{"id":1217,"date":"2013-03-02T21:53:16","date_gmt":"2013-03-03T01:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2013-03-02T21:57:14","modified_gmt":"2013-03-03T01:57:14","slug":"who-would-you-dance-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/?p=1217","title":{"rendered":"Who Would You Dance For?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WWYDF\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Someone with The Martyrs Project<\/a>\u00a0contacted me to ask if I would post about them. \u00a0Their icon looks like the one for the Blair Witch Project, crafted to convey: IMPORTANT, ANCIENT, and SCARY. \u00a0\u201cWHAT WOULD YOU DIE FOR<\/span><\/strong>,\u201d the opening screen from the Martyr Project states. \u00a0(There is no question mark, so it doesn\u2019t actually ask.)<\/p>\n

My gut response is: \u201cBlech.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheBlairWitchProject\"<\/a>

IMPORTANT, ANCIENT, and SCARY<\/p><\/div>\n

My more intellectually acceptable response is that, as someone who has written on Julian of Norwich and Kierkegaard, two church masters not exactly known for their joie de vivre, I need to keep sorting out why I disagree with theologies of productive suffering.<\/p>\n

I think that \u201cWHAT WOULD YOU DIE FOR<\/span><\/strong>\u201d may be the macho flip-logic of \u201cWhat would you kill for\u201d \u2013 a self-punishing, masochistic underside of a sadistic culture of domination. \u00a0Both masochism and sadism mistake suffering for meaning.<\/p>\n

The promise of meaningful suffering seems to be a provocative recruitment tool for some church movements and for armies during times when people feel as if their lives are less than meaningful. \u00a0This is a matter of economic class perspective, in part. \u00a0Less economically advantaged young men and women who sign up for military service because it is the only economically feasible way to get an education are not hoping for a way to suffer toward truth. \u00a0But some young people, and their parents, have heard an appeal to submit to military obedience in order to find purpose for their lives. \u00a0The Martyrs Project<\/em>, perhaps like \u201cNew Monasticism,\u201d seems aimed at a particular class of young people looking for meaning by embracing austerity. \u00a0I wager that many of the actual people shown suffering in the website\u2019s video about Bishop Oscar Romero would have preferred to be singing in the pretty church with the contemporary guitarist than suffering under the U.S. sponsored torture-regime in El Salvador. \u00a0As one friend puts it, she has never heard someone who has to ride the city bus daily and\/or works at Wal-Mart talk about righteous poverty. \u00a0But it has been fashionable, over the ages, to present suffering as a path toward self-renewal.<\/p>\n

Christians have been called to suffer courageously in the pursuit of liberation, justice, love, and joy. \u00a0And, as we are so aware during Lent, Christians worship a God who loved us to the point of dying a tortured death in the pursuit of our liberation. \u00a0Maybe this is why Christians are so apt to mistake suffering itself as a vehicle for liberation.<\/p>\n

I can read this trend today psychoanalytically. \u00a0A relatively well-off, mainstream Catholic and evangelical white population of young (20-40) adults has been told, through a stream of generation-niche irony, that our lives have no core meaning. \u00a0Thoroughgoing irony is a sliver away from saying life is worthless, so we tear our psyches in two, like the main character in Fight Club<\/em>, and beat the shit out of ourselves. \u00a0The allure of suffering as a route toward maturity is strong, and it is based on a premise of fundamental agonism \u2013 on the idea that the world is about competition. \u00a0The question embedded within such a premise of agonism is whether I will own and master my suffering \u2013 finding meaning through masochism, or choose to dominate and subdue someone else.<\/p>\n

