversion in monastic order had two effects 
D07 181 on understanding. The first was to establish ritualized methods of 
D07 182 spiritual discipline (such as reading and prayer), each of which 
D07 183 hinged on kinesthetic pain. The second enlarged the sphere of 
D07 184 ambivalence created by the mysterious and ungovernable 
D07 185 proportionalities of faith. For, devoted to imitation of Christ 
D07 186 crucified, monastic discipline focused understanding on ironies.<p/>
D07 187 <p_>Overarching all the ironies that I have examined were those of 
D07 188 theodicy. Empathetic conversion was an essay on the existence, 
D07 189 power, and goodness of God. If there were a God, how could there be 
D07 190 evil? If there were no God, how could there be good? Why were those 
D07 191 who served and obeyed God in purity of heart afflicted with 
D07 192 temptation and physical pain, while the manifestly evil, the 
D07 193 hypocrite, and the unbeliever prospered? Why did virtuosos in 
D07 194 ascetic disciplines and eminent theologians experience spiritual 
D07 195 aridity and dejection? One key to these queries was the ironic 
D07 196 distance between appearance accessible to human minds and divine 
D07 197 reality, as in that between Christ the victim on the Cross and 
D07 198 Christ the universal Ruler and Judge. Not far behind came the 
D07 199 ironic distance between Christ, as perfect archetype, and the human 
D07 200 soul as his flawed image. Thus, understanding the metaphor-word 
D07 201 <tf|>conversion presupposed the inversion of values that the 
D07 202 Apostle Paul had constructed in his theology of the Cross: what was 
D07 203 to the world pain was to believers pleasure; the world's ignorance 
D07 204 was God's wisdom; its degradation, his honor; its servitude, his 
D07 205 freedom; its weakness, his power; its death, his life. Irony became 
D07 206 the dominant trope for understanding conversion and its subversive 
D07 207 effects.<p/>
D07 208 <p_>Reflections on conscience underscored this irony. For, given 
D07 209 the hiddenness and incommunicability of conscience, the spiritual 
D07 210 condition of the soul was hidden even to the soul itself. The 
D07 211 soul's capacity for self-deception meant that the great need of 
D07 212 conscience was for purity, which could only be proportionate, and 
D07 213 not for certitude, which could at least pretend to be absolute.
D08   1 <#FROWN:D08\><h_><p_>William M. Bodiford<p/>
D08   2 <p_>ZEN IN THE ART OF FUNERALS: RITUAL SALVATION IN JAPANESE 
D08   3 BUDDHISM<p/><h/>
D08   4 <p_>Funeral rituals, even ones with an artistic aura, rarely appear 
D08   5 in descriptions of Zen art or Zen practice. Although little 
D08   6 commented on, the art of Buddhist funerals in Japan is very Zen. In 
D08   7 order to understand the Zen of Japanese funerals, first one must 
D08   8 leave behind preconceptions based on religiously inspired images of 
D08   9 what Zen should be and, instead, examine how Zen functions as a 
D08  10 religion in Japanese society. One of the most important social 
D08  11 roles of Zen, as in other religions, is to guide the living through 
D08  12 the experience of death. Buddhist scholars, who should know better, 
D08  13 not uncommonly disparage funerals as mere ritualism peripheral to 
D08  14 fundamental Zen insights. Yet for lay people suffering the loss of 
D08  15 a loved one few occasions are charged with more emotional power and 
D08  16 religious meaning. Zen funerals, furthermore, like their 
D08  17 counterparts in medieval European Christianity, historically 
D08  18 constituted one of the more significant regular meeting points 
D08  19 between the closed religious world located within monastic 
D08  20 institutions and the larger secular community they served. The 
D08  21 exploration of Zen funerals thus can aid our understanding of how 
D08  22 the religious worldview of monks attained expression in the world 
D08  23 actually lived by lay people as well as how monastic institutions, 
D08  24 by giving new meaning to the process of death, were able to claim 
D08  25 privileged social and economic roles among the living. This article 
D08  26 presents a brief overview of the historical development of key 
D08  27 elements of Zen funerals in the S<*_>o-stroke<*/>t<*_>o-stroke<*/> 
D08  28 Zen tradition to show how Zen monks manipulated the symbols of Zen 
D08  29 enlightenment to provide spiritual solace to the living and 
D08  30 religious salvation to the dead. An examination of these practices 
D08  31 will demonstrate the limitations of the usual academic answers to 
D08  32 the question, What is Zen?<p/>
D08  33 <p_>Most descriptions of Zen fall into two camps, sometimes placed 
D08  34 in opposition, which could be called (in the words of Alan Watts) 
D08  35 <quote_>"beat Zen"<quote/> and <quote_>"square Zen."<quote/> The 
D08  36 first refers to the widespread belief in an intrinsic spiritual 
D08  37 link between Zen and artistic endeavors. This view, now commonly 
D08  38 associated with Watts himself and D. T. Suzuki, asserts that Zen 
D08  39 represents the sublime achievement in personal, artistic 
D08  40 self-expression. The association between Zen and artistic skill has 
D08  41 become such a clich<*_>e-acute<*/> that most books published today 
D08  42 with the word 'Zen' in their titles actually concern topics 
D08  43 unrelated to Buddhism or religion. In contrast to this popular 
D08  44 image, Buddhist scholars have stressed the earnest character of Zen 
D08  45 as it appears in its traditional Buddhist setting: the Zen 
D08  46 monastery. Instead of artistic pursuits, Zen monasteries house a 
D08  47 tightly disciplined community of monks engaged wholeheartedly in 
D08  48 re-creating an ancient life-style based on the legacy of the 
D08  49 Buddhist patriarchs. Typically, the day's activities begin at four 
D08  50 o'clock in the morning with the first of four daily periods of Zen 
D08  51 meditation (<foreign|>zazen). During  these meditation periods the 
D08  52 monks sit cross<?_>-<?/>legged, lined up together in the meditation 
D08  53 hall for about two hours of silent contemplation. When the monks 
D08  54 are not engaged in communal meditation, they occupy themselves with 
D08  55 an endless variety of religious rituals and monastic chores. Not a 
D08  56 single idle minute is tolerated. These monastic monks have no time 
D08  57 for art. They single-mindedly pursue the soteriological goal of Zen 
D08  58 enlightenment. According to the scholars who direct our attention 
D08  59 to this monastic pursuit, the essence of Zen lies in a life of 
D08  60 meditation and enlightenment.<p/>
D08  61 <p_>Yet these two descriptions of Zen Buddhism share a key 
D08  62 similarity. Critics of Zen would assert that both types - the 
D08  63 artistic Zen as well as the Zen in the monastery - constitute 
D08  64 self-centered, basically selfish pursuits. This might well be the 
D08  65 reason for some of the popularity of Zen in America. Whether 
D08  66 focused on artistic self-expression or focused on the realization 
D08  67 of self-enlightenment, both images of Zen seem designed to appeal 
D08  68 to traditional American sentiments of rugged self-reliance, 
D08  69 individualism, and freedom. This special Zen self-reliance, 
D08  70 however, can be obtained only by years of effort and strict 
D08  71 training, either in meditation or in art. Aspiring Zen artists and 
D08  72 Zen monks both set forth on a rigorous quest for a transcendental, 
D08  73 superhuman experience - an experience of insight or enlightenment - 
D08  74 that will guide their art and their religion.<p/>
D08  75 <p_>To many observers, this superhuman experience appears beyond 
D08  76 the grasp of the average person. Anyone who has attempted either 
D08  77 Zen art, such as the Tea Ceremony, or even a single session of Zen 
D08  78 meditation knows how difficult it can be. Few people can take the 
D08  79 necessary time away from families and jobs to devote years to harsh 
D08  80 training in the pursuit of a narrow, personal goal. Zen advocates 
D08  81 typically assert that to know Zen one must experience it directly. 
D08  82 Yet if one cannot thus personally pursue the path of Zen, then what 
D08  83 spiritual benefits can Zen offer? Indeed, however appealing some 
D08  84 descriptions of the attainments of the accomplished Zen masters 
D08  85 might seem, for many would-be converts Zen practice is too 
D08  86 impractical. This very criticism of Zen, in fact, was common in 
D08  87 medieval Japan. The famous Buddhist saint My<*_>o-stroke<*/>e 
D08  88 (1173-1232, a.k.a. K<*_>o-stroke<*/>ben), for example, expressed 
D08  89 great interest in Zen and became an accomplished meditator. Yet 
D08  90 My<*_>o-stroke<*/>e wrote that the Zen school had nothing to offer 
D08  91 laymen.<p/>
D08  92 <p_>This exclusivity is especially associated with the style of Zen 
D08  93 taught by D<*_>o-stroke<*/>gen (1200-53), the founder of the 
D08  94 Japanese S<*_>o-stroke<*/>t<*_>o-stroke<*/> tradition. 
D08  95 D<*_>o-stroke<*/>gen stands out for his uncompromising insistence 
D08  96 on strict, monastic Zen. Although he lived at a time of religious 
D08  97 ferment when many popular religious movements in Japan competed for 
D08  98 new converts, D<*_>o-stroke<*/>gen did not attract a large 
D08  99 following. Instead he devoted his energies to the cultivation of a 
D08 100 few dedicated monks. He founded only a single, small, isolated 
D08 101 monastery in the rural mountains of northeastern Japan. There he 
D08 102 taught that single-minded sitting in Zen meditation embodies the 
D08 103 essence of Buddhist enlightenment. According to 
D08 104 D<*_>o-stroke<*/>gen, this enlightenment must be realized in 
D08 105 meditation and expressed in accordance to strict ritual forms. 
D08 106 D<*_>o-stroke<*/>gen wrote detailed commentaries on the monastic 
D08 107 codes, in which he described how every action, from cooking to use 
D08 108 of the toilet, must be performed as an expression of living 
D08 109 enlightenment. In his more extreme writings D<*_>o-stroke<*/>gen 
D08 110 even went so far as to assert that people living outside the 
D08 111 monastery cannot attain enlightenment. The severity of this 
D08 112 assertion is clear when we remember that in a Buddhist context 
D08 113 enlightenment implies salvation. In this instance, therefore, 
D08 114 D<*_>o-stroke<*/>gen denied that laymen and laywomen could attain 
D08 115 salvation.<p/>
D08 116 <p_>Contrary to the descriptions summarized above, neither the 
D08 117 artistic approach to Zen nor the monastic approach accurately 
D08 118 depicts the Zen Buddhism found in Japan. This is not to say that 
D08 119 Zen-inspired artists do not exist or that Zen monasteries do not 
D08 120 train monks in meditation. Zen artists and Zen monks can be found 
D08 121 in limited numbers. But at the vast majority of Zen temples - and 
D08 122 there are about twenty thousand Zen temples versus only seventy-two 
D08 123 monasteries - no one practices art, no one meditates, and no one 
D08 124 actively pursues the experience of enlightenment. The popular image 
D08 125 of Zen known in the West and the image promoted by scholars both 
D08 126 fail to reflect this reality. Neither tells us what religious 
D08 127 functions truly occur at Zen temples. Surveys of Zen priests reveal 
D08 128 that most monks stop practicing meditation as soon as they leave 
D08 129 the monasteries at which they receive their basic training. Once 
D08 130 monks return to their local village temple, lay-oriented 
D08 131 ceremonies, especially funeral services, occupy their energies to 
D08 132 the total exclusion of either Zen art or Zen meditation. Statistics 
D08 133 published by the S<*_>o-stroke<*/>t<*_>o-stroke<*/> school state 
D08 134 that about 77 percent of S<*_>o-stroke<*/>t<*_>o-stroke<*/> laymen 
D08 135 would visit their temples only for reasons connected with funerals 
D08 136 and death. A mere 7 percent would do so for what they termed 
D08 137 spiritual reasons. Less than 2 percent would go to a Zen priest at 
D08 138 a time of personal trouble or crisis.<p/>
D08 139 <p_>These statistics, of course, are not at all unusual in modern 
D08 140 Japanese Buddhism. For various historical reasons funeral rituals 
D08 141 have come to represent the main source of financial income at most 
D08 142 Buddhist temples in Japan, not just those affiliated with one of 
D08 143 the Zen schools. Yet most people would judge the preponderance of 
D08 144 funeral services at Zen temples simply as evidence showing the 
D08 145 decline of 'real Zen' in modern Japan. In this view, the Zen 
D08 146 temples still exist, but the practice of Zen has all but 
D08 147 disappeared. Presumably some distinction can be made between 'Zen 
D08 148 in itself' and the so-called non-Zen practices commonly found 
D08 149 within the Zen school.<p/>
D08 150 <p_>This distinction, however, is not clear-cut. Historically, Zen 
D08 151 monks first popularized the widespread practice of Buddhist 
D08 152 funerals in Japan. Prior to the emergence of independent Zen sects 
D08 153 in Japan, only the wealthy nobility sought to supplement 
D08 154 traditional Japanese funeral rites with special Buddhist services. 
D08 155 The majority of Japanese people, in contrast, generally lacked 
D08 156 access to the Buddhist clergy and economic prosperity required for 
D08 157 elaborate Buddhist funeral rites. It was Zen monks who first 
D08 158 introduced and popularized affordable funeral rites that appealed 
D08 159 to the religious sentiments of the common people. These Zen rites 
D08 160 came to define the standard funeral format that was emulated by 
D08 161 most other Japanese Buddhist schools. In other words, Buddhist 
D08 162 funerals are <tf|>not external to traditional Zen practice. The 
D08 163 image of Zen as a religion of artistic insight and enlightenment is 
D08 164 incomplete. In Japan, Zen monks always have used their powers of 
D08 165 insight and enlightenment to serve the more immediate worldly needs 
D08 166 of their patrons. The realm of Zen enlightenment extended beyond 
D08 167 the monastery walls into the homes of laymen.<p/>
D08 168 <h_><p_>ZEN FUNERALS<p/><h/>
D08 169 <p_>To find the origin of Zen funerals, one must look first to the 
D08 170 Chinese monastic codes followed by Japanese Zen monks. As mentioned 
D08 171 earlier, D<*_>o-stroke<*/>gen (the founder of the Japanese 
D08 172 S<*_>o-stroke<*/>t<*_>o-stroke<*/> tradition) had stressed the 
D08 173 spiritual importance of monastic regulations because they codify 
D08 174 ritually meaningful expressions of enlightened activity. The 
D08 175 activities described in these codes include funeral rites. Buddhist 
D08 176 funeral rites were developed by Chinese Buddhists relatively late, 
D08 177 in order to adapt Buddhism to traditional Chinese sensibilities. 
D08 178 The first detailed account of Chinese Buddhist funeral rites is 
D08 179 found in an eleventh-century Chinese Buddhist encyclopedia. It 
D08 180 contains twenty-six entries on funeral rituals, most of which are 
D08 181 explained by means of quotations from the Confucian classics, such 
D08 182 as the Book of Rites (<foreign|>Liji), the Book of Documents 
D08 183 (<foreign|>Shujing), and the Book of Odes (<foreign|>Shijing). In 
D08 184 fact, all the funeral ceremonies referred to by this encyclopedia, 
D08 185 except cremation and the chanting of Buddhist scriptures, parallel 
D08 186 earlier non-Buddhist  Chinese rites. This same pattern is found in 
D08 187 the earliest Zen monastic code, the <foreign_>Chanyuan 
D08 188 quinggui<foreign/> compiled in 1103. The description of the funeral 
D08 189 for a Zen abbot in this text prescribes a sequence of ceremonies 
D08 190 modeled on the traditional Chinese Confucian rites for deceased 
D08 191 parents, with the abbot seen as the symbolic parent of his 
D08 192 disciples. On the abbot's death, his direct disciples would wear 
D08 193 robes of mourning and retire from their normal duties, while the 
D08 194 other monks in the monastery would be assigned the functions of 
D08 195 praising the abbot's accomplishments and of consoling his 
D08 196 disciples. The deceased abbot's corpse would be washed, shaved, 
D08 197 dressed in new robes, and placed inside a round coffin in an 
D08 198 upright, seated position, as if engaged in meditation.<p/>
D08 199 <p_>The subsequent funeral ceremonies then would take several days. 
D08 200 A special altar would be prepared on which to display a portrait of 
D08 201 the abbot as well as his prized possessions - his sleeping mat, fly 
D08 202 whisk, staff, meditation mat, razor, robes, and so forth. The altar 
D08 203 and coffin would be decorated with flowers. Decorative banners 
D08 204 would be placed on both sides of the coffin. Other banners that 
D08 205 proclaim Buddhist doctrines, such as a verse on impermanence, would 
D08 206 adorn the room. The abbot's final words or death poem would also be 
D08 207 prominently displayed. The hall containing the altar would be lined 
D08 208 with white curtains, while additional lanterns, incense burners, 
D08 209 white flowers, and daily offerings would be set out. On the day of 
D08 210 the actual burial or cremation, an elaborate procession consisting 
D08 211 of resident monks, lay patrons, and local government officials 
D08 212 would carry not just the coffin, but also the altar, the abbot's 
D08 213 portrait, and the special banners to the grave site.
D09   1 <FROWN:D09\><h_><p_>The Christian Right in the United States<p/>
D09   2 <p_>MATTHEW C. MOEN<p/><h/>
D09   3 <p_>In the late 1970s, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians in 
D09   4 the United States began organizing to contend in the political 
D09   5 arena. They did so out of a concern that traditional American 
D09   6 values were waning, and out of a conviction that a secularized 
D09   7 government was partly to blame. Reverend Pat Robertson spoke for 
D09   8 many conservative Christians at the time: <quote_>"We used to think 
D09   9 that if we stayed home and prayed it would be enough. Well, we are 
D09  10 fed up. We think it is time to put God back in government."<quote/> 
D09  11 Toward that end, millions of evangelicals and fundamentalists 
D09  12 joined a number of organizations that collectively were labeled the 
D09  13 Christian Right. Throughout the 1980s, the Christian Right 
D09  14 earnestly challenged both governmental policies and secular 
D09  15 principles.<p/>
D09  16 <p_>This chapter documents the transformation of the Christian 
D09  17 Right during the 1980s, as it proffered a challenge to the state, 
D09  18 and focuses specifically on changes in the Christian Right's 
D09  19 organizational structure, political strategy, and rhetoric. Elite 
D09  20 leaders consciously drove changes in these areas in an attempt to 
D09  21 maximize their political influence.<p/>
D09  22 <p_>Threaded through the chapter is the argument that the Christian 
D09  23 Right's leaders grew more politically sophisticated over time. Many 
D09  24 of the movement's early leaders gained political experience and 
D09  25 savvy, and some of the less capable people were replaced by those 
D09  26 more politically astute. Joseph Conn of Americans United for the 
D09  27 Separation of Church and State focused on the latter point in an 
D09  28 interview: <quote_>"Over time, the old guard of the movement has 
D09  29 mostly disappeared from the scene. Those early people were strongly 
D09  30 motivated by fundamentalist religion, but were not particularly 
D09  31 sophisticated in politics .... They gradually dropped out or were 
D09  32 moved to the sidelines, leaving the political arena to the somewhat 
D09  33 less narrowly sectarian, but more sophisticated people."<quote/> 
D09  34 Not surprisingly, Christian Right leaders agreed with the notion of 
D09  35 increased sophistication. Gary Jarmin of the American Freedom 
D09  36 Coalition flatly asserted that <quote_>"the sophistication in the 
D09  37 Christian Right has clearly increased."<quote/> Although self 
D09  38 serving, Jarmin's statement was also true, which becomes apparent 
D09  39 as the sophistication theme is re<?_>-<?/>visited.<p/>
D09  40 <p_>Before proceeding further, though, one caveat should be added: 
D09  41 the improved political skills manifested in the leadership did not 
D09  42 automatically result in a more powerful movement. In fact, evidence 
D09  43 suggests that the Christian Right was a less formidable force at 
D09  44 the end of the 1980s than it was at the beginning. Simply put, the 
D09  45 movement was better led by the end of the decade, not necessarily a 
D09  46 more influential political factor.<p/>
D09  47 <p_>This inquiry into changes in the Christian Right is warranted 
D09  48 on two counts. First, scholars have failed to examine its changes 
D09  49 very thoroughly or systematically. They have focused on the 
D09  50 Christian Right's influence in politics through studies of its 
D09  51 political action committees, electoral clout, and lobbying 
D09  52 activities. With the exception of Lienesch's article, which applies 
D09  53 theories of social movements to the Christian Right, there has been 
D09  54 virtually no focus on the other side of the causal equation: how 
D09  55 has political activism shaped and influenced the Christian Right? 
D09  56 It is an equally pertinent and important question.<p/>
D09  57 <p_>Second, the inquiry into changes is timely, in the wake of a 
D09  58 decade of activity, Rev. Pat Robertson's unsuccessful bid for the 
D09  59 1988 Republican presidential nomination, and the termination of the 
D09  60 Moral Majority. The Robertson candidacy and the closure of the 
D09  61 Moral Majority, in particular, were substantive and symbolic 
D09  62 benchmarks for the Christian Right; before a second full decade of 
D09  63 activism is well underway, it is worth pausing to consider the 
D09  64 changes that transpired in the first full decade.<p/>
D09  65 <h_><p_>Organizational Structure<p/><h/>
D09  66 <p_>The Christian Right's structure changed considerably in the 
D09  67 1980s. Ten easily identified national organizations were located in 
D09  68 the nation's capital and were active during the decade. Those 
D09  69 organizations, along with their major leader(s) and their lifespan, 
D09  70 are listed in Table 4.1.<p/>
D09  71 <p_><O_>omit_table<O/><p/>
D09  72 <p_>An overview of those organizations, and a discussion of the 
D09  73 multitude of groups, follows.<p/>
D09  74 <p_>The National Christian Action Coalition (NCAC) was launched by 
D09  75 Robert Billings, a fundamentalist educator from Indiana. In the 
D09  76 late 1970s, he spearheaded opposition to Internal Revenue Service 
D09  77 regulations aimed at revoking the tax-exempt status of racially 
D09  78 discriminatory schools. The NCAC was designed to be the 'eyes and 
D09  79 ears' of the conservative Christian school network, informing 
D09  80 schools of bureaucratic regulations that would affect their 
D09  81 operations. Billings bequeathed the NCAC to his son Bill, after the 
D09  82 former accepted a position in the 1980 Reagan campaign. Bill 
D09  83 subsequently enlarged the NCAC's role by producing materials that 
D09  84 taught conservative Christians how to participate effectively in 
D09  85 politics, testifying on Capitol Hill for tuition tax credits for 
D09  86 private schools, and compiling indexes on the conservatism of 
D09  87 members of Congress. All of that activity did not prevent the NCAC 
D09  88 from being overshadowed, though, by a budding Moral Majority.<p/>
D09  89 <p_>Bill Billings acknowledged that <quote_>"they [Moral Majority] 
D09  90 went up front and we kind of went into the background."<quote/> By 
D09  91 1985, the position of the NCAC was untenable, and it was 
D09  92 terminated.<p/>
D09  93 <p_>The Religious Roundtable was formed in 1979 by Ed McAteer, a 
D09  94 fundamentalist layperson with deep roots in the Southern Baptist 
D09  95 Convention (SBC). He used the roundtable as a forum for training 
D09  96 previously apolitical ministers in the art of politics, hoping that 
D09  97 they would foment opposition to Carter's 1980 reelection bid. Prior 
D09  98 to the election, the roundtable conducted training sessions for an 
D09  99 estimated twenty thousand ministers. It also organized the National 
D09 100 Affairs Briefing, a forum for Reagan to solicit the support of 
D09 101 conservative Christian elites. The Religious Roundtable was 
D09 102 disbanded after the 1980 election, other than to serve as a 
D09 103 platform for McAteer's political pronouncements. Its headquarters 
D09 104 was moved from Washington, D.C. , to McAteer's hometown of Memphis, 
D09 105 Tennessee. The roundtable is still in existence, but for all 
D09 106 practical purposes it is nothing more than a letterhead 
D09 107 organization.<p/>
D09 108 <p_>Christian Voice was started by Rev. Robert Grant as a 
D09 109 California<?_>-<?/>based, anti-gay rights organization. It received 
D09 110 early publicity from Rev. Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting 
D09 111 Network and from its 'moral report cards' on members of Congress. 
D09 112 The report cards caught the attention of the national media, partly 
D09 113 because they distilled the Christian Right's agenda and partly 
D09 114 because they came out so skewed. For example, a Catholic priest in 
D09 115 Congress at the time received a zero 'moral approval rating,' in 
D09 116 part because he supported the creation of the Education Department 
D09 117 and opposed a balanced-budget amendment. Christian Voice consisted 
D09 118 of a lobbying arm, headed by Gary Jarmin; a tax-exempt educational 
D09 119 wing, responsible for disseminating information about political 
D09 120 candidates; and a political action committee, called the 'Moral 
D09 121 Government Fund.' During Reagan's first term, the lobbying arm was 
D09 122 active on behalf of antiabortion and school-prayer legislation, 
D09 123 while the tax-exempt wing continued churning out report cards on 
D09 124 members of Congress. Near the end of that period, however, the 
D09 125 organization's activity waned. A 1984 interviewee noted that the 
D09 126 <quote_>"Christian Voice is largely a letterhead organization these 
D09 127 days. They still send out their mailings to raise money, but they 
D09 128 do not do much else."<quote/><p/>
D09 129 <p_>As Reagan's second term opened, Christian Voice's brain trust 
D09 130 restructured its operation and channeled its resources away from 
D09 131 Capitol Hill, toward the grass roots. It continued to distribute 
D09 132 updated report cards, but it effectively suspended its lobbying 
D09 133 operation. The moribundity of Christian Voice was evident in June 
D09 134 1989. The organization shared a suite in the Heritage Foundation 
D09 135 building with a consulting firm, and the literature was a year old. 
D09 136 Gary Jarmin confirmed the dormancy of Christian Voice in an 
D09 137 interview, noting that it would only <quote_>"serve as a door 
D09 138 opener to churches"<quote/> in the future. It was no longer the 
D09 139 vehicle outside the church for Christian Voice's leadership. That 
D09 140 task was assumed by the American Freedom Coalition (AFC).<p/>
D09 141 <p_>According to Jarmin, <quote_>"Following the 1986 election, 
D09 142 Christian Voice had a poll conducted nationwide. We filtered out a 
D09 143 group that was conservative, religious, and registered to vote. 
D09 144 About 9% of that group was black. We asked them extensive questions 
D09 145 about issues and politics."<quote/> Rev. Robert Grant and Jarmin 
D09 146 used that information in 1987 to launch the AFC, which they 
D09 147 envisioned as a grass-roots organization. In November 1988, it held 
D09 148 its first annual board of governors meeting; today, its leaders are 
D09 149 trying to erect 'precinct councils' across the United States.<p/>
D09 150 <p_>Another organization with connections to Christian Voice was 
D09 151 the American Coalition for Traditional Values (ACTV). It was headed 
D09 152 by the Reverend Tim LaHaye, a one-time executive officer in the 
D09 153 Moral Majority and a member of the executive board of the Christian 
D09 154 Voice. ACTV was constructed to register voters for Reagan in 1984, 
D09 155 much like the roundtable did in 1980. The quid pro quo for LaHaye's 
D09 156 work was an administration promise to appoint religious 
D09 157 conservatives to administration positions. According to a 1984 
D09 158 interviewee with intimate knowledge of the organization,<p/>
D09 159 <p_><quote_>ACTV began after some discussions among many of the 
D09 160 leading television evangelists across the country about the need to 
D09 161 set up an organization that would register Christian voters. Of the 
D09 162 thirty<?_>-<?/>two individuals who consented to their involvement 
D09 163 in setting up an organization, ten actually contributed their 
D09 164 mailing lists. On the basis of those mailing lists, a phone bank 
D09 165 was set up that contacted 110,000 evangelical and fundamentalist 
D09 166 churches.<quote/><p/>
D09 167 <p_>ACTV's leaders sought to register two million religious 
D09 168 conservatives. Following Reagan's landslide reelection in 1984, 
D09 169 ACTV was gradually wound down by Rev. Tim LaHaye, and then 
D09 170 terminated in December 1986.<p/>
D09 171 <p_>In the same year that LaHaye accepted the vice-presidency of 
D09 172 the Moral Majority (1979), his wife, Beverly, created Concerned 
D09 173 Women for America (CWA). According to Laurie Tryfiates, CWA's field 
D09 174 director, <quote_>"CWA started as a response to the stereotype of 
D09 175 women brought by the [feminist] National Organization of Women. It 
D09 176 really began as a handful of women brought together in neighborhood 
D09 177 meetings. ... From there, the organization mushroomed."<quote/> For 
D09 178 six years CWA was head<?_>-<?/>quartered in San Diego, and then in 
D09 179 1985 it moved to Washington, D.C., <quote_>"in order to have a 
D09 180 greater impact preserving, protecting, and promoting traditional 
D09 181 and Judeo-Christian values."<quote/> It since has lobbied Congress, 
D09 182 organized at the grass roots, and marshaled test cases in the 
D09 183 courts. Its annual convention was visited by President Reagan in 
D09 184 1987; its current literature contains words from President Bush. 
D09 185 Hertzke reports that its membership may exceed the combined total 
D09 186 of the three largest feminist groups in America.<p/>
D09 187 <p_>The Moral Majority was the most salient and perhaps the most 
D09 188 successful Christian Right organization in the 1980s. Initially, it 
D09 189 consisted of four divisions: the lobbying and direct-mail 
D09 190 operation, called the Moral Majority; the litigation arm, called 
D09 191 the Moral Majority Legal Defense Fund; the tax-exempt education 
D09 192 division, known as the Moral Majority Foundation; and the political 
D09 193 action committee, known as the Moral Majority PAC. Of those 
D09 194 divisions, the Moral Majority proper was easily the most important. 
D09 195 According to Roy Jones, its legislative director in the mid-1980s, 
D09 196 Moral Majority had 250,000 members its first year; that figure 
D09 197 doubled the next year, quadrupled the following year, and again 
D09 198 doubled, so that Moral Majority had 4,000,000 members by 1983 -a 
D09 199 figure within the calculations of one scholar. In 1986, Moral 
D09 200 Majority was collapsed into the Liberty Federation, ostensibly to 
D09 201 facilitate attention to international issues. In reality, its 
D09 202 merger with another organization was recognition of the fact that 
D09 203 it carried <quote_>"high negatives"<quote/> in public opinion 
D09 204 polls. Gary Bauer offered an explanation: <quote_>"The Moral 
D09 205 Majority was one of the first groups of what has come to be called 
D09 206 the Christian Right. Since it was one of the first groups, it 
D09 207 suffered accordingly as people opposed to its agenda attacked it. 
D09 208 ... [Falwell] took the lead to sound the alarm. Having done so, he 
D09 209 was the focus of considerable attack. To put it simply, Falwell 
D09 210 became damaged goods."<quote/> Michael Schwartz, of the Free 
D09 211 Congress Foundation, echoed that thought, in saying that Falwell 
D09 212 was a <quote_>"lightning rod"<quote/> for criticism and 
D09 213 <quote_>"humble and intelligent enough"<quote/> to retreat from 
D09 214 politics once he was no longer in a position to advance the 
D09 215 Christian Right's agenda. Moral Majority persisted for several more 
D09 216 years under new leadership, until Falwell officially nixed it in 
D09 217 June 1989.<p/>
D09 218 <p_>The Liberty Federation had a vaguely defined purpose and a 
D09 219 tenuous existence, attracting very limited attention in 1986 when 
D09 220 it engulfed Moral Majority, and virtually none thereafter.
D10   1 <#FROWN:D10\><h_><p_>'SYNCRETISTIC RELIGIOSITY':<p/>
D10   2 <p_>THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS TAUTOLOGY<p/>
D10   3 <p_>Jeffrey Carlson<p/>
D10   4 <p_>PRECIS<p/><h/>
D10   5 <tf_><p_>This article develops the thesis that religious identity 
D10   6 is always/already a selective reconstruction from among many 
D10   7 possibilities -  one undeniably relative but utterly necessary 
D10   8 product of a process of 'encampment,' a creative synthesis in which 
D10   9 we dwell and from which we venture forth. From this perspective, 
D10  10 even for those in 'mainstream' traditions, 'syncretistic 
D10  11 religiosity' is tautological. The thesis will be developed through 
D10  12 an analysis of correlational Christian theology and will begin to 
D10  13 explore some of the implications of construing religious identity 
D10  14 in terms of a 'syncretic self.' What happens when the pool of 
D10  15 possibilities from which one draws in comprising one's 'list' of 
D10  16 'what matters most' is extended beyond prior boundaries, even when 
D10  17 such boundaries have impressive names such as 'scripture' and 
D10  18 'tradition'? When religious identity is inevitably syncretic, what 
D10  19 happens to boundaries between 'the religions'? Finally, might a 
D10  20 recognition of the syncretic self become one contribution toward 
D10  21 ethical reflection in this age of 'man-made mass death'?<p/><tf/>
D10  22 <p_><h_>I. On Correlational Theology<p/><h/>
D10  23 <p_>Correlational theologians have argued that the task of theology 
D10  24 requires explicit attention to two major concerns, usually named 
D10  25 something like 'the Christian message' and 'the contemporary 
D10  26 situation.' According to Paul Tillich, one of the leading modern 
D10  27 Christian representatives of this approach, theology must satisfy 
D10  28 two basic needs: <quote_>"the statement of the truth of the 
D10  29 Christian message and the interpretation of this truth for every 
D10  30 new generation."<quote/> It is thus concerned with both the 
D10  31 <quote_>"<tf_>eternal foundation<tf/> and the temporal situation in 
D10  32 which the eternal truth must be received."<quote/> Similarly, Karl 
D10  33 Rahner stated that his <tf_>Foundations of Christian Faith<tf/> was 
D10  34 written to allow his readers <quote_>"to reach a renewed 
D10  35 understanding of [the Christian] message"<quote/> and to 
D10  36 <quote_>"try as far as possible to situate Christianity within the 
D10  37 intellectual horizon of people today."<quote/><p/>
D10  38 <p_>This would seem to be such a felicitous method, relating 
D10  39 message with situation, reading the signs of the time in the light 
D10  40 of the gospel, perhaps even, in the words of Rudolf Bultmann, 
D10  41 <quote_>"[making] clear the call of the Word of God."<quote/> 
D10  42 However, as Augustine discovered when he probed the meaning of that 
D10  43 so-simple reality of 'time,' theologians, when they face up to 
D10  44 plurality, may find themselves admitting that they know well enough 
D10  45 what Christian theology is, provided no one asks them to explain. 
D10  46 Let us ask.<p/>
D10  47 <p_>Schubert Ogden has written that <quote_>"<tf_>to be assessed as 
D10  48 adequate, a theological statement must meet the two criteria of 
D10  49 appropriateness and credibility ... in the given 
D10  50 situation.<tf/>"<quote/> His point is that since theology must both 
D10  51 represent the Christian message and relate it to the present 
D10  52 situation, it seems eminently helpful to require explicitly that 
D10  53 one's own theological formulations be 'appropriate' to that message 
D10  54 and 'credible' in that situation.<p/>
D10  55 <p_>'Appropriateness' means a fidelity to the Christian 'message.' 
D10  56 This would seem simple enough, but then, like Augustine, we are 
D10  57 asked to explain. What <tf|>is that message, and what is the nature 
D10  58 of our fidelity to it? Two clusters of questions are raised: First, 
D10  59 what precisely <tf|>is the 'referent' of the theological criterion 
D10  60 of appropriateness? To what must adequate theological formulations 
D10  61 <tf|>be appropriate? To <tf|>which model or image of Jesus 
D10  62 developed through the centuries (and there have been so many!) 