Consider, for example, the Blair Witch Project<\/em> as a kind of existential, gut-reaction to South Park. \u00a0We watch in \u201creal time\u201d as three everyday-looking friends bond, through the decidedly un-ironic earnestness of a hand-held camera, and then get caught up in something vaguely deep, real, historic, and bloody, dying and\/or killing one another in pursuit of the mystery on the edge. \u00a0(Theirs is a more complicated, lingering sort of horror story than a previous generation\u2019s, where the message was, basically: enjoy sex and you will be impaled.) \u00a0Perhaps The Martyrs Project<\/em> is a gut reaction to the apparent meaninglessness of what we might call Tom\u2019s Shoes Christianity. \u00a0To follow a radical savior must mean something more than buying a cool pair of righteous, sparkly shoes for me and my girls. \u00a0But the answer to vapid, Facebook \u201clike\u201d Christianity \u2013 the kind of Christianity that the self-righteous ironists who write for South Park<\/em> lampoon regularly \u2013 cannot be that I mistake myself for my own personal Jesus, able to bring about even my own little part of the kingdom through my own suffering.<\/p>\n

\"We<\/a>

Is it coincidence that the creator of this Calvinist meme (not me, I promise) misspelled “choose” at the top? Of course not, because SOVEREIGNTY.<\/p><\/div>\n

I do intend to keep sorting through SUFFERING as a person and as a Christian scholar, but, as I tried to respond to the Martyr website, I kept coming back to something John Swinton taught me in Raging with Compassion<\/em><\/a>. \u00a0SUFFERING is not a question to be sorted. \u00a0It is an ecclesial call to attend \u2013 to be with one another silently washing feet and wiping tears. \u00a0Calvinist writer Kathy Keller put this simply at her National Prayer Breakfast women\u2019s session on suffering: \u00a0being friends during times of suffering means \u201cshowing up with your mouth closed.\u201d \u00a0Swinton (also a Calvinist) even goes so far as to call the removed, meaning-work of theodicy a temptation and distraction. \u00a0During her Q and A time, Kathy Keller, with her intensely analytic, biblically-crackling mind seemed led into such temptation when asked to \u201cmake sense\u201d out of suffering that someone inflicts on another person. \u00a0Isn\u2019t our most godly response to such suffering to refuse it? \u00a0My mouth fell indecorously open when Keller explained that God provides an \u201cinvisible protective shield\u201d that turns a weapon into a \u201cscalpel.\u201d \u00a0So, she explained, if someone is wielding a knife against me, God\u2019s shield \u201cturns that knife into God\u2019s scalpel.\u201d \u00a0I was simultaneously impressed with the thoroughness of her doctrine of divine sovereignty and really, really grateful that she isn\u2019t my pastor.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"collapse\"<\/a>

Jared Diamond conveniently excuses the colonizers and blames the colonized in Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse. (Click for more on why he’s wrong.)<\/p><\/div>\n

I still need more time to think through all the reasons why I disagree with Sarah Coakley\u2019s recent work on productive suffering<\/a>.\u00a0 (I have an extensive footnote — 47 — in this piece<\/a> Kara and I wrote.) \u00a0It is a pastoral and even a theological mistake to try to situate suffering on a map or on a timeline. \u00a0If I find myself thinking: \u201cAha! \u00a0Now I can understand why X,Y, or Z truly shitty thing happened (either to ME, to MY PEOPLE, or to THOSE PEOPLE) because here on the map or storyline is the GOOD that will come out of it,\u201d then I am probably driven more by a desire for cognitive control than healing and\/or solidarity. \u00a0Coakley suggests that suffering is a fundamental part of how humans progress, biologically and eschatologically. \u00a0\u00a0Nature is red, in tooth and claw, and history moves forward not only by way of those who run fast and gobble up the slow, but also by way of the individuals in a group who sacrifice themselves for others \u2013 who give themselves self-sacrificially to be gobbled up. \u00a0(Ok, yes, this is a silly paraphrase, but you get the idea.) \u00a0This seems a bad way for any individual to think about her suffering \u2013 as promoting God\u2019s realm or God\u2019s storyline.<\/p>\n