D10  63 should one attend, and why? This first question is clearly related 
D10  64 to a second and even more basic issue concerning one's religious 
D10  65 identity: Why am I 'a Christian' in the first place? <tf_>Whence 
D10  66 comes my religious identity?<tf/> What are the implications of my 
D10  67 answers?<p/>
D10  68 <h_><p_>II. Locating the Referent of Appropriateness<p/><h/>
D10  69 <p_>Ogden has argued that the norm or referent of theological 
D10  70 appropriateness is what he called <quote_>"<tf_>the earliest 
D10  71 apostolic witness<tf/> to Jesus Christ."<quote/> Where does one 
D10  72 find this earliest witness, according to Ogden? In the findings of 
D10  73 this century's <quote_>"new quest"<quote/> for the historical 
D10  74 Jesus. Precisely what the new-questers are able to detect, he 
D10  75 maintained, is the earliest stratum of Christian witness -  the 
D10  76 very norm of theological appropriateness. Arguing that the true 
D10  77 canon is not the New Testament <tf_>per se<tf/>, Odgen wrote that 
D10  78 the <quote_>"real, indeed crucial, theological importance of the 
D10  79 so-called new quest of the historical Jesus"<quote/> lies in its 
D10  80 <quote_>"identification and interpretation of the Jesus-kerygma of 
D10  81 the earliest church,"<quote/> which is <quote_>"'the canon within 
D10  82 the canon' to which all theological assertions must be 
D10  83 appropriate."<quote/> The new quest, it seems, is the 'good luck' 
D10  84 of Christian theology!<p/>
D10  85 <p_>Another correlational theologian, David Tracy, has construed 
D10  86 'appropriateness' rather differently than Odgen has. Tracy has 
D10  87 written that the theologian must <quote_>"take into account all the 
D10  88 classic christological images, symbols, doctrines, witnesses and 
D10  89 actions of the entire tradition."<quote/> <tf|>All the images. The 
D10  90 <tf|>entire tradition. For Tracy, it seems, one ought not to detect 
D10  91 and isolate an essential and singular kernel from among all that 
D10  92 plurality of witness but, rather, attempt to encounter something of 
D10  93 its richness, power, and vitality. One would be led, according to 
D10  94 Tracy, to <quote_>"an abandonment of a search for 'a canon within 
D10  95 the canon' in favor of the full diversity of the New Testament 
D10  96 witness."<quote/> To concentrate only on the 'Jesus-kerygma' as, in 
D10  97 Tracy's estimation, <quote_>"the expression 'canon within the 
D10  98 canon' seems to suggest,"<quote/> actually <quote_>"... risks 
D10  99 losing the enriching diversity of the whole scriptural (and, in 
D10 100 principle, postscriptural) witness and thereby risks losing the 
D10 101 full reality of 'tradition' for the contemporary theological 
D10 102 horizon."<quote/><p/>
D10 103 <p_>Tracy is certainly more open to what he would call 
D10 104 <quote_>"inner Christian plurality"<quote/> than Odgen is. However, 
D10 105 in affirming and even celebrating the diversity of <quote_>"the 
D10 106 whole scriptural ... and ... postscriptural"<quote/> witness, Tracy 
D10 107 passed over a point I wish to accentuate: A <tf|>decision was 
D10 108 inevitable and has, in fact, been made, overtly or covertly, 
D10 109 consciously or not. It was and is a decision <tf_>to select from 
D10 110 among the many<tf/>. Even the whole of the Bible is still but a 
D10 111 part. The canon, so diverse, is nevertheless still a circumscribed 
D10 112 reality, one among the many other would-be witnesses to God or to 
D10 113 Jesus. It is <tf_>one product<tf/>, achieved centuries ago, <tf_>of 
D10 114 an ongoing process of selective reconstruction<tf/>, of daring to 
D10 115 <tf|>name a reality, to <tf|>locate a religious identity in 
D10 116 <tf|>these texts (and, indeed, in these particular manuscript 
D10 117 versions). It is an act of '<tf|>encampment.'<p/>
D10 118 <h_><p_>III. Plurality and Religious Identity<p/><h/>
D10 119 <p_>Think about it. If one is Christian, in which 'Jesus' does one 
D10 120 believe? Does not one <tf|>select, as well as inherit others' 
D10 121 selections, from among many possible interpretations? What, for 
D10 122 instance, were the last words of Jesus before his death? How does 
D10 123 the Jesus in whom a Christian believes meet his end? With serene 
D10 124 confidence that he is in the hands of his Father (<quote_>"Father, 
D10 125 into your hands I commend my spirit"<quote/>)? This is indeed the 
D10 126 Jesus of Luke, but not the Jesus of Matthew or Mark, for whom Jesus 
D10 127 cries, <quote_>"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"<quote/> 
D10 128 Then he dies, abandoned.<p/>
D10 129 <p_>Such different images! Are these plural 'portraits' and diverse 
D10 130 'memories' a weakness or a strength? Why not simply have one 
D10 131 Gospel, one that 'got the story straight'? Or, is there in fact a 
D10 132 'surplus and excess of meaning' generated by <tf|>every 'classic'? 
D10 133 Perhaps Odgen's quest for the 'singular' is <tf|>itself 
D10 134 inappropriate. Perhaps the 'real' Christ is precisely the 
D10 135 <tf_>evoker of <tf/> a plurality of witnesses.<p/>
D10 136 <p_>One can ask questions about the canonical Gospels. Was Jesus 
D10 137 born in a manger? Yes, but only in Luke. Were there wise men 
D10 138 following a star? Yes, but only in Matthew. John and Mark tell 
D10 139 nothing whatsoever of Jesus' birth. Peter the 'rock of the church'? 
D10 140 Pilate washing his hands? Guards at Jesus' tomb? Yes, but only in 
D10 141 Matthew. Only there, as well, are the onlookers, interpreted by 
D10 142 much of subsequent Christian tradition to be 'the Jews,' made to 
D10 143 cry out, at Jesus' trial, <quote_>"His blood be on us and on our 
D10 144 children!"<quote/> When Christians select items from among the many 
D10 145 images of Jesus and elements of his story, I hope they will exclude 
D10 146 that one, as well as other blatantly violent texts that 
D10 147 discriminate on the basis of gender, class, or ethnicity. This 
D10 148 raises the question of criteria once more but here in terms of 
D10 149 ethics. A nuanced argument for ethical criteria is beyond the scope 
D10 150 of this essay. For the moment, it can simply be suggested that 
D10 151 decisions should be guided by a hope for creation rather than 
D10 152 destruction, liberation rather than oppression, conversation rather 
D10 153 than deprivation of speech.<p/>
D10 154 <p_>I am not calling for the abandonment of the New Testament 
D10 155 canon, still less for a single, fixed canon within the canon. 
D10 156 Instead, I am calling for an honest recognition of what the canon 
D10 157 exemplifies: the need to risk a reconstruction, to wager a creative 
D10 158 act in which, as Alfred North Whitehead put it, <quote_>"The many 
D10 159 become one, and are increased by one,"<quote/> which involves 
D10 160 <quote_>"... the advance from disjunction to conjunction, creating 
D10 161 a novel entity other than the entities given in disjunction. The 
D10 162 novel entity is at once the togetherness of the 'many' which it 
D10 163 finds, and also it is one among the disjunctive 'many' which it 
D10 164 leaves."<quote/> Reality, here understood, is a veritable flood of 
D10 165 images and possibilities, but some of it 'sticks' to us; some of it 
D10 166 <tf|>matters. Our identities are shaped by what has stuck. We 
D10 167 simply cannot attend to all of it. Who knows what we do not 
D10 168 perceive, on <tf|>this side of absolute elsewhere, where only some 
D10 169 of the many become one in us?<p/>
D10 170 <p_>We are narrow in perspective, partial in grasp. To be 
D10 171 'Christian' is to be <tf|>this particular assemblage of diverse 
D10 172 elements, brought together out of freedom and amid a certain 
D10 173 destiny, an array of influencing factors we cannot control 
D10 174 completely. Our <tf|>religious identities are shaped by the 'list' 
D10 175 of 'ultimate' things, drawn from many pools with many names, some 
D10 176 'non-Christian' and even 'secular.' We are this syncretic amalgam, 
D10 177 this selective reconstruction of elements.<p/>
D10 178 <p_>Thus, an act of reconstruction, of encampment, is an 
D10 179 articulation of one's religious 'identity,' and it is, I believe, 
D10 180 an utterly necessary activity. As Mircea Eliade saw so clearly, 
D10 181 humans need to be somewhere, to have a symbolic dwelling, a 
D10 182 spiritual center, a true home. But, as he also knew, and as the 
D10 183 Oglala Sioux Black Elk reportedly observed, <quote_>"anywhere is 
D10 184 the center of the world."<quote/> We need to know both of these 
D10 185 'two truths' about our religious identities: concerning the 
D10 186 particular and the universal, the relative and the absolute.<p/>
D10 187 <p_>So why am I in this particular place? Why this center, these 
D10 188 texts, that Jesus, that creed? Why, indeed? Not because assent is 
D10 189 mandated from any external authority but because certain persons, 
D10 190 places, texts, events, even objects, so disclose that which is 
D10 191 deemed 'really real' that those affected cannot but wish to dwell 
D10 192 there. Hierophanies (Eliade), classics (Tracy), historical 
D10 193 mediations of transcendentality (Rahner) -  these exist. They touch 
D10 194 us in ways that range, in Tracy's words, <quote_>"all the way from 
D10 195 a radical identification with the claim to truth ... to some 
D10 196 tentative, even hesitant, resonance with its otherness."<quote/> 
D10 197 Given that range, the specificity of one's own response to a 
D10 198 particular 'classic,' coupled with one's own current and specific 
D10 199 'list' of classics, constitutes one's present religious 
D10 200 identity.<p/>
D10 201 <p_>What moves you? Which persons, places, texts, events, objects, 
D10 202 constitute the truth that is true for you? That matter for you? So 
D10 203 much of life is superficial. What speaks to you from the depths? 
D10 204 When you think of your 'list' of deep things, from whence do you 
D10 205 draw its items, and would you presume to circumscribe the 
D10 206 boundaries within which deep items might be found? How, in all 
D10 207 seriousness, would you dare do that? If the truth be told, would 
D10 208 your list of 'what matters most' contain only items that have been 
D10 209 stamped with ecclesiastical approval? If the truth be told, does 
D10 210 not your real list <tf|>include items that have <tf|>not been so 
D10 211 stamped, and does not your real list <tf|>omit items that <tf|>have 
D10 212 been so stamped? Is not <tf_>the stamping process itself <tf/> 
D10 213 always/already another reconstruction, another selection from among 
D10 214 the many, another example of encampment?<p/>
D10 215 <p_>Kierkegaard wrote: <quote_>"Frequently, when one is most 
D10 216 convinced that he understands himself, he is assaulted by the 
D10 217 uneasy feeling that he has really only learned someone else's life 
D10 218 by rote."<quote/>
D11   1 <FROWN:D11\><h_><p_>2. Sexual Ethics in the Roman Catholic 
D11   2 Tradition<p/><h/>
D11   3 <p_>The Roman Catholic tradition in sexual ethics and sexual 
D11   4 understanding has had a long history and has exerted a great 
D11   5 influence on people and their attitudes both within and outside the 
D11   6 Roman Catholic church down to the present day. At the present time, 
D11   7 however, the Catholic tradition and teaching are being questioned 
D11   8 not only by non-Catholics but also by many Catholics themselves.<p/>
D11   9 <p_>The general outlines of the official Catholic teaching on 
D11  10 sexuality are well known. Genital sexuality can be fully expressed 
D11  11 only within the context of an indissoluble and permanent marriage 
D11  12 of male and female and every sexual act must be open to procreation 
D11  13 and expressive of love union. The natural law theory that supports 
D11  14 such an understanding results in an absolute prohibition of 
D11  15 artificial contraception, artificial insemination even with the 
D11  16 husband's seed, divorce, masturbation, homosexual genital 
D11  17 relations, and all premarital and extramarital sexual 
D11  18 relationships. Virginity and celibacy are looked upon as higher 
D11  19 states of life than marriage. Women are not allowed to be priests 
D11  20 or to exercise full jurisdiction within the church.<p/>
D11  21 <p_>Dissatisfaction with official Catholic sexual teaching came to 
D11  22 a boil when Pope Paul VI in his encyclical <tf_>Humanae Vitae<tf/> 
D11  23 of 1968 condemned the use of artificial contraception for Catholic 
D11  24 spouses. Before late 1963, no Catholic theologian had ever publicly 
D11  25 disagreed with the Catholic teaching that banned artificial 
D11  26 contraception. But events in the church (especially Vatican Council 
D11  27 II, 1962-1965) and in the world at large very quickly created a 
D11  28 climate in which many Catholic married couples and theologians 
D11  29 called openly for change in the official teaching. Nevertheless, 
D11  30 after much consultation and hesitation, Pope Paul VI in 1968 
D11  31 reiterated the condemnation. His encyclical occasioned widespread 
D11  32 public theological dissent from the papal teaching.<p/>
D11  33 <p_>Many Catholic couples disagreed with the teaching in practice. 
D11  34 According to the statistics of the National Opinion Research Center 
D11  35 in 1963, 45 percent of American Catholics approved of the use of 
D11  36 artificial contraception for married couples, whereas in 1974, 83 
D11  37 percent of American Catholics approved. Archbishop John Quinn of 
D11  38 San Francisco, at the 1980 synod of bishops in Rome, gave the 
D11  39 statistics that 76.5 percent of American Catholic married women of 
D11  40 childbearing age use some form of contraception and 94 percent of 
D11  41 these women were employing means that had been condemned by the 
D11  42 pope. Andrew Greely concluded that the issuing of <tf_>Humanae 
D11  43 Vitae<tf/> <quote_>"seems to have been the occasion for massive 
D11  44 apostasy and for a notable decline in religious devotion and 
D11  45 belief"<quote/>; he attributes the great decline in Catholic 
D11  46 practice in the United States during the decade 1963-1973 to the 
D11  47 teaching of this encyclical.<p/>
D11  48 <p_>Dissatisfaction with official Catholic teaching on sexual 
D11  49 meaning and morality has been raised both in theory and in practice 
D11  50 with regard to masturbation, divorce, and homosexuality. And many 
D11  51 Catholic women have become disenchanted with the Catholic church 
D11  52 because of its attitudes and practices concerning the role of women 
D11  53 in the church, whose patriarchal reality is quite evident. Abortion 
D11  54 has recently become a very heated topic in Catholic circles; one 
D11  55 important aspect of the discussion centers on law and public 
D11  56 policy, but the moral issue of abortion has also been raised. 
D11  57 Although most Catholic theologians and ethicists remain in general 
D11  58 continuity with the traditional Catholic teaching on abortion, some 
D11  59 have strongly objected to this teaching.<p/>
D11  60 <p_>And so a widespread dissatisfaction with hierarchical Catholic 
D11  61 sexual teaching exists within Roman Catholicism today. In general, 
D11  62 I share that dissatisfaction, but my position does not involve 
D11  63 accepting the impersonal, individualistic, and relativistic 
D11  64 understanding of sexuality that is too often proposed in our 
D11  65 society today. The purpose of my study is not to deal with all of 
D11  66 the specific issues mentioned above or with any one of them in 
D11  67 particular or in depth. This chapter will try, rather, to explain 
D11  68 the negative elements in the Catholic tradition that have 
D11  69 influenced the existing teaching, and I shall then appeal to other, 
D11  70 positive aspects of the tradition that help formulate what I would 
D11  71 judge to be a more adequate sexual ethic and teaching.<p/>
D11  72 <h_><p_>Negative Elements in the Roman Catholic Tradition<p/><h/>
D11  73 <p_>This section will briefly discuss five aspects of the Roman 
D11  74 Catholic tradition in sexual ethics which in my judgment have had a 
D11  75 negative effect on the church's official teaching - negative 
D11  76 dualisms in the tradition, patriarchal approaches, 
D11  77 over<?_>-<?/>riding legal considerations, authoritarian 
D11  78 interventions by the teaching office, and the natural law method 
D11  79 justification.<p/>
D11  80 <h_><p_>Negative Dualisms<p/><h/>
D11  81 <p_>The Catholic tradition in sexuality has suffered from negative 
D11  82 philosophical and theological dualisms. Platonic and 
D11  83 Neo<?_>-<?/>platonic philosophy, which helped to shape the thought 
D11  84 of the early church, looked upon matter and corporeality in general 
D11  85 and sexuality in particular as inferior to spirit and soul. 
D11  86 Theological dualisms often associated the bodily and especially the 
D11  87 sexual with evil and sin. A habit of thought in the early church 
D11  88 these dualisms influenced the first stage of sexual teaching in the 
D11  89 West. Such spiritualistic tendencies, however, have always been 
D11  90 present in the church. Many contemporary Catholic dualistic 
D11  91 attitudes about sexuality and about all aspects of spirituality 
D11  92 have been influenced by the rigoristic Jansenism that reached its 
D11  93 zenith in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but Jansenism's 
D11  94 influence has continued especially on a popular level.<p/>
D11  95 <p_>Blaming Augustine for most of the negativity about sexuality in 
D11  96 western Christendom is a commonplace. Before him, however, Ambrose 
D11  97 and Jerome were even more censorious. Ambrose's thinking emphasized 
D11  98 a series of antitheses that should not be mixed - Christian and 
D11  99 pagan; Catholic and heretic; church and world; soul and body. 
D11 100 Ambrose was a person of action and so his dualism viewed the body 
D11 101 as a perilous mudslick on which the firm tread of the soul's 
D11 102 resolve might slip and tumble at any time. Through conversion and 
D11 103 baptism the Christian was caught up in Christ whose sexless birth 
D11 104 and unstained body mediated between the fallen state of the human 
D11 105 body and its glorious transformation in the future. According to 
D11 106 Ambrose Christ's body was unscarred by the double taint of sexual 
D11 107 origin and sexual desires or impulses. In such a context, virginity 
D11 108 was truly the ideal. For Christian married people to avoid adultery 
D11 109 and to abstain from intercourse at certain liturgical times and 
D11 110 under certain conditions (e.g., menstruation, lactation) was not 
D11 111 enough; the couple must also strive to minimize the ever-present 
D11 112 possibility of unchastity connected with all sexual pleasure 
D11 113 itself. Peter Brown, whose analysis I follow closely here, points 
D11 114 out the important relationship of the sexual understanding to the 
D11 115 social context of the time. The church itself, like Mary the 
D11 116 perpetual virgin and like other virgins, is to keep herself 
D11 117 undefiled from the <foreign|>saeculum (world) around her. The 
D11 118 sexual and the social were closely related for Ambrose.<p/>
D11 119 <p_>Jerome stands out as the authority most fearful of sexuality in 
D11 120 the early Christian West. His castigation of Jovinian for having 
D11 121 placed married couples on the same plane as virgins contains some 
D11 122 of his most vituperative language on sexuality. Even first 
D11 123 marriages were regrettable, if pardonable, capitulations to the 
D11 124 flesh; second marriages led one step away from the brothel. Jerome 
D11 125 also left us the unfortunate legacy of understanding St. Paul's 
D11 126 concept of the flesh as equivalent with sexuality. The spirit-flesh 
D11 127 dualism was thus understood as the struggle against sexuality by 
D11 128 Jerome, the most militant of the writers of the early church in his 
D11 129 emphasis on female virginity, clerical celibacy, and the 
D11 130 temptations and dangers of sexuality.<p/>
D11 131 <p_>According to Peter Brown, Augustine avoided somewhat the 
D11 132 antitheses and dichotomies of Ambrose and Jerome. For Augustine, 
D11 133 marriage and intercourse, on the one hand, and human authority and 
D11 134 human society, on the other, were not to be equated with sin, for 
D11 135 they existed even in paradise. Martyrdom, not virginity, was the 
D11 136 pinnacle of the Christian life. Augustine understood the fall of 
D11 137 our first parents as a matter of obedience and the will. Before the 
D11 138 fall, Adam's and Eve's sexuality was in perfect accord and harmony 
D11 139 with the divine will. Uncontrollable sexual urges, like death 
D11 140 itself, came about through the fall. Augustine contrasted to Eve 
D11 141 Mary, the exemplar of perfect obedience rather than the defender of 
D11 142 a sacred inner space against the pollution of the world.<p/>
D11 143 <p_>The fall brought about in all of the children of Adam and Eve 
D11 144 concupiscence of the flesh, which originated in a lasting 
D11 145 distortion of the soul. As a result of their active disobedience, 
D11 146 Adam and Eve were estranged from God and from each other and from 
D11 147 their own conscious selves. Concupiscence affected everything and 
D11 148 embraced more than sexual feelings, but uncontrolled sexual 
D11 149 feelings (based on the text of Genesis that Adam's and Eve's eyes 
D11 150 were opened and they knew they were naked) illustrated the fact 
D11 151 that the body could no longer be controlled by the will. The sharp 
D11 152 ecstasy of orgasm was an abiding sign of the limits of the human 
D11 153 will because of original sin; had there been no fall, intercourse 
D11 154 would have taken place at the command of the will solely for the 
D11 155 purpose of procreation, not pleasure. As shown in the disobedience 
D11 156 of the genital organs to reason and the will, concupiscence was the 
D11 157 punishment of original sin that all the descendants of Adam and Eve 
D11 158 would carry with them until their death.<p/>
D11 159 <p_>Augustine formulated his very influential teaching on marriage 
D11 160 in the light of this understanding, and he built on what had 
D11 161 already been developing in the early Christian church. In turn, 
D11 162 early Christian teaching on sexuality borrowed heavily from Greek 
D11 163 stoic philosophy's belief in the laws of nature and duty, and saw 
D11 164 itself as a response to other ethical positions that were based in 
D11 165 gnosticism, such as the claim that marriage was evil, or that 
D11 166 sexual intercourse had such a high value that it must be freed from 
D11 167 the burden of procreation. In the face of these more extreme 
D11 168 positions, the early church came to the conclusion that sexuality 
D11 169 had to be reserved for marriage and used only for the purpose of 
D11 170 procreation, which was nature's intention. The motive for sexual 
D11 171 intercourse in marriage had to be procreation and could not be 
D11 172 anything other, especially pleasure.<p_>
D11 173 <p_>Augustine developed his teaching on marriage in the light of 
D11 174 his own experience and on the basis of his differences with the 
D11 175 Manichaeans and the Pelagians. For Augustine intercourse can be 
D11 176 without sin only in the context of marriage, and marital 
D11 177 intercourse is sinless only if it is motivated by the desire of 
D11 178 conceiving a child and if no consent is given to any pleasure other 
D11 179 than that coming from the anticipation of conceiving a child. The 
D11 180 realistic Augustine recognized that not even a devout Christian 
D11 181 could consistently confine her or his motive for intercourse only 
D11 182 to procreation. Thus venial sin is usually associated with sexual 
D11 183 relations even within marriage.<p/>
D11 184 <p_>Our purpose here is not to summarize the whole historical 
D11 185 tradition or even Augustine's total position. However, we should 
D11 186 note that Augustine's description of the three goods of marriage - 
D11 187 <foreign|>proles (offspring), <foreign|>fides (fidelity), and 
D11 188 <foreign|>sacramentum (the permanence of marriage) - became very 
D11 189 influential in the Catholic tradition; further, they could excuse 
D11 190 sexual expression within marriage. Augustine found two additional 
D11 191 meanings in marriage that were taken over by a later tradition and 
D11 192 were part of Catholic canon law until very recently - the mutual 
D11 193 help or support of the spouses and what was called the remedy of 
D11 194 concupiscence. Marriage allows an outlet for passion that protects 
D11 195 a person from fornication and adultery. For spouses, even sexual 
D11 196 relations simply to satisfy libido constitutes only a venial sin, 
D11 197 which thus helps partners in the struggle against concupiscence.<p/>
D11 198 <p_>The early church's teaching on sexuality was influenced by 
D11 199 several different dualisms, all of which downplayed the corporeal 
D11 200 and bodily aspects of sexuality and the pleasure connected with 
D11 201 sexual expression. The impact of this early development on 
D11 202 subsequent Catholic tradition and teaching cannot be denied. Until 
D11 203 the Second Vatican Council, Catholic teaching proposed that 
D11 204 procreation and the education of offspring were the primary ends of 
D11 205 marriage. The secondary ends of marriage are the mutual help of the 
D11 206 spouses and the remedy of concupiscence basically as they were 
D11 207 discussed by Augustine. In the 1930 encyclical, <tf_>Casti 
D11 208 Connubii<tf/>, Pope Pius XI also recognized the secondary end of 
D11 209 conjugal love and gave more importance to personalist values of 
D11 210 marriage.
D12   1 <#FROWN:D12\><h_><p_>WHICH THEISMS FACE AN EVIDENTIAL PROBLEM OF 
D12   2 EVIL?<p/>
D12   3 <p_>Terry Christlieb<p/><h/>
D12   4 <p_><tf_>Many philosophers simply assume that evil is evidence 
D12   5 against a <tf|>generic form of theism. Others have tried to offer 
D12   6 an argument to <tf|>show that this is so. I will argue in Part I 
D12   7 that the most promising attempt to develop an argument of that sort 
D12   8 fails. It will become apparent that generic theism is just <tf|>too 
D12   9 generic to permit anyone to show that known evils provide evidence 
D12  10 against it.<p/>
D12  11 <p_>Given the above results I will then in Part II examine the 
D12  12 question of whether some other kind of evidential argument might 
D12  13 still be possible. Perhaps an evidential argument from evil could 
D12  14 be developed against a properly <tf|>elaborated theism, that is, 
D12  15 one more precise and detailed in its claims relevant to the 
D12  16 relation of God to evil. But I will argue that it is doubtful that 
D12  17 such can be shown against the really important forms of elaborated 
D12  18 theism, namely those forms to which actual theistic religions are 
D12  19 committed. I will point out a number of grave obstacles to the 
D12  20 development of an argument of that sort. The conclusion will be 
D12  21 that there is no adequate basis for the common assumption that evil 
D12  22 is evidence against theistic religions.<tf/><p/>
D12  23 <h|>I
D12  24 <p_>For purposes of explaining and illustrating my position it will 
D12  25 be useful to examine a particular presentation of the evidential 
D12  26 argument against generic theism. I believe that the best 
D12  27 development of an argument of this sort is William L. Rowe's so I 
D12  28 will begin by briefly explaining his argument. I will then show why 
D12  29 his argument in particular and this kind of argument in general 
D12  30 cannot succeed.<p/>
D12  31 <h_><p_>Rowe's Fawn<p/><h/>
D12  32 <p_>Rowe has produced a series of articles in which he attempts to 
D12  33 formulate and defend an 'empirical' argument from evil. The 
D12  34 argument is aimed at what we might call 'generic' theism. The 
D12  35 generic theist believes that a unique, omniscient, omnipotent, and 
D12  36 omnibenevolent being exists and created the universe in which we 
D12  37 find ourselves. We will refer to that being as 'God.'<p/>
D12  38 <p_>The evils on which Rowe's argument focuses are, roughly, cases 
D12  39 of intense suffering which have no readily apparent 'point' or 
D12  40 'purpose.' We may believe that we see why God has allowed some 
D12  41 evils, but Rowe wants to call attention to cases for which the 
D12  42 purpose is not known.<p/>
D12  43 <p_>As an example Rowe constructs the case of a badly burned fawn. 
D12  44 The evil of interest is the suffering that the fawn undergoes over 
D12  45 a period of several days before it dies. A number of features of 
D12  46 the case are included in order to block efforts to specify a 
D12  47 purpose for this suffering. At the same time, the goal is to choose 
D12  48 a kind of incident which happens, perhaps even on a regular basis, 
D12  49 on our planet.<p/>
D12  50 <p_>The fawn's burns result from a forest fire started by 
D12  51 lightning. Hence the suffering is not the result of a free decision 
D12  52 of any created being, but instead has natural causes. Thus, one 
D12  53 cannot appeal to the free will defense with respect to the origin 
D12  54 of the suffering. Second, the suffering transpires without any 
D12  55 creaturely moral agent - or perhaps without any other creature at 
D12  56 all - knowing of it. Hence no one's character is developed by the 
D12  57 suffering, no one has an opportunity to do a good act in response 
D12  58 to the suffering, and no one learns about evil from the suffering. 
D12  59 Neither will the fawn profit from the suffering. For the fawn will 
D12  60 never recover, so it cannot have improved itself by, say, having 
D12  61 learned to flee at the first hint of smoke. And fawns presumably do 
D12  62 not repent of sins, so the evil could not have been allowed in 
D12  63 order to give the fawn a chance of doing that.<p/>
D12  64 <p_>Rowe says of the fawn case:<p/>
D12  65 <p_><quote_>So far as we can see, the fawn's intense suffering is 
D12  66 pointless. For there does not appear to be any greater good such 
D12  67 that the prevention of the fawn's suffering would require either 
D12  68 the loss of that good or the occurrence of an evil equally bad or 
D12  69 worse. Nor does there seem to be any equally bad or worse evil so 
D12  70 connected to the fawn's suffering that it would have had to occur 
D12  71 had the fawn's suffering been prevented.<quote/><p/>
D12  72 <p_>Later, in 'Evil and Theodicy,' Rowe adds another case for 
D12  73 consideration. The new case is an actual case of the sort one finds 
D12  74 with disturbing frequency in the news, a case in which a child was 
D12  75 tortured and then killed. The new case provides an alternative for 
D12  76 those unimpressed by the fawn case. The argument does not stand or 
D12  77 fall on the fawn case (or the other one). Instead, those cases are 
D12  78 offered to help the reader to focus on the kind of case that he 
D12  79 ought to think about, those cases of evil for which, try as he may, 
D12  80 the reader cannot find a purpose. The reader can choose his own 
D12  81 particular example. As Rowe says in 'The Empirical Argument from 
D12  82 Evil,' the point is that there exists intense suffering in vast 
D12  83 quantities for which we can see no purpose at all, let alone any 
D12  84 purpose obtainable by omnipotence without that suffering.<p/>
D12  85 <p_>It seems clear that Rowe is developing the case in the way that 
D12  86 it must be developed if it is to succeed. If there is evidence from 
D12  87 evil against theism then surely those cases of evil which we have 
D12  88 thought through carefully and yet have found unexplainable must be 
D12  89 part of that evidence. Focusing on those cases bypasses debate 
D12  90 about whether the theist may know the purpose of the evil. The 
D12  91 theist is challenged to begin with the difficult case, the one for 
D12  92 which she agrees that the purpose of the evil is unknown. So we can 
D12  93 agree with Rowe's claim that his is the strongest sort of 
D12  94 evidential argument, the sort that has the best chance of success. 
D12  95 If these cases of evil are not evidence against theism, then none 
D12  96 are.<p/>
D12  97 <p_>Here is a summary of Rowe's argument. Let 'E' be used to refer 
D12  98 to a case of evil for which no purpose is known. The fawn or the 
D12  99 child torture case might be it, or, if the reader knows of a case 
D12 100 <}_><-|>Of<+|>of<}/>evil for which the purpose is even less 
D12 101 apparent than for the ones mentioned, let 'E' stand for that case. 
D12 102 Let 'J' be used to refer to whatever property a particular good 
D12 103 state of affairs would have just in case obtaining that good would 
D12 104 (morally) justify an omnipotent, omniscient being in permitting E. 
D12 105 Let me also note that here and elsewhere 'good' or 'goods' should 
D12 106 be understood as good token(s) rather than type(s) unless otherwise 
D12 107 specified. Then,<p/>
D12 108 <p_><tf_>1. We have evidence that all the good states of affairs we 
D12 109 know of lack J<p/>
D12 110 <p_>2. So, we have evidence that every good state of affairs lacks 
D12 111 J.<p/>
D12 112 <p_>3. E is a case of a kind found in our world.<p/>
D12 113 <p_>4. Therefore, we have evidence that evils exist which God would 
D12 114 not permit to exist.<p/>
D12 115 <p_>5. Therefore, we have evidence that God does not exist.<tf/><p/>
D12 116 <p_>The claim is that evil with a certain characteristic - namely 
D12 117 the conjunction of the characteristics of the case supplied for E - 
D12 118 is actual and constitutes evidence that God does not exist. Rowe 
D12 119 does not specify how much evidence there is. Let us assume, at 
D12 120 least initially, that only the weakest claim is in view, so that 
D12 121 the argument is only intendeded to show us <tf|>some evidence that 
D12 122 God does not exist.<p/>
D12 123 <p_>Now clearly there are instances of intense suffering in our 
D12 124 world. So far theist and atheist are agreed. But we must still 
D12 125 exercise some caution in our description of such cases in order to 
D12 126 avoid question begging. We cannot describe such cases as cases of 
D12 127 'pointless evil' or 'apparently pointless evil,' for that is 
D12 128 certainly not how the cases have seemed to the theist. The theist, 
D12 129 at least before hearing Rowe's argument or one like it, has been 
D12 130 thinking of the cases (if at all) as cases which <tf|>do have a 
D12 131 purpose or at least as cases of evil which have a purpose of which 
D12 132 humans are unaware.<p/>
D12 133 <p_>So if there is to be common ground there must first be an 
D12 134 acceptable description of the case, a sufficiently 'clinical' 
D12 135 description of, say, the fawn or the child, the injuries, the 
D12 136 physical pain, the psychological pain, any pain caused to others, 
D12 137 etc. At a minimum the description must not be in terms of the 
D12 138 actual purposefulness or purposelessness of the evil. Consistent 
D12 139 with this requirement Rowe has focused our attention on the 
D12 140 descriptions of the fawn and the child, descriptions which seem 
D12 141 sufficiently 'neutral' in the way indicated.<p/>
D12 142 <h_><p_>The Failure of Rowe's Argument<p/><h/>
D12 143 <p_>Can the theist show that the cases mentioned are <tf|>not 
D12 144 evidence against God's existence? Let us decide by examining the 
D12 145 kinds of responses that the theist might offer. For convenience I 
D12 146 will follow Rowe's division of the possible responses into three 
D12 147 groups.<p/>
D12 148 <h_><p_>Option 1 - Outweigh the Evidence<p/><h/>
D12 149 <p_>First, the theist might simply acknowledge that the argument 
D12 150 <tf|>does provide some evidence against the claim that God exists, 
D12 151 but then resist the claim that God does not exist by piling up 
D12 152 other evidence in favor of God's existence. This other evidence 
D12 153 would be such that it 'outweighs' the evidence from evil.<p/>
D12 154 <p_>Obviously, if the theist takes this option she has accepted the 
D12 155 weak claim that evil is <tf|>some evidence against God's existence, 
D12 156 and so has accepted the soundness of Rowe's argument as we 
D12 157 initially read it. In 'The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of 
D12 158 Atheism' Rowe also suggested that this is the theist's <tf|>best 
D12 159 response to the evidential problem. But even if she did not possess 
D12 160 favorable evidence the theist would not be without an adequate 
D12 161 response to the evidential problem of evil, as we shall see. So 
D12 162 having noted that this response is one of the theist's options we 
D12 163 now set it aside, since an investigation of everything which might 
D12 164 be thought of as evidence for or against God's existence is beyond 
D12 165 the scope of this article.<p/>
D12 166 <h_><p_>Option 2 - Show that the Reasoning Is Unacceptable<p/><h/>
D12 167 <p_>The second sort of response is to try to show that somehow the 
D12 168 reasoning goes wrong, that there is an unsupported premise or an 
D12 169 illegitimate inference. In Rowe's opinion this response is a 
D12 170 failure, but it seems to me that he has overlooked some 
D12 171 considerations which show his assessment to be unwarrantedly 
D12 172 pessimistic.<p/>
D12 173 <p_>Before explaining these considerations I want to introduce a 
D12 174 proposition to which Rowe might appeal for support of premise 1. 
D12 175 Although this approach to supporting premise 1 has not appeared in 
D12 176 Rowe's published works to date, he did utilize it as means of 
D12 177 defending premise 1 in recent correspondence. I will call this 
D12 178 proposition premise 'L.'<p/>
D12 179 <p_><tf_>L. All the goods we know of and which are such that we can 
D12 180 tell whether they have J, lack J.<tf/><p/>
D12 181 <p_>Here Rowe countenances the possibility that we may not be able 
D12 182 to tell whether some known goods have J or not. But L also tells us 
D12 183 that whenever we <tf|>can tell, we always find that they lack J. 