And I definitely, resoundingly, want to say Coakley\u2019s is a bad way for people to think right now, during the Second Great Depression. \u00a0The Big Guys whose economic shenanigans ($%#&*) have set things up for radical inequality would LOVEY LOVE LOVE it if a bunch of the Christian 99% started seeing \u201cAusterity,\u201d whether in Europe or in the U.S., as part of our self-emptying mission for the good of human history. \u00a0\u00a0Brothers Koch and Templeton<\/a>, even you guys<\/a> cannot buy all theology to fit your purposes.<\/p>\n

So, Martyrdom, anyone? \u00a0No, thank you.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Karen Kilby gets it right on suffering. Go watch her video.<\/p><\/div>\n

A lesser known theologian in the U.K. has a quiet video about suffering that I recommend<\/a>. \u00a0Karen Kilby was a Teaching Assistant for my first class with George Lindbeck at Yale (21 years ago) and she was a gift to me then. \u00a0She thoughtfully suggests that, although I am called to practice courage when my pursuit of what is true and good may result in my suffering or even death, it is the courageous pursuit, not the suffering or death in itself, that is holy. \u00a0\u201cWhat speaks of Christ\u201d in the life of someone like Archbishop Romero is not such a person\u2019s suffering or death in itself, but \u201cthe steadfastness of the commitment to love, or justice, or doing the will of the father.\u201d \u00a0(I recommend the full 31 minutes, especially for those preparing Holy Week sermons, but, if you absolutely have to, skip to around minute 20.)<\/p>\n

\"ruth_and_naomi_coloring_page_20100221_1733760932\"<\/a>

We won’t tell anyone if you print this out and color it.<\/p><\/div>\n

So, there is my response, for now, to the website\u2019s summons: WHAT WOULD YOU DIE FOR<\/strong><\/span>. \u00a0I ask a different question to those reading my own little screen: \u00a0Who would you look the fool for? \u00a0What would you dance in public for? \u00a0What has God placed in your life that is so compelling that you cannot but risk the charge of insanity to pursue?<\/strong> \u00a0As I have taught many times over the years, Ruth is a very different answer to the violent chaos that closes the book of Judges than the ensuing call for a Royal King in 1 and 2 Samuel. \u00a0Ruth courageously and ridiculously refuses to depart from her widowed, childless, grouchy mother-in-law, but she walks with Bitter Naomi, in hope, toward sweet Bet-lehem \u2013 toward House of Food. \u00a0The story is one that travels around, or maybe underneath, the repetitive agonism of Judges. \u00a0(Not incidentally, Ruth\u2019s grandson, David, is at his best when he loses his royal composure, dancing, nakedly in love with God.) \u00a0As a friend and former student chided me during a potentially masochistic period of my life, \u201cYou seem to have forgotten that God\u2019s covenant with us is meant primarily for our joy!\u201d \u00a0I pray for myself, and for my daughters, the unladylike abandon to seek truth and justice and beauty, even when we will suffer shame or worse for it. \u00a0After all, realistic about how tough things were and are, I resolutely sang this lullaby<\/a> to each of them until they were too old to want lullabies.\u00a0 But I did so always in the hope that all shall be well, and even joyful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone with The Martyrs Project\u00a0contacted me to ask if I would post about them. \u00a0Their icon looks like the one for the Blair Witch Project, crafted to convey: IMPORTANT, ANCIENT, and SCARY. \u00a0\u201cWHAT WOULD YOU DIE FOR,\u201d the opening screen from the Martyr Project states. \u00a0(There is no question mark, so it doesn\u2019t actually ask.) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,101],"tags":[104,111,112,107,109,105,106,108,110,102,103],"class_list":["post-1217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-theology-2","tag-calvin","tag-evolutionary-psychology","tag-jared-diamond","tag-john-swinton","tag-karen-kilby","tag-kathy-keller","tag-national-prayer-breakfast","tag-ruth","tag-sociobiology","tag-suffering","tag-theodicy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7EotM-jD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1243,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions\/1243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.profligategrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}