D12 184 This offers a reason, he suggests, for accepting 1. So, besides 
D12 185 taking account of what Rowe offers in support of 1 in his published 
D12 186 works, we will also consider this strategy of deriving 1 from a 
D12 187 general principle like L.<p/>
D12 188 <p_>We are now prepared to evaluate Option 2 in detail, beginning 
D12 189 with premise L. What does Rowe offer in support of the claim that 
D12 190 of all the goods we know of, either they clearly lack J or we 
D12 191 cannot tell whether they have J or not? Rowe explains that a good 
D12 192 that we 'know of' is roughly a good that we <tf|>conceive of and 
D12 193 which we recognize as being intrinsically good. Goods we don't know 
D12 194 of are ones that <quote_>"include states that are enormously 
D12 195 complex, so complex as to tax our powers of comprehension,"<quote/> 
D12 196 or states that contain <quote_>"simple properties we have never 
D12 197 thought of ... whose presence ... might render that state a great 
D12 198 intrinsic good."<quote/>
D13   1 <FROWN:D13\><h_><p_>Chapter 11<p/>
D13   2 <p_>An Update on Neopagan Witchcraft in America<p/>
D13   3 <p_>Aidan A. Kelly<p/><h/>
D13   4 <p_>The Neopagan movement in America and other English-speaking 
D13   5 nations parallels the New Age movement in some ways, differs 
D13   6 sharply from it in others, and overlaps it in some minor ways. 
D13   7 Comparing and contrasting these two movements, which are roughly 
D13   8 the same size, will help clarify the nature of the New Age movement 
D13   9 as such.<p/>
D13  10 <p_>The Neopagan Witchcraft movement in America is a new religion 
D13  11 that, like almost all new religions, claims to be an old religion. 
D13  12 It does, as one might expect, emphasize the reality and 
D13  13 learnability of magic (or at least parapsychology) as one of its 
D13  14 central concepts; but in almost every other way it is a surprise to 
D13  15 anyone who comes from the study of 'witchcraft' in some other 
D13  16 context. I have demonstrated from the available evidence, which is 
D13  17 copious, that the religion actually began in September 1939 on the 
D13  18 south coast of England, as an attempt to reconstruct the medieval 
D13  19 Witchcraft religion described by Margaret Murray. The founding 
D13  20 members included a retired British civil servant, Gerald Brosseau 
D13  21 Gardner; a locally prominent homeowner and socialite, Dorothy 
D13  22 Clutterbuck Fordham; probably Dolores North, later known for her 
D13  23 regular column in a British occult magazine similar to <tf|>Fate; 
D13  24 the occult novelist Louis Wilkinson; and probably others in the 
D13  25 occult circles of London and southern England.<p/>
D13  26 <p_>Gardner took over leadership of the group, perhaps by default, 
D13  27 around the end of World War II, and began developing it in a 
D13  28 direction that would better meet his own sexual needs. At this 
D13  29 point the religion began to take on characteristics typical of many 
D13  30 libertarian movements of the past, especially a focus on sexuality 
D13  31 as sacramental, which it has retained ever since. (In fairness to 
D13  32 all I must stress, however, that this emphasis on sexuality remains 
D13  33 theoretical and inspirational, not something expressed in 
D13  34 practice.)<p/>
D13  35 <p_>Gardner began writing and publishing in the late 1940s and 
D13  36 1950s, and his books have been primary documents of the movement 
D13  37 ever since. After Doreen Valiente was initiated in 1953, she threw 
D13  38 her excellent writing skills into the service of the movement and 
D13  39 produced the text of the <tf_>Book of Shadows<tf/> (in practice, 
D13  40 the liturgical manual) that is essentially the one now used by the 
D13  41 movement throughout the world. She has described her contributions 
D13  42 modestly but accurately in her recent <tf_>The Rebirth of 
D13  43 Witchcraft<tf/>. During this period, the Craft began to assimilate 
D13  44 the <tf_>White Goddess<tf/> theology of Robert Graves, who revived 
D13  45 many theories about a matriarchal period in European prehistory, 
D13  46 theories that had long ago been discarded by scholars as inadequate 
D13  47 to deal with the known facts.<p/>
D13  48 <p_>The Craft continued to grow steadily in England. Gardner 
D13  49 initiated a great many new priestesses from 1957 until his death in 
D13  50 1964, and these carried on the Craft enthusiastically. Raymond 
D13  51 Buckland, after a long correspondence with Gardner, was initiated 
D13  52 in 1963 in Perth, Scotland, by Monique Wilson (Lady Olwen), from 
D13  53 whom much of the Craft in America descends, since Buckland brought 
D13  54 the Craft back to the USA and, with his wife Rosemary as High 
D13  55 Priestess, founded the New York coven in Bayside, Long Island. 
D13  56 Almost all the 'official' Gardnerians in America are descendants of 
D13  57 that coven.<p/>
D13  58 <p_>However, these 'official' Gardnerians are now a very small 
D13  59 fraction of the whole movement, largely because they operate 
D13  60 according to a fairly strict interpretation of the rules that were 
D13  61 gradually established by the New York coven in its steadily 
D13  62 expanding text of the <tf_>Book of Shadows<tf/>. Most American 
D13  63 Witches, being spiritually akin to anarchists, libertarians, and 
D13  64 other proponents of radical theories, regard the Gardnerian concept 
D13  65 of 'orthodox Witchcraft' as an oxymoron and practice the Craft much 
D13  66 more flexibly, using whatever they like from the Gardnerian 
D13  67 repertoire and creating whatever else they need from whatever looks 
D13  68 useful in past or present religions. Many of these claim to descend 
D13  69 from some other 'tradition' of Witchcraft independent of Gardner, 
D13  70 but such claims are almost entirely historically specious. The rare 
D13  71 exceptions are the few individuals, such as Victor Anderson (from 
D13  72 whom Starhawk derived most of her information), who had practiced a 
D13  73 pre-Gardnerian, folk-magic type of Witchcraft, but that was so 
D13  74 different from Gardnerianism, in both practice and theology, that 
D13  75 they can be considered to be the same religion only by a great 
D13  76 stretch of the imagination.<p/>
D13  77 <p_>Since the late 1960s, enough information on the theory and 
D13  78 praxis of Gardnerian-style Witchcraft has been available in books 
D13  79 that any small group who wanted to could train themselves as a 
D13  80 coven. Those who did so could be, and were, recognized as members 
D13  81 of the same religion when they later met other Witches; and more 
D13  82 and more covens began this way as more and more books 
D13  83 <}_><-|>because<+|>became<}/> available in the 1970s and 1980s. We have now 
D13  84 reached a stage where an attempt to diagram the proliferation of 
D13  85 Craft covens and traditions resembles a jungle.<p/>
D13  86 <p_>The Neopagan and New Age movements share so many 
D13  87 characteristics that one might expect their members to feel a 
D13  88 certain amount of kinship, but in fact they do not. Both, for 
D13  89 example, are extremely interested in developing personal psychic 
D13  90 abilities as much as possible. However, New Agers eschew the terms 
D13  91 'magic' and 'witchcraft.' New Age bookstores almost never have 
D13  92 sections labeled 'Magic' or 'Witchcraft.' Instead, books on magic 
D13  93 are shelved with works on spiritual disciplines, such as Yoga; and 
D13  94 books on Neopagan Witchcraft are shelved with books on 'Women's 
D13  95 Studies.'<p/>
D13  96 <p_>Second, many typical New Age assumptions about religion are 
D13  97 generally rejected by Neopagans. Many New Agers assume, for 
D13  98 example, that all religions are ultimately the same; that 
D13  99 spirituality is best learned by sitting at the feet of a master 
D13 100 teacher or guru, preferably from one of the Eastern religions; and 
D13 101 that a new world teacher or messiah will appear to usher in the New 
D13 102 Age. Neopagans, in contrast, like the Craft specifically because it 
D13 103 is so different from the Puritanical, world-hating Christianity 
D13 104 that continues to be prominent in American culture. Most Neopagans 
D13 105 believe in karma and reincarnation; but they reject the dualism of 
D13 106 the Eastern traditions, and consider the guarantee of rebirth to be 
D13 107 the <tf|>reward for their spiritual practices. They generally 
D13 108 believe that they are practicing an ancient folk religion, whether 
D13 109 as a survival or a revival; and, being focused on the pagan 
D13 110 religions of the past, they are not particularly interested in a 
D13 111 New Age in the future.<p/>
D13 112 <p_>They also generally believe that many religions are radically 
D13 113 and irreconcilably different from each other; that the 'reformed' 
D13 114 religions (especially the monotheistic ones) established by Moses, 
D13 115 Jesus, Mohammed, the Buddha, and similar figures were NOT an 
D13 116 improvement over the folk religions that they replaced; and that if 
D13 117 there were a single worldwide religion in the future, it might very 
D13 118 well repress human freedom even more than the Roman Catholic Church 
D13 119 did in Europe during the 'Burning Times.' Hence, Neopagans are not 
D13 120 at all receptive to teachers and teachings from the monotheistic 
D13 121 religions nor to any from the East, with the possible exception of 
D13 122 Hinduism, which is seen (whether accurately or not) as an 
D13 123 'unreformed' polytheism similar to that of the Greco-Roman world; 
D13 124 Neopagans tend to be especially interested in Tantric traditions, 
D13 125 since these can easily be seen as a type of magic parallel to that 
D13 126 developed in <}_><-|>he<+|>the<}/> Western occult tradition.<p/>
D13 127 <p_>Neopagans also generally tend to be extremely antiauthoritarian 
D13 128 (whatever the reasons in personal backgrounds might be), and so are 
D13 129 not at all inclined to accept the personal authority of any guru. 
D13 130 The authoritarian structure of the official Gardnerian Witches in 
D13 131 America might then seem to be anomalous, but it alone is a reason 
D13 132 why there are at least ten times as many Gardnerian-imitating 
D13 133 Witches as official Gardnerians in the Neopagan movement.<p/>
D13 134 <p_>Neopagan Witches also operate with an ethic that forbids them 
D13 135 to accept money for initiating anyone or for training anyone in the 
D13 136 essential practices of the Craft as a religion. Neopagan festivals 
D13 137 have grown into national gatherings, often of several thousand 
D13 138 people, during the last decade, but they have remained quite 
D13 139 inexpensive, since no one is attempting to make profit from them. 
D13 140 As a result of this ethic, Neopagans look upon the 'Psychic Fairs' 
D13 141 and 'New Age Expos' with open contempt and tend to consider most 
D13 142 New Age gurus to be money-hungry frauds who are exploiting the 
D13 143 public by charging exorbitant fees for spiritual practices that can 
D13 144 be learned for free within a Neopagan coven. This attitude does 
D13 145 not, of course, encourage New Agers to look kindly upon 
D13 146 Neopagans.<p/>
D13 147 <p_>There are, nevertheless, a minority among the Neopagan Witches 
D13 148 who consider themselves to be members of the New Age movement as 
D13 149 well. This minority tends to consist of the Witches who understand 
D13 150 fairly clearly not only that the Gardnerian Witchcraft movement is 
D13 151 a new religion, but also that this newness makes it the potential 
D13 152 equal of every other religion in the world, since every religion 
D13 153 begins as a new religion at some time and place. If the Craft is a 
D13 154 new religion, then it can be understood as contributing to the 
D13 155 spiritual growth in the modern world that is leading up to the New 
D13 156 Age, whenever and however that might begin.<p/>
D13 157 <p_>For scholars, the Craft is even more difficult to study than 
D13 158 most new religions are because of its custom of 'secrecy' 
D13 159 (actually, privacy): there are no central registries for covens, 
D13 160 and many covens still do not let their existence be known to anyone 
D13 161 except their own members. Nevertheless, by dint of diligence and 
D13 162 ingenuity, one can get a fairly reliable assessment of the nature 
D13 163 and size of the movement. For the sake of manageability, I take as 
D13 164 my starting point the data presented by Margot Adler in the second 
D13 165 edition of her <tf_>Drawing Down the Moon<tf/>, which is the only 
D13 166 competent journalistic investigation of the movement to date.<p/>
D13 167 <h_><p_>Size of the Movement<p/><h/>
D13 168 <p_>How large is the Neopagan movement now? We can estimate its 
D13 169 size by four independent methods.<p/>
D13 170 <p_>First, because almost all members of the movement are avid 
D13 171 readers (see later discussion), we can estimate the movement's size 
D13 172 from the sales of certain key books. For example, extrapolating 
D13 173 from the sales of the Llewellyn reprint of Israel Regardie's 
D13 174 <tf_>The Golden Dawn<tf/>, Gordon Melton arrived at a figure of 
D13 175 40,000 serious adherents (essentially, members of covens) in the 
D13 176 early 1980s. Similarly, Adler's <tf_>Drawing Down the Moon<tf/> and 
D13 177 Starhawk's <tf_>The Spiral Dance<tf/> had each sold about 50,000 
D13 178 copies by the end of 1985.<p/>
D13 179 <p_>Second, we can extrapolate from festival attendance. Even 
D13 180 limiting the category of festivals to those that last two days or 
D13 181 more (in contrast to local Sabbats - the 'traditional' Witch 
D13 182 gatherings on the solstices, equinoxes, and Celtic cross-quarter 
D13 183 days - which tend to be one-day affairs), there were 44 such annual 
D13 184 festivals in 1986, and are closer to 100 now. Attendance can differ 
D13 185 widely, but all reports estimate average attendance at between 100 
D13 186 and 200. Adler reports that the responses to her 1985 questionnaire 
D13 187 showed that less than 10 percent of American Witches attend 
D13 188 festivals at all. <tf_>Harvest magazine learned from a survey of 
D13 189 several hundred of its readers in 1986 that, of the readers who 
D13 190 attended festivals: they attended an average of two festivals a 
D13 191 year; a third of them belonged to covens; a third were solitary 
D13 192 Witches; and a third were Neopagans, but not Witches (i.e., did not 
D13 193 consider themselves to be initiated or 'ordained'). We can 
D13 194 therefore carry out some rough calculations, as follows: Total 
D13 195 annual attendance at festivals: 5,000 to 20,000; divided by average 
D13 196 attendance of two festivals: 2,500 to 10,000; only a third are 
D13 197 members of covens: 833 to 3,333.<p/>
D13 198 <p_>Only 10 percent of all Witches go to festivals, but covens 
D13 199 probably average ten members; so the number of covens would also 
D13 200 range from 833 to 3,333, and the number of individuals who consider 
D13 201 themselves to be Witches would range from 8,330 to 33,330, plus 
D13 202 perhaps another 10 percent for the solitaries, giving roughly 9,000 
D13 203 to 36,000.<p/>
D13 204 <p_>Around each coven there tends to be a circle of other people 
D13 205 who are somewhat less involved: friends who come to Sabbats, 
D13 206 students in study groups, and other noninitiates who are following 
D13 207 Neopaganism as their primary spiritual path.
D14   1 <#FROWN:D14\><h_><p_>Inquisitors into Missionaries:<p/>
D14   2 <p_>The Holy Office in Cuenca, 1547-1600<p/><h/>
D14   3 <p_>Since 1510 the Spanish Inquisition had been a court in search 
D14   4 of a mission. The institution's original purpose, to punish 
D14   5 Judaizers, had run its course, and fewer cases of judaizing came to 
D14   6 its attention every year. Luther's split from the church in 1520 
D14   7 gave the Inquisition a new focus, the destruction of Protestant 
D14   8 ideas. Even this, however, proved to be an elusive goal, as there 
D14   9 were virtually no Lutherans in Spain during the 1520s. The 
D14  10 inquisitors settled for discrediting the numerous followers of 
D14  11 Erasmus and his ideas, which were perceived as having inspired 
D14  12 Luther, destroying the tiny cells of mystics known as 
D14  13 <foreign|>alumbrados, and going after the <foreign|>moriscos. These 
D14  14 campaigns were quickly executed, and once again, after 1532 the 
D14  15 Inquisition's level of activity fell. In fact, the tribunals, which 
D14  16 relied primarily on court fines to pay their expenses, were 
D14  17 perpetually in a state of financial crisis. Given what was to 
D14  18 follow, the appointment in 1547 of Fernando de Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s 
D14  19 as inquisitor-general might almost be viewed as an act of divine 
D14  20 providence.<p/>
D14  21 <p_>The Asturian Fernando de Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s's long career in 
D14  22 the church began in 1517, when he entered the household of Cardinal 
D14  23 Cisneros. Although unlike his patron in that he bore a lifelong 
D14  24 animadversion to Erasmian ideas, Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s shared with 
D14  25 Cisneros his passion for administrative reform. He is an excellent 
D14  26 example of the skilled administrator turned inquisitor. Prior to 
D14  27 his appointment as inquisitor-general, Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s had 
D14  28 been in succession bishop of Oviedo, bishop of 
D14  29 Sig<*_>u-umlaut<*/>enza, and archbishop of Seville. His 
D14  30 episcopacies were characterized by the zealous administration of 
D14  31 church affairs that was to become one of the hallmarks of the 
D14  32 Catholic Reformation.<p/>
D14  33 <p_>Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s brought to the Holy Office his 
D14  34 administrative genius and an obsessive fear of Protestantism. He 
D14  35 was convinced that it was just a matter of time before Protestant 
D14  36 ideas infiltrated Spain. Accordingly, he quietly prepared for that 
D14  37 crisis by completely overhauling the middle<?_>-<?/>aged, bankrupt 
D14  38 institution. Nothing was left untouched - not court procedure, 
D14  39 finances, personnel, nor administration. Two areas in which 
D14  40 Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s's influence was critical were visitations and 
D14  41 nonsalaried officials such as the familiars and commissioners. 
D14  42 Together, the visitation and the <foreign|>comisario gave the 
D14  43 Inquisition its major advantages over other courts in the sixteenth 
D14  44 century.<p/>
D14  45 <p_>The visitation was a means of taking the court to the people, 
D14  46 announcing its intentions, and swiftly bringing the accused to 
D14  47 justice. Since 1517, inquisitors had been under orders to go on 
D14  48 circuit in their districts four times each year, but the record 
D14  49 suggests that this order had been ignored. Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s 
D14  50 changed the requirement to four months of visitations each year by 
D14  51 one of the tribunal's two inquisitors. The Inquisition of Cuenca at 
D14  52 least partially fulfilled Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s's orders. In the 
D14  53 eleven-year period 1565-75, which encompasses the final years of 
D14  54 Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s's generalship and those of Espinosa and 
D14  55 Quiroga, inquisitors from Cuenca visited some part of their 
D14  56 district at least once a year, if not more frequently. The 
D14  57 officials made a point of covering the entire large district by 
D14  58 visiting Sig<*_>u-umlaut<*/>enza one year, La Mancha the next, the 
D14  59 city of Cuenca another, and so on.<p/>
D14  60 <p_>The use of nonsalaried officials, the familiars and 
D14  61 <foreign|>comisarios, complemented the visitations. Through such 
D14  62 auxiliary officials, the Inquisition's presence could be extended 
D14  63 year-round into the countryside. Familiars were Old Christian 
D14  64 laymen who performed certain duties in exchange for privileges such 
D14  65 as the right to bear arms and exemption from royal taxation and 
D14  66 justice. They were supposed to denounce religious crimes, carry 
D14  67 messages, escort prisoners, and in other ways assist the 
D14  68 inquisitors with their work.<p/>
D14  69 <p_>Familiars had existed long before Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s became 
D14  70 inquisitor-general, but at the time of his appointment they were 
D14  71 gaining rapidly in numbers and in notoriety for their freewheeling 
D14  72 ways. To be an effective aid to the Inquisition, and not an 
D14  73 embarrassment to it, the office had to be rehabilitated. 
D14  74 Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s issued two important circulars in 1553 and 
D14  75 1555 that initiated the process of reforming the familiars by 
D14  76 setting new standards of behavior and limits on the number of 
D14  77 officials each tribunal could commission. In 1552 the 
D14  78 <foreign|>conquense inquisitors began to keep records of all the 
D14  79 familiars and other persons who held commissions from the Holy 
D14  80 Office. If the tribunal followed the Suprema's guidelines as set 
D14  81 forth above, at any given time in the sixteenth century the 
D14  82 bishopric of Cuenca supported a network of about two hundred 
D14  83 familiars.<p/>
D14  84 <p_>The familiars' sinister image calls for a clarification of the 
D14  85 real function of this official. The Inquisition never intended the 
D14  86 familiars to serve as an omnipresent 'secret police,' an image of 
D14  87 them that still persists in the popular imagination. Since their 
D14  88 identity was not secret, they hardly could 'spy' on anyone. They 
D14  89 could not even report the rumors that circulated about their 
D14  90 neighbors because the tribunal would not accept hearsay as 
D14  91 evidence. Familiars rarely appeared as witnesses in the hundreds of 
D14  92 trials that the inquisitors prosecuted. In reality, the inquisitors 
D14  93 of Cuenca used familiars to create an inexpensive network of 
D14  94 officials who, when needed, could be trusted to carry out the 
D14  95 Inquisition's confidential errands in the countryside. Modest as 
D14  96 this function seems to the twentieth-century observer, it was a 
D14  97 disturbing innovation to a population that rarely saw any 
D14  98 representatives of the authorities who ruled them.<p/>
D14  99 <p_>The lesser-known <foreign|>comisarios were quite different in 
D14 100 nature from the familiars, and far more crucial to the success of 
D14 101 the Inquisition's activities. While familiars merely ran errands, 
D14 102 <foreign|>comisarios served as representatives of the inquisitors 
D14 103 themselves. The <foreign|>comisario was a local priest who was 
D14 104 empowered to publish the Inquisition's edicts, take denunciations 
D14 105 and depositions, and ratify witnesses. When there seemed to be a 
D14 106 probable case against an offender in his parish, it was the 
D14 107 <foreign|>comisario who sent a denunciation, together with 
D14 108 supporting testimony, to the inquisitors in Cuenca. Like the 
D14 109 familiar, the <foreign|>comisario served without pay, apparently 
D14 110 for the prestige and privileges of his post.<p/>
D14 111 <p_>In Cuenca, the <foreign|>comisario's influence was greatly 
D14 112 enhanced by the fact that the position was often awarded to village 
D14 113 <foreign|>curas. The Inquisition relied on <foreign|>curas 
D14 114 primarily because the <foreign|>comisario's legal duties required a 
D14 115 high degree of education, which was not found in many priests other 
D14 116 than <foreign|>curas. Nonetheless, there were added benefits to 
D14 117 preferring parish priests over other well-educated priests for the 
D14 118 position of <foreign|>comisario. The <foreign|>cura could draw upon 
D14 119 his hired lieutenant priests and his other contacts in the area to 
D14 120 aid him in gathering information about offenders. By using the 
D14 121 <foreign|>cura, the Inquisition effectively latched onto an 
D14 122 existing network of secular priests to extend its own presence 
D14 123 outside the city of Cuenca.<p/>
D14 124 <p_>The first <foreign|>comisario in Cuenca was one Dr. Gonzalo 
D14 125 L<*_>o-acute<*/>pez, a theologian who was appointed in 1559 to 
D14 126 serve in his parish of Tebar. The <foreign|>conquense inquisitors 
D14 127 appointed <foreign|>comisarios at a steady rate, one to a town, 
D14 128 until by 1600 sixty to sixty-five localities in the district could 
D14 129 be expected to support the official. As in the case of the 
D14 130 familiars, the <foreign|>comisarios were appointed only in the more 
D14 131 important and more distant towns of the district. As the 
D14 132 <foreign|>comisarios grew in number, the Inquisition came to rely 
D14 133 on them to take over the legwork of the tribunal. Indeed, with 
D14 134 responsible <foreign|>comisarios, the inquisitors had no need to 
D14 135 visit their district on a regular basis. As a result, the 
D14 136 traditional <foreign|>visita became less common in the seventeenth 
D14 137 century.<p/>
D14 138 <p_>Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s's institutional reforms worked in Cuenca. 
D14 139 Beginning in the 1550s, the increased number of visitations and of 
D14 140 local officials led to far more trial activity than usual. The 
D14 141 tribunal's annual case load rose from a pre-Vald<*/>e-acute<*/>sian 
D14 142 average of about thirty trials to nearly sixty. In fact, the 
D14 143 networks functioned so well that in 1568 the tribunal had to work 
D14 144 overtime to keep up with its docket. More trials, however, was not 
D14 145 Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s's sole objective. In keeping with the 
D14 146 inquisitor-general's policies, the kinds of offenses tried by the 
D14 147 <foreign|>conquense Inquisition changed as well.<p/>
D14 148 <p_>Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s attempted to head off the spread of 
D14 149 Protestant ideas by controlling the flow of possibly dangerous 
D14 150 information into Spain and restricting access to the Scriptures in 
D14 151 the vernacular. Late in 1551 the tribunal in Cuenca received 
D14 152 Vald<*_>e-acute<*/>s's announcement that the Inquisition would 
D14 153 publish a catalog of prohibited books, the famous <tf|>Index, which 
D14 154 was based on a list prepared by the University of Louvain. Cuenca 
D14 155 was ordered to cooperate in collecting all Bibles, missals, and 
D14 156 diurnals in the Spanish language, in addition to specific books 
D14 157 mentioned by title. In the summer of 1552 the inquisitors wrote 
D14 158 that they had found some diurnals and asked for further 
D14 159 instructions concerning book collection. Censorship became more 
D14 160 organized in the 1560s, when the Suprema began to send out notices 
D14 161 to Cuenca of new works as they were added to the <tf|>Index. 
D14 162 Occasionally, the inquisitors inspected the district's bookshops 
D14 163 for prohibited works. They also enlisted the booksellers' aid to 
D14 164 control the circulation of broadsheets, primers, and playing cards, 
D14 165 popular literature that sometimes contained scandalous or heretical 
D14 166 material. Once, someone turned in some playing cards he had picked 
D14 167 up from some sailors in Alicante, showing the pope with a woman. On 
D14 168 another occasion, a French print warning against prostitution was 
D14 169 mistaken for an <tf_>ecce homo<tf/> and was cause for argument and 
D14 170 scandal in a local shop.<p/>
D14 171 <p_>In addition to heretical literature, inquisitors in Cuenca were 
D14 172 on the lookout for heretics themselves. Trials for heresy were a 
D14 173 direct consequence of the growing fear of the spread of Protestant 
D14 174 ideas to Cuenca from abroad or other parts of Spain. Foreigners, 
D14 175 primarily French, Flemings, and Italians, passing through or 
D14 176 residing in Cuenca suddenly were liable to face the tribunal on 
D14 177 charges of 'Lutheranism.' Inquisitors inspecting the countryside 
D14 178 uncovered <foreign|>conquenses who read prohibited books or spoke 
D14 179 ill of the church, its officials, and its doctrine. These were 
D14 180 difficult years for priests and friars, who discovered that their 
D14 181 colleagues and parishioners were scrutinizing their casual 
D14 182 statements or poorly written sermons for echoes of Protestant 
D14 183 thought.<p/>
D14 184 <p_>The Inquisition classified most suspicious statements as cases 
D14 185 of either <foreign_>palabras escandalosas<foreign/> (scandalous 
D14 186 words) or <foreign|>proposiciones (propositions), the latter 
D14 187 usually being the more serious of the two charges. While there was 
D14 188 enormous variety in the statements heard by the Inquisition, most 
D14 189 fell within certain patterns. Some were popular sayings about 
D14 190 religion that openly contradicted the church's dogma. Others, 
D14 191 especially comments about specific practices of the church, may 
D14 192 have been inspired by Christian humanism or Protestantism. Still 
D14 193 others were simply incredulous or crudely speculative remarks.<p/>
D14 194 <p_>Very common among the popular sayings were <quote_>"In this 
D14 195 world you won't see me have a bad time, because in the next one I 
D14 196 won't suffer,"<quote/> and <quote_>"There's nothing more [to life] 
D14 197 than being born, living, and dying"<quote/> (today's 
D14 198 <quote_>"Life's a bitch and then you die"<quote/>). The 
D14 199 sixteenth-century cases heard in Cuenca, rather than being defiant 
D14 200 challenges to Catholic doctrine, seem to have been said in the 
D14 201 context of justifying reckless living. Other people liked to say, 
D14 202 <quote_>"Each man is saved according to his own religion,"<quote/> 
D14 203 a provocative statement that grew out of Spain's still 
D14 204 multi<?_>-<?/>religious society but contradicted the church's 
D14 205 teaching that there was no salvation outside the Christian 
D14 206 faith.<p/>
D14 207 <p_>Over the years, the inquisitors in Cuenca tried several cases 
D14 208 reminiscent of Christian humanist or Protestant thought. Every 
D14 209 year, someone would voice the opinion that masses and offerings for 
D14 210 the souls in purgatory obtained no advantages for the dead. The 
D14 211 eighty-year-old farmer Mart<*_>i-acute<*/>n Garc<*_>i-acute<*/>a 
D14 212 turned himself in for saying that <quote_>"the things people do 
D14 213 here so that the dead will go to glory don't do any good."<quote/> 
D14 214 On more than one occasion, the tribunal encountered the sentiment 
D14 215 that processions to shrines, because of their merrymaking, did less 
D14 216 good than pious prayer at home, or similarly, that praying to a 
D14 217 <quote_>"stick of wood"<quote/> was less efficacious than directing 
D14 218 one's prayers to the saint in heaven. Others found some aspects of 
D14 219 Christian dogma hard to believe, particularly the doctrine of the 
D14 220 virgin birth and the resurrection of the dead. Twenty-one-year-old 
D14 221 Mar<*_>i-acute<*/>a de Cardenas, the daughter of a shepherd in 
D14 222 Villanueva de Alcardete, in 1568 maintained that <quote_>"God did 
D14 223 it to Our Lady like her father [did] to her mother"<quote/> and 
D14 224 <quote_>"persisted in believing that God had known Our Lady 
D14 225 carnally."<quote/>
D15   1 <FROWN:D15\><h_><p_>Four<p/>
D15   2 <p_>Jewish Ethnography and the Question of the Book<p/><h/>
D15   3 <p_>Beyond the valorization of native knowledge, beyond even the 
D15   4 lesson that anthropology, too, is a cultural system, there is more 
D15   5 to be articulated about the relation between the cultural practice 
D15   6 of anthropology and the cultures that anthropologists practice on. 
D15   7 The comparison of the treatment of certain themes in anthropology 
D15   8 with those by people in cultural settings widely removed from the 
D15   9 origins of modern anthropology is one way to investigate this 
D15  10 relation (Borofsky 1987). My approach here is rather different. I 
D15  11 attempt a critique of certain unspoken fundamentals in professional 
D15  12 anthropology through references to the Jewish textual tradition - a 
D15  13 tradition that is intimately related to the Christian textual 
D15  14 tradition out of which ethnography more immediately arises - and to 
D15  15 the situation of Jews who have lived in or near the centers of 
D15  16 world power within which anthropology has been produced. This 
D15  17 Jewish tradition has resurfaced, albeit greatly transformed, within 
D15  18 postmodern theory. Making explicit its critical potential 
D15  19 vis-<*_>a-grave<*/>-vis the assumptions of ethnographic practice 
D15  20 might, therefore, help to de<?_>-<?/>mystify and invigorate the 
D15  21 contemporary practice of anthropology by revealing a particular 
D15  22 manifestation of the link between knowledge and power. It should 
D15  23 also help to explain why Jews have until quite recently been 
D15  24 marginal as subjects of ethnographic study.<p/>
D15  25 <p_>I will launch the essay with a fragmentary discussion of 
D15  26 Stephen Tyler's book <tf_>The Unspeakable<tf/>. Tyler himself is 
D15  27 adept at the postmodern techniques of close, multiple, and playful 
D15  28 reading, and therefore I do no violence by relying on strong 
D15  29 readings of selected brief fragments from his work. The book is 
D15  30 first of all relevant as an ambitious account of textuality and 
D15  31 orality in anthropology. Tyler's understandings of the written and 
D15  32 the spoken are unselfconscioulsy grounded in the Christian 
D15  33 tradition, thus enabling me to show more clearly what happens when 
D15  34 we bring the Jewish voice in. Furthermore, Tyler articulates a 
D15  35 nexus between orality and textuality on one hand, and time and 
D15  36 space on the other, that is extremely relevant to my concerns. He 
D15  37 writes:<p/>
D15  38 <p_><quote_>It is a commonplace though many-named fact that there 
D15  39 are two modes of integration, one a metaphor of space, the other a 
D15  40 metaphor of time. The former is a static image of simultaneously 
D15  41 coordinated parts, an objectlike structure, while the latter is a 
D15  42 dynamic sequential relation of parts. Since Plato, at least, these 
D15  43 modes of integration have been correlated with different modes of 
D15  44 discourse, the sequential with narration and the simultaneous with 
D15  45 argument or exposition. Plato's distinction between rhetoric and 
D15  46 dialectic reflects this correlation, for dialectic in 
D15  47 discriminating genera and species creates a taxonomy, a static and 
D15  48 spatial image of reason which the syllogism merely recapitulates. 
D15  49 In modern discourse analysis we have a similar contrast between the 
D15  50 sequential and temporal formalisms of Propp and the simultaneous 
D15  51 and spatial formalisms of L<*_>e-acute<*/>vi-Strauss. 
D15  52 Significantly, both Plato and L<*_>e-acute<*/>vi-Strauss 
D15  53 subordinate sequence to simultaneity. The indices of time - 
D15  54 sequence, cause, consequence, and result are dominated by images of 
D15  55 space - inclusion, exclusion, hyponymy, and the syllogism.<quote/> 
D15  56 (1987:80)<p/>
D15  57 <p_>It is hard for me to know what Tyler would say about this 
D15  58 passage. Is he iterating a truth or unveiling a misconception? The 
D15  59 former interpretation can gain support from linking his term 
D15  60 <tf|>commonplace to his prefatory plea in favor of a repressed 
D15  61 <quote_>"<tf_>common<tf/>sense world"<quote/> (xi: emphasis mine) 
D15  62 and from his binary assignment of time to Propp, space to 
D15  63 L<*_>e-acute<*/>vi-Strauss (and to Derrida; see p.42). The latter 
D15  64 reading, on the other hand, can also draw support from his 
D15  65 antispatialist dissection of Derrida, for if the fact he is 
D15  66 referring to is common<tf_>place<tf/>, presumably he would find 
D15  67 something in it that needs to be demystified.<p/>
D15  68 <p_>My general concern here is with the sentence fragment 
D15  69 <quote_>"fact that there are two modes of integration."<quote/> 
D15  70 These two modes do not exist simply; they are constructed and 
D15  71 naturalized, and I want to see them as such. I will begin, then, by 
D15  72 discussing a spatializing discourse to which I am hostile but whose 
D15  73 beneficent intent I am making some modest effort to comprehend - 
D15  74 that of academic area studies. I will end by discussing a 
D15  75 temporalizing discourse to which I am drawn, but whose mystifying 
D15  76 silences need to be made audible - a reading of the Jewish Bible 
D15  77 that privileges textual identity to the virtual exclusion of the 
D15  78 necessary dimension of everyday life and collective 
D15  79 identification.<p/>
D15  80 <p_>My specifiable interests here are threefold. The first is my 
D15  81 academic future as a Jewish anthropologist and an anthropologist of 
D15  82 Judaism; I articulate this viewpoint in order to create a choice 
D15  83 beyond what seem to be the existing options either of representing 
D15  84 myself as being a specialist in an 'area' that is not recognized as 
D15  85 such and that indeed is properly not an area, or of abandoning my 
D15  86 professional relation to a particular group of people in favor of a 
D15  87 focus on 'pure theory.' The second concern is the general status of 
D15  88 Jewish ideas in elite intellectual discourse; they should be 
D15  89 neither ignored nor patronized. The third is the well-being of the 
D15  90 Israeli Jewish and Palestinian Arab peoples. A critical approach 
D15  91 toward the spatial and temporal grounds of ethnic identity is 
D15  92 highly relevant to a better understanding of the construction of 
D15  93 those two nations and of the conflict between them.<p/>
D15  94 <p_>The index to Tyler's book confirms the gap between these 
D15  95 concerns and the current theoretical/critical discourse in 
D15  96 anthropology. There are no references there to Jews, Hebrew, 
D15  97 Israel, or midrash, that genre of rabbinic interpretive literature 
D15  98 that works largely by interweaving fragments of the biblical text 
D15  99 and that has recently attracted considerable scholarly attention 
D15 100 (see D. Boyarin 1990; Hartman and Budick 1986; Handelman 1982). The 
D15 101 Kabbalah is mentioned in the text (p.180), but it is not indexed, 
D15 102 nor is the Zoroastrianism to which it is coupled. The one reference 
D15 103 in the index to <quote_>"Bible (postmodern ethnography 
D15 104 and)"<quote/> directs us to Tyler's statement that<p/>
D15 105 <p_><quote_>the hermeneutic process is not restricted to the 
D15 106 reader's relationship to the text, but includes as well the 
D15 107 interpretive practices of the parties to the originating dialogue. 
D15 108 In this respect, the model of postmodern ethnography is not the 
D15 109 newspaper but that original ethnography - the Bible (cf. Kelber 
D15 110 1983).<quote/> (ibid.: 204)<p/>
D15 111 <p_>The book Tyler refers to - Werner H. Kelber's <tf_>The Oral and 
D15 112 the Written Gospel<tf/> - is a painstaking and insightful account 
D15 113 of the transition from oral traditions to written texts in the 
D15 114 Christian accounts of Jesus' sayings and life (see also Kelber 
D15 115 1989). But the Gospels are not what I usually have in mind when I 
D15 116 think of the Bible, and it is not obvious that the same relation 
D15 117 between orality and textuality obtains in the canonical Jewish 
D15 118 books and in the Gospel. That Tyler himself identifies 'Bible' and 
D15 119 'Gospel' is further suggested by his Pauline paraphrase 
D15 120 <quote_>"the letter of ethnography killeth"<quote/> (1987:99). It 
D15 121 is easy to understand why this phrase is a powerful one for Tyler, 
D15 122 since the ethnographic situation in which the oral dialogic of 
D15 123 fieldwork is transformed into a monologic ethnography is so often 
D15 124 roughly concomitant with the actual disappearance, the 'death,' of 
D15 125 indigenous oral cultures. And yet we need to beware of this 
D15 126 antigraphic prejudice, which Tyler shares with Paul: <quote_>"If 
D15 127 the apostle's thought is perceived as a theology of language, 
D15 128 affirmation of the oral power of words and aversion to written 
D15 129 objectification lie at its core"<quote/> (Kelber 1983:184). Kelber 
D15 130 does indeed say that <quote_>"an oral language deconstructed by 
D15 131 textuality undergoes a kind of death"<quote/> (ibid.:185). But he 
D15 132 has also taken care not to evaluate the former as superior to the 
D15 133 latter (16), does not believe in an evolutionary progression from 
D15 134 one to the other (184), and cautions against the very search for 
D15 135 origins (xv). The Bible I will be writing about here in its 
D15 136 relation - critical or potential, but <tf|>not original - to 
D15 137 ethnography is other than the Gospel and, in fundamental ways, that 
D15 138 which the Gospel constructs as its Other.<p/>
D15 139 <p_>Note that Tyler is doubly validating the Gospel-Bible, both as 
D15 140 the original of ethnography <tf_>tout court<tf/> and as the proper 
D15 141 model for post<?_>-<?/>modern ethnography. Tyler's Bible is both 
D15 142 the way ethnography was 'originally' done and the way ethnography 
D15 143 should be done. The indexing of the Gospel as <tf|>Bible and as 
D15 144 model postmodern ethnography, along with the absence of any Jewish 
D15 145 references, suggest that for Tyler the relevant 
D15 146 textual-interpretive sources of ethnography are generally 
D15 147 Christian. The intimate link between missionary accounts and early 
D15 148 ethnographic reports certainly reinforces this suggestion. On the 
D15 149 other hand, there is the natural objection that so many modern 
D15 150 pioneers in cultural anthropology (Mauss, Boas, Durkheim, 
D15 151 L<*_>e-acute<*/>vi-Strauss) were Jews. The issue, of course, is 
D15 152 more one of social motivations and implicit frameworks of 
D15 153 understanding than of the overt ethnic or religious affiliation of 
D15 154 any particular scholar. Two observations can be made about the 
D15 155 apparent contradiction between the Jewish personal origins of these 
D15 156 pioneers and the Christian hermeneutic origins of anthropology as a 
D15 157 whole.<p/>
D15 158 <p_>First, all these Jewish scholars stand, as 'assimilating' Jews, 
D15 159 in an apologetic relation to the modern nation-state that is 
D15 160 curiously analogous to the relation of the early Christians to the 
D15 161 Roman Empire. Jews in post-Enlightenment Western Europe felt 
D15 162 obliged to prove their loyalty to the new nation-states, and many 
D15 163 of the secular scholars among them (Durkheim perhaps most notably 
D15 164 here) did so by helping to elaborate the legitimating ground of 
D15 165 liberal state structures. The record of the church fathers' 
D15 166 relations with imperial Rome demonstrates a similar concern for 
D15 167 compatibility between Christian loyalty and loyalty to empire and a 
D15 168 corresponding dissociation from the particularist and rebellious 
D15 169 Jews (Greer 1986:121-22). The analogy is even more poignantly 
D15 170 ironic when we consider that these secularist, modern, Western 
D15 171 European Jewish scholars were, like the early Christians, 
D15 172 <quote_>"free to exploit the universalist aims of the religion from 
D15 173 which they had sprung"<quote/> (ibid.).<p/>
D15 174 <p_>Secondly, identifying ethnography as profoundly (not 
D15 175 essentially) Christian does not mean that its history is unrelated 
D15 176 to Judaism. In fact, as I will discuss more fully later on, a major 
D15 177 source of ethnography's logic of Othering is the early Christian 
D15 178 encounter with Judaism. What came to be normative, orthodox 
D15 179 Christianity did not simply reject the Hebrew Scripture in the way 
D15 180 the Gnostics did. Instead Christian hermeneutics were largely bent 
D15 181 toward <quote_>"the transformation of the Hebrew Scriptures so that 
D15 182 they may become a witness to Christ"<quote/> (ibid.:111), a task 
D15 183 made infinitely more difficult by most Jews' rejection of that 
D15 184 <quote|>"witness" (120). Here - as in the case of Marx's essays on 
D15 185 the Jewish question or Lenin's confrontation with the Jewish 
D15 186 Workers' Bund in 1903 - the Jews stand as the test case for 
D15 187 universalizing theory, which fails to deal adequately with a 
D15 188 stubbornly distinctive group. But equally interesting, we are 
D15 189 talking about a process of Othering that is simultaneously 
D15 190 inter-'ethnic' and intertextual. Thus in a historical and not only 
D15 191 metaphorical sense, the history of Othering is a history of 
D15 192 reading; a crucial early moment in ethnography is the hermeneutic, 
D15 193 intertextual encounter between the Christian Bible and the Jewish 
D15 194 Torah.<p/>
D15 195 <p_>I am hardly an authority on Christianity, although I am 
D15 196 doubtless shaped by its cultural heritage more thoroughly than I 
D15 197 could possibly be aware. Indeed it is impossible to imagine 
D15 198 ourselves without the superethnic, individualized universalism 
D15 199 elaborated in Christianity. Here, however, I am attempting to 
D15 200 identify some of the mystifications inevitably entailed by the 
D15 201 institutionalization of that universalizing thrust. One 
D15 202 mystification perhaps linked to the early Christian ideal of a 
D15 203 community whose members are linked <tf|>not by history but 
D15 204 primarily by faith is the idea of an abstract, undefined, yet 
D15 205 nevertheless universally human common sense. Here Tyler, for 
D15 206 instance, becomes wonderfully polyvalent. On one hand he generally 
D15 207 valorizes common sense as one in a series of repressed, presumably 
D15 208 liberating values, decrying <quote_>"the triumph of logic over 
D15 209 rhetoric, of representation over communication, of science over 
D15 210 common sense, of the visual over the verbal"<quote/> (1987:170). 
D15 211 Immediately afterward, however, he historicizes common sense, and 
D15 212 undoes his own claims for its universal value: <quote_>"These 
D15 213 visual arts ... are ... historical emergents within a structure of 
D15 214 common sense, and being thus relative to a cultural tradition 
D15 215 cannot function as universals capable of constituting a fusion of 
D15 216 all cultural horizons into a single integrated whole"<quote/> 
D15 217 (ibid.).<p/>
D16   1 <FROWN:D16\><h_><p_>Bishops Meet at Notre Dame<p/>
D16   2 <p_>By THOMAS J. REESE<p/><h/>
D16   3 <p_>BEFORE THE U.S. bishops even met for their spring meeting at 
D16   4 the University of Notre Dame, storm clouds gathered over the 
D16   5 university. The storm was both literal and figurative. Many bishops 
D16   6 got stranded in Chicago and Detroit on the way to the meeting as 
D16   7 high winds, rain and tornado warnings closed one airport after 
D16   8 another.<p/>
D16   9 <p_>Another storm raged over the decision of Notre Dame to award 
D16  10 its Laetare Medal to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D., N.Y.). 
D16  11 Although arguably the most academically qualified member of 
D16  12 Congress and a supporter of social justice programs, Senator 
D16  13 Moynihan was criticized by the bishops' conference president, 
D16  14 Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, for espousing 
D16  15 <quote_>"the position that people should have the right to kill 
D16  16 their unborn children."<quote/><p/>
D16  17 <p_>Cardinal John J. O'Connor of New York and other bishops felt so 
D16  18 strongly about the issue that they refused to set foot on the 
D16  19 campus. Although he met with the bishops' pro-life committee in a 
D16  20 hotel in South Bend, the Cardinal boycotted the spring meeting of 
D16  21 the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (N.C.C.B.). Of the 286 
D16  22 voting members of the conference, about 200 attended the meeting. 
D16  23 How many refused to come because of the Moynihan flap is uncertain, 
D16  24 since attendance at the spring meetings is always less than at the 
D16  25 November meetings of the bishops.<p/>
D16  26 <p_>Controversy continued to plague the bishops as they gathered in 
D16  27 South Bend. Even before approving the agenda, Archbishop William J. 
D16  28 Levada of Portland, Ore., moved to conduct the discussion of the 
D16  29 pastoral letter on women's concerns in closed session. Archbishop 
D16  30 Levada and Bishop Alfred C. Hughes of Boston, both members of the 
D16  31 committee drafting the pastoral, argued that the bishops could be 
D16  32 more honest and free talking behind closed doors. They were 
D16  33 supported by Cardinal Bernard F. Law of Boston but opposed by 
D16  34 Archbishop John R. Roach of St. Paul, Bishop Raymond A. Lucker of 
D16  35 New Ulm, Minn., as well as Bishop Joseph L. Imesch of Joliet, Ill., 
D16  36 who chairs the drafting committee. The bishops voted to keep the 
D16  37 discussion in the open.<p/>
D16  38 <p_>Bishop Imesch had come to Notre Dame fearing the worst for his 
D16  39 pastoral and that was exactly what he got. The draft letter was 
D16  40 attacked from the right and the left. Auxiliary Bishop John R. 
D16  41 Sheets, S.J., of Fort Wayne-South Bend, said that the document 
D16  42 should include a condemnation of any radical feminist theology that 
D16  43 threatens church unity by rejecting traditional Christology because 
D16  44 Jesus was male, by seeing the church as a patriarchal institution 
D16  45 that suppresses the feminine dimension and by refusing to 
D16  46 participate in Eucharists celebrated by male priests.<p/>
D16  47 <p_>Bishop Elden F. Curtiss of Helena, Mont., agreed with Bishop 
D16  48 Sheets. He noted that the letter says sexism is a sin; it should 
D16  49 also say radical feminism is a sin.<p/>
D16  50 <p_>During the debate it became clear that the drafting committee 
D16  51 itself is so divided that Archbishop Levada and Bishop Hughes 
D16  52 prepared a minority report. Although the report was not made 
D16  53 public, Bishop Hughes's criticisms of the draft were telling. He 
D16  54 called for strengthening and expanding the Christian anthropology 
D16  55 of the first chapter. Although he did not go into detail, this 
D16  56 probably means reflecting more closely the Pope's theology of the 
D16  57 human person, especially his views on the complementarity of the 
D16  58 sexes.<p/>
D16  59 <p_>Second, Bishop Hughes wanted the letter to analyze modern views 
D16  60 of the individual, family and freedom rooted in Enlightenment. 
D16  61 Finally, he wanted a more positive presentation of the church and 
D16  62 the church's position opposing the ordination of women.<p/>
D16  63 <p_>THE PASTORAL LETTER was also attacked from the other side. 
D16  64 Bishop Lucker argued that the process was more important than the 
D16  65 letter and recommended dropping the document while continuing the 
D16  66 dialogue with women. He noted that the bishops have a difficult 
D16  67 time applying their teaching about the equality of women to the 
D16  68 daily life of the church and that the draft has lots of suggestions 
D16  69 for society but not for the church.<p/>
D16  70 <p_>Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B., of Milwaukee also 
D16  71 called for dropping the letter because it does not have anything to 
D16  72 say beyond what has already been said in papal and Vatican 
D16  73 documents. He said it is not up to the standards of other 
D16  74 conference letters and that it would be embarrassing to put it out 
D16  75 in its present form. Furthermore, it would neither heal the wounds 
D16  76 suffered by women nor bring people together.<p/>
D16  77 <p_>Archbishop Roach spoke for the middle, who hope that the letter 
D16  78 can be saved and approved after the normal amending process in 
D16  79 November. <quote_>"We need the document to focus the 
D16  80 dialogue,"<quote/> he argued. <quote_>"This document will be 
D16  81 helpful for discussion on the local level."<quote/><p/>
D16  82 <p_>Cardinal Jospeh L. Bernadin of Chicago also supported pursuing 
D16  83 the document through the normal conference process. <quote_>"It 
D16  84 would be a serious mistake to walk away from the letter after all 
D16  85 the work that was done, including the consultations,"<quote/> he 
D16  86 said. He acknowledged that ordination is the neuralgic issue. The 
D16  87 bishops would have to enrich the section dealing with ordination 
D16  88 and explain the church's teaching. But to attempt to say the last 
D16  89 word on Christian anthropology and feminism would in effect kill 
D16  90 the letter, he said.<p/>
D16  91 <p_>IN ORDER to give the drafting committee some direction, 
D16  92 Archbishop Pilarczyk held a straw vote to see if the bishops wanted 
D16  93 to use the current draft as a basis for debate and amendments in 
D16  94 November. The committee had told the bishops that, after almost 
D16  95 nine years of work, they were finished and would not attempt 
D16  96 another draft. A standing vote indicated that a majority of the 
D16  97 bishops wanted to go forward with the letter. But the vote also 
D16  98 showed that the letter was in serious trouble: Fewer than 
D16  99 two-thirds of the bishops wanted to go forward, and it will take a 
D16 100 two-thirds vote to pass the letter.<p/>
D16 101 <p_>The results of the vote were further muddied since some bishops 
D16 102 thought that the committee could revise the text in light of the 
D16 103 discussion. Others hoped the letter could be issued by the 
D16 104 committee rather than by the full conference and thus have weaker 
D16 105 authority.<p/>
D16 106 <p_><quote_>"I don't see how it is possible to satisfy the concerns 
D16 107 expressed by the bishops,"<quote/> said Bishop Imesch. <quote_>"We 
D16 108 will try, but that would be a miracle."<quote/><p/>
D16 109 <p_>Bishops who support the ordination of women believe that they 
D16 110 only have about 30 votes in the conference. Revisions in the letter 
D16 111 will most likely reflect the views of those opposed to the 
D16 112 ordination of women and to feminist theology.<p/>
D16 113 <p_>While the bishops debated the draft, groups favoring the 
D16 114 ordination of women and of married men released the results of a 
D16 115 Gallup poll showing that U.S. Catholics favor both. Sixty-seven 
D16 116 percent agree that <quote_>"it would be a good thing if women were 
D16 117 allowed to be ordained as priests,"<quote/> up from 47 percent in 
D16 118 1985 and 29 percent in 1974. An even higher percentage (75 percent) 
D16 119 support a married priesthood. Since younger Catholics support these 
D16 120 positions more strongly than older Catholics do, future polls will 
D16 121 probably show a continued trend toward even greater support for the 
D16 122 ordination of women and for married priests.<p/>
D16 123 <p_>The poll showed disagreement with the bishops on other issues. 
D16 124 Eighty-seven percent say couples should make their own decisions on 
D16 125 birth control, and 75 percent think divorced and remarried 
D16 126 Catholics without annulments should be able to receive Communion. 
D16 127 Two-thirds of the Catholics also disagree with the bishops' 
D16 128 opposition to capital punishment, showing that the sample was not 
D16 129 limited to liberal Catholics. Despite disagreements with the Pope 
D16 130 on these issues, 84 percent of the U.S. Catholics think John Paul 
D16 131 II is <quote_>"doing a good job leading the church."<quote/><p/>
D16 132 <p_>The bishops also received reports on proselytism and 
D16 133 evangelization. Proselytism is the attempt to recruit people away 
D16 134 from another church through undue pressure and promises of material 
D16 135 rewards. The bishops are especially concerned about the loss of 
D16 136 Hispanics through proselytism.<p/>
D16 137 <p_>The bishops will consider a statement on evangelization at 
D16 138 their November meeting. The three goals of evangelization, 
D16 139 according to the draft, are to increase enthusiasm for the faith 
D16 140 among Catholics, to invite all people to hear the message of the 
D16 141 faith and to foster Gospel values in American culture.<p/>
D16 142 <p_>THERE ARE 15 million inactive Catholics and 80 million 
D16 143 unchurched in the United States who will be the focus of the 
D16 144 evangelization effort. Many bishops said that Catholic parishes 
D16 145 need to be more hospitable to new<?_>-<?/>comers and strangers. A 
D16 146 number of bishops indicated that Renew, a parish renewal program 
D16 147 begun in Newark, N.J., is the best instrument of evangelization in 
D16 148 the American church.<p/>
D16 149 <p_>Another report by Bishop Edward I. Hughes of Metuchen, N.J., 
D16 150 described preparations to receive and implement <tf_>The Catechism 
D16 151 of the Catholic Church<tf/>, which will be approved by the Pope on 
D16 152 June 25. Bishop Hughes chairs a conference subcommittee to develop 
D16 153 a favorable climate for the reception of the catechism. An ad hoc 
D16 154 committee of the conference severely criticized the first draft of 
D16 155 the catechism, which was then called <tf_>Catechism of the 
D16 156 Universal Church<tf/> (see AM. 3/3/90). The bishops are now being 
D16 157 asked to embrace enthusiastically a revised catechism they have not 
D16 158 yet seen. The English translation of the catechism is expected in 
D16 159 January.<p/>
D16 160 <p_>One surprise at the meeting came from Archbishop Agostino 
D16 161 Cacciavillan, the Pope's representative to the United States, who 
D16 162 said that the Vatican is concerned about the Christology and 
D16 163 Trinitarian theology expressed in the new translation of the 
D16 164 sacramentary being developed by the International Committee on 
D16 165 English in the Liturgy (I.C.E.L.). While he did not explain the 
D16 166 concerns, one member of the bishops' liturgy committee felt that 
D16 167 I.C.E.L. was going too far in trying to avoid using traditional 
D16 168 Trinitarian language in referring to the Father and Son. He felt 
D16 169 that if the draft came to the conference as it stood, 
D16 170 <quote_>"there would be a blood bath on the floor."<quote/> There 
D16 171 may be some hope for the I.C.E.L. sacramentary, however, since 
D16 172 without much controversy the bishops did approve a new translation 
D16 173 of the lectionary that uses inclusive language in dealing with the 
D16 174 non-divine. This revised lectionary took eight years of 
D16 175 consultation and work with bishops and scholars.<p/>
D16 176 <p_>The bishops also met in executive session behind closed doors. 
D16 177 Cardinal James A. Hickey of Washington, D.C., reported that he had 
D16 178 gotten the Pope to approve a second conference of religious women 
D16 179 in the United States to represent those who believe that the 
D16 180 Leadership Conference of Women Religious (L.C.W.R.) is too liberal. 
D16 181 The L.C.W.R. has been under attack by conservative nuns whom some 
D16 182 bishops consider more loyal to papal teaching. Also, Archbishop 
D16 183 Pilarczyk indicated that there may be some Vatican movement on the 
D16 184 issue of altar girls but warned against raising false hopes.<p/>
D16 185 <p_>But the major topic of the executive session was sexual abuse 
D16 186 of children by priests. The bishops heard from a panel of experts 
D16 187 and bishops. In a statement at the conclusion of the meeting, 
D16 188 Archbishop Pilarczyk, as N.C.C.B. president, addressed the problem 
D16 189 with more directness and candor than had ever been heard on the 
D16 190 national level. He called sexual abuse of a child 
D16 191 <quote_>"reprehensible conduct directed at a most vulnerable member 
D16 192 of our society."<quote/> He noted that research indicates that one 
D16 193 out of every four girls and one out of every 10 boys is sexually 
D16 194 abused before they reach their 18th birthday.<p/>
D16 195 <p_><quote_>"Sexual abuse is caused by a disorder (in some cases, 
D16 196 an addiction) for which treatment is essential,"<quote/> he said. 
D16 197 <quote_>"Sometimes the therapy may be successful; sometimes it is 
D16 198 not."<quote/> He refused to rule out the possibility of a priest 
D16 199 returning to ministry after treatment, but <quote_>"We realize we 
D16 200 must seek sound medical advice as we make responsible pastoral 
D16 201 judgments,"<quote/> he said. <quote_>"The protection of the child 
D16 202 is and will continue to be our first concern."<quote/><p/>
D16 203 <p_>He admitted that mistakes had been made in the past when people 
D16 204 treated sexual abuse as a moral fault for which repentance and a 
D16 205 change of scene, so it was thought, would result in a change of 
D16 206 behavior. <quote_>"Far more aggressive steps are needed to protect 
D16 207 the innocent, treat the perpetrator, and safeguard our children.
D17   1 <#FROWN:D17\><h_><p_>Fruit for eternity<p/>
D17   2 <p_>A testimony of God's sustaining love<p/>
D17   3 <p_>by Stephanie Smedley<p/><h/>
D17   4 <p_>At some point in a Christian's life, he or she may face what I 
D17   5 term 'the Judas Issue': How far are you willing to go for Christ? 
D17   6 What will purchase your betrayal?<p/>
D17   7 <p_>It may come through disappointment or a situation so shattering 
D17   8 that the cost of following Jesus is sharply held in focus. I have 
D17   9 faced such a challenge; I have lost a child.<p/>
D17  10 <p_>Christopher Ryan, my second son with silvery-blue eyes and 
D17  11 white-gold hair, departed this earth. He was perfect in form, 
D17  12 beautiful to see, cuddly, sweet, and good. He called me 
D17  13 <quote|>"Amma," and I loved him - and love him still. He lived with 
D17  14 us for seven months, then returned to the one who gave him life, a 
D17  15 sweet and precious memory.<p/>
D17  16 <p_><quote_>"You're a pastor's wife. You've walked with the Lord 
D17  17 for years and witnessed countless miracles. Why would God, if he's 
D17  18 so good, let this happen?"<quote/> Such reactions, along with 
D17  19 judgments of <quote_>"not enough faith"<quote/> or <quote_>"having 
D17  20 concealed sin"<quote/> came from those who looked on, unable to 
D17  21 perceive God's objectives in my life.<p/>
D17  22 <p_>But throughout the ordeal, I never doubted God's goodness or 
D17  23 God's love. God's purposes are higher than mine, more lasting, more 
D17  24 enduring. I recognize God's right to do as God wills. As Job so 
D17  25 widely said, <quote_>"Shall we indeed accept good from God and not 
D17  26 accept adversity?"<quote/> (Job 2:10, NAS).<p/>
D17  27 <p_>I had to face the questions, What will be the price of my 
D17  28 denial? Do I love God because God blesses? Do I serve the Lord for 
D17  29 some reward? Will I remain loyal through difficulty or hardship?<p/>
D17  30 <p_>This present life is full of trials. God entrusted my family 
D17  31 with a massive test, one that has buckled others. The good news is 
D17  32 that though we were shaken severely, God's stalwart love sustained 
D17  33 us. God's grace truly is sufficient.<p/>
D17  34 <p_>I relate to the sword piercing the soul as spoken of in Luke 
D17  35 2:35. I understand the physical ache, the yearning to hold and 
D17  36 possess, the missing and horrible emptiness. I have faced the 
D17  37 declaration that death is final.<p/>
D17  38 <p_>But death is not final for the Christian. It is only the 
D17  39 exchange of that which is frail for that which is indestructible. 
D17  40 Yes, the pain of separation is great; there isn't a day I don't 
D17  41 think of Chris. But I have this reassuring hope: I will see him 
D17  42 again.<p/>
D17  43 <p_>The power of Christ's grace brought me through what I could 
D17  44 never endure on my own. I am not bitter, nor am I resentful. In 
D17  45 fact, I am humbled to think Christ trusted me with such a test. I 
D17  46 love my Lord.<p/>
D17  47 <p_>At the time of Christopher's death, God spoke to our hearts: 
D17  48 <quote_>"Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it 
D17  49 remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit"<quote/> (John 
D17  50 12:24).<p/>
D17  51 <p_>Life on earth is brief, just a blip on history's graph. I pray 
D17  52 that we people of God will shift our focus from what is temporary 
D17  53 to that which never ends. May we spend our lives with this goal in 
D17  54 mind: to bear fruit for eternity.<p/>
D17  55 
D17  56 <h_><p_>What our children see<p/>
D17  57 <p_>Suggestions for setting a good example<p/>
D17  58 <p_>by Deborah Christensen<p/><h/>
D17  59 <p_>Linda sat propped up in bed reading her Bible. She enjoyed 
D17  60 these moments to herself. The children were sleeping. She had read 
D17  61 a Bible story to them and prayed with them before putting them to 
D17  62 bed. The house was quiet. This was the first chance she had to 
D17  63 spend quiet time with the Lord.<p/>
D17  64 <p_><quote_>"What are you doing, Mommy?"<quote/><p/>
D17  65 <p_>Linda looked up to see five-year-old Diane peeking into the 
D17  66 room. She smiled and motioned for Diane to come in. <quote_>"I'm 
D17  67 having my devotions."<quote/><p/>
D17  68 <p_><quote_>"Devotions? What's that?"<quote/><p/>
D17  69 <p_><quote_>"That's reading the Bible to learn about Jesus, then 
D17  70 praying to him - just as we do before you go to bed."<quote/> Linda 
D17  71 read aloud the passage she had been studying.<p/>
D17  72 <p_><quote_>"I learned some songs about the Bible in Sunday 
D17  73 school,"<quote/> Diane said. <quote_>"Do you want to hear 
D17  74 them?"<quote/><p/>
D17  75 <p_><quote|>"Sure."<p/>
D17  76 <p_>Diane started singing 'The B-I-B-L-E' and 'Zacchaeus.' Linda 
D17  77 joined in. When they finished, Linda kissed Diane good night and 
D17  78 sent her back to bed.<p/>
D17  79 <p_>Have you noticed how children see everything we do, even when 
D17  80 we don't know they are watching? Whether we like it or not, we set 
D17  81 an example every day. What we do sticks with them. We decide if we 
D17  82 set a good or bad example. How can we ensure that it is a good 
D17  83 example? Following are a few suggestions that might help.<p/>
D17  84 <p_><tf_>Weave your spiritual life into daily living<tf/>. Read 
D17  85 Bible stories to your children at bedtime, go to church, and pray 
D17  86 before meals. But don't stop there. Allow the children to see you 
D17  87 growing in your own spiritual journey.<p/>
D17  88 <p_>In <tf_>First We Have Coffee<tf/>, Margaret Jensen talks about 
D17  89 her mother's complete dependence on God. Every day she went to her 
D17  90 room by herself and prayed on her knees. The children knew not to 
D17  91 disturb her because she was talking to God, and it was a special 
D17  92 time. She didn't hide it from them. They also watched miracles 
D17  93 happen because of her faithfulness.<p/>
D17  94 <p_>Deuteronomy 6:6-9 instructs us to teach the Lord's commands to 
D17  95 our children in all circumstances. Our children learn about our 
D17  96 values by watching us.<p/>
D17  97 <p_><tf_>Be consistent.<tf/> It's not a matter of 'do what I say, 
D17  98 not what I do.' If what we say and what we do are different, we 
D17  99 send confusing messages to our children.<p/>
D17 100 <p_>Discipline is essential. Standards set in the home, however, 
D17 101 apply to all family members, including parents. We are not above 
D17 102 the rules. Pretending we are puts a wedge in our relationship with 
D17 103 our children. They see the discrepancies between our actions and 
D17 104 our words.<p/>
D17 105 <p_>Children imitate us. When they see us doing something, even if 
D17 106 we have told them not to, they feel they have permission to do it. 
D17 107 Or they stop respecting us. They will probably sneak around behind 
D17 108 our backs.<p/>
D17 109 <p_><tf_>Recognize and acknowledge failures.<tf/> We are not 
D17 110 perfect. Our children already know that. They see every mistake we 
D17 111 make. Admitting our mistakes and failures opens the lines of 
D17 112 communication. It also lets our children know that failure is not 
D17 113 the end of the world. It may teach them how to be open about their 
D17 114 mistakes. Many people believe this undermines our authority. In 
D17 115 fact, the opposite occurs.<p/>
D17 116 <p_><tf_>Get involved in ministry as a family.<tf/> Serve God 
D17 117 together. Find something you can all do as a family. Let your 
D17 118 children see you reaching outward to other people.<p/>
D17 119 <p_>After church every Sunday, Bill and his father drove out to the 
D17 120 local mental health facility. His father conducted services for the 
D17 121 mentally handicapped patients. Bill watched as his father spent 
D17 122 time with each person and treated her or him with dignity, showing 
D17 123 love to each.<p/>
D17 124 <p_>That image impressed Bill for the rest of his life. He cites 
D17 125 his father's example as the catalyst that sent him into ministry. 
D17 126 Bill now pastors a large congregation in the midwest. His church 
D17 127 focuses on reaching people for Christ - no matter who they are. His 
D17 128 theme is 'You matter to God.'<p/>
D17 129 <p_><quote_>"Train up a child in the way he should go"<quote/> 
D17 130 (Prov. 22:6) means more than discipline or just talking about it. 
D17 131 It means living it.<p/>
D17 132 
D17 133 <h_><p_>Putting back the thanks<p/>
D17 134 <p_>Ten suggestions for a more thankful Thanksgiving<p/>
D17 135 <p_>by Kathleen Buehler and Jennifer Veldman<p/><h/>
D17 136 <p_>Much has been said about the commercialization of Christmas 
D17 137 that takes away from the real meaning of advent. But what about 
D17 138 Thanksgiving? Has Thanksgiving become just a day to stuff ourselves 
D17 139 with food and lie around watching parades and football games?<p/>
D17 140 <p_>You may feel the need to put back into the holiday some of the 
D17 141 gratitude to God that is the reason for the day. Following are some 
D17 142 ideas that may spark your own new Thanksgiving traditions.<p/>
D17 143 <p_>1. Weeks or days ahead of Thanksgiving, brainstorm as a family 
D17 144 those persons who have meant a great deal to your family. Buy or 
D17 145 make thank<?_>-<?/>you cards or write notes to send to these 
D17 146 persons, expressing your gratitude to them. On Thanksgiving Day, 
D17 147 make them part of your prayer time.<p/>
D17 148 <p_>2. You could 'add' to your family. Invite persons who do not 
D17 149 have a place to go on Thanksgiving to your celebration and include 
D17 150 them in your holiday tradition. If there is a college near you, 
D17 151 remember that some students may not be able to go home for the 
D17 152 holiday, especially if they live far away, and may be spending the 
D17 153 day alone.<p/>
D17 154 <p_>3. Learn portions of the psalms that speak of Thanksgiving and 
D17 155 praise. Recite these together on that special day.<p/>
D17 156 <p_>4. Rewrite portions of Psalm 136 to fit the blessings of your 
D17 157 family. Read your version as a litany on Thanksgiving Day.<p/>
D17 158 <p_>5. Allow children, perhaps directed by an adult, to practice 
D17 159 and present a skit or puppet show for the adults expressing the 
D17 160 meaning of Thanksgiving or family togetherness.<p/>
D17 161 <p_>6. At each person's place at the table, put a piece of paper 
D17 162 with that person's name at the top. As the meal is being prepared, 
D17 163 ask the various family members and guests to write on each of the 
D17 164 other papers one characteristic or action that they appreciate 
D17 165 about the person whose name is at the top. Then as persons gather 
D17 166 at the table for dinner, each will find a list of reasons why he or 
D17 167 she is appreciated.<p/>
D17 168 <p_>7. Before digging into the dinner, spend a few moments looking 
D17 169 back over the last year. Let each one express one person or event 
D17 170 that has been a blessing.<p/>
D17 171 <p_>8. As part of your prayer/worship time before you begin your 
D17 172 meal, hold hands around the table and sing a familiar hymn or 
D17 173 chorus of thanksgiving to God.<p/>
D17 174 <p_>9. If someone at your Thanksgiving celebration is not a 
D17 175 Christian, a specific testimony about what God has done in your 
D17 176 life and how you are thankful to God may be a good way to share 
D17 177 your faith.<p/>
D17 178 <p_>10. If there is a shut-in or nursing home resident that you 
D17 179 know, arrange to pack up a portion of your dinner to bring 
D17 180 Thanksgiving to that individual after you have finished your 
D17 181 meal.<p/>
D17 182 
D17 183 <h_><p_>Ministers of constant prayer<p/>
D17 184 <p_>An unequaled opportunity for outreach<p/>
D17 185 <p_>by John Eyberg<p/><h/>
D17 186 <p_>Even as the old are getting older, they are being joined in 
D17 187 quantity by an aging, younger group. With a dramatic decline in 
D17 188 birthrate, aging of the general population has skyrocketed. At the 
D17 189 beginning of this century, an estimated one of every twenty-five 
D17 190 persons was sixty-five or older; during the past decade the ratio 
D17 191 was one in nine; and thirty years into the next century it is 
D17 192 projected to be one in five - twenty percent of America's total 
D17 193 population.<p/>
D17 194 <p_>The graying of our country has ignited a national debate 
D17 195 focused on building an economy that will sustain the aging 
D17 196 population. What has yet to be ignited is a level of interest 
D17 197 within the church community in what to do about an aging 
D17 198 constituency. Mostly, the church has been satisfied with programs 
D17 199 designed to entertain the elderly and with nursing home visitation. 
D17 200 The result is an underutilized resource and a burial ground of 
D17 201 unused talent.<p/>
D17 202 <p_>Responsible stewardship is to be a hallmark of the church. To 
D17 203 the church, God has entrusted gifts of great value, and God's 
D17 204 expectation is for their return to him 'with interest' (Matt. 
D17 205 25:27). A church that violates that trust by burying talents 
D17 206 embodied in aging vessels may one day hear, <quote_>"You wicked and 
D17 207 slothful servant!"<quote/> (v.26).<p/>
D17 208 <p_>As we grow older, we learn that aging is built into the system 
D17 209 and happens at the same pace for everyone. Of course, we enter the 
D17 210 human race at different times; therefore, we do not cross the 
D17 211 finish line together.<p/>
D17 212 <p_>Generation gaps can be the result, but an atmosphere of freedom 
D17 213 can help fill the gaps. In the concluding chapter of her life, 
D17 214 Hannah Whitall Smith wrote, <quote_>"Advice we who are older may 
D17 215 give, and the fruits of our experience, but we must be perfectly 
D17 216 content to have our advice rejected by the younger generation, and 
D17 217 our experience ignored ....
