Posts tagged gestures and postures

One of the pleasures of being away for two weeks is coming back to several issues of the Economist to read at once. (Yes, I am a geek.) In the issue of 7 August is this remarkable article about the decline of Russia's "intelligentsia." Even by the Economist's high standards it is an unusually penetrating study of cultural change, and a reminder that "soft power" is often more effective than brute force—in this case, effective in restraining criticism of the state. And while the situation in the United States could not be more different in some respects, I still find these closing paragraphs worth pondering: a warning for any movement that seeks to be, in Tim Keller's phrase, "a counterculture for the common good."

re: elites, gestures and postures, power, russia

Andy:

The sense of success and inclusion is harder to resist than the wrath of the state. Carrots are more corrupting than sticks. This phenomenon is powerfully described in Vasily Grossman’s novel “Life and Fate” (1960). One of its central characters is Viktor, a talented physicist who stoically defends his science in the face of likely arrest, but becomes weak and submissive when Stalin calls him to wish him success. “Viktor had found the strength to renounce life itself—but now he seemed unable to refuse candies and cookies.” . . .

Russia today is much freer than it was for most of the Soviet era. However undemocratic it may be, it is not a totalitarian state. The room for honest speaking is far greater than Russian intellectuals make use of. As Marietta Chudakova, a historian of Russian literature and courageous public figure, puts it, “Nobody has been commanded to lie down—and everyone is already on the ground.” The media is suffocated by self-censorship more than by the Kremlin’s pressure. Nikolai Svanidze, a Russian journalist who works for a state TV channel, admits: “There is no person who tells [me] what you can and what you can’t do. It is in the air. If you know what is permitted and what is not, you’re in the right place. If you don’t, you are not.”

Today is the feast day of the third-century bishop Hippolytus in the Anglican calendar. His work The Apostolic Tradition, probably written in 215, is one of our earliest guides to worship in the early church. It also contains this fascinating section on what occupations were considered out of bounds by those seeking Christian baptism—in the vocabulary of Culture Making, which cultural goods deserved the gesture of condemnation. If we disagree with Hippolytus (for example, about actors and soldiers), why do we disagree? Also notable, of course, is simply the fact that such lists were compiled, giving some indication of how wide a variety of people were seeking to convert to Christianity in the second and third centuries.

re: condemnation, early church, gestures and postures, pentecost and beyond

Andy:

They will inquire concerning the works and occupations of those are who are brought forward for instruction. If someone is a pimp who supports prostitutes, he shall cease or shall be rejected. If someone is a sculptor or a painter, let them be taught not to make idols. Either let them cease or let them be rejected. If someone is an actor or does shows in the theater, either he shall cease or he shall be rejected. If someone teaches children (worldly knowledge), it is good that he cease. But if he has no (other) trade, let him be permitted. A charioteer, likewise, or one who takes part in the games, or one who goes to the games, he shall cease or he shall be rejected. If someone is a gladiator, or one who teaches those among the gladiators how to fight, or a hunter who is in the wild beast shows in the arena, or a public official who is concerned with gladiator shows, either he shall cease, or he shall be rejected. If someone is a priest of idols, or an attendant of idols, he shall cease or he shall be rejected. A military man in authority must not execute men. If he is ordered, he must not carry it out. Nor must he take military oath. If he refuses, he shall be rejected. If someone is a military governor, or the ruler of a city who wears the purple, he shall cease or he shall be rejected. The catechumen or faithful who wants to become a soldier is to be rejected, for he has despised God. The prostitute, the wanton man, the one who castrates himself, or one who does that which may not be mentioned, are to be rejected, for they are impure. A magus shall not even be brought forward for consideration. An enchanter, or astrologer, or diviner, or interpreter of dreams, or a charlatan, or one who makes amulets, either they shall cease or they shall be rejected. If someone’s concubine is a slave, as long as she has raised her children and has clung only to him, let her hear. Otherwise, she shall be rejected. The man who has a concubine must cease and take a wife according to the law. If he will not, he shall be rejected.

There is a real danger that Christians' enthusiasm for God's work in human cultures will lead to simply baptizing whatever the culture is doing. Rarely has this been seen so clearly as in this communiqué from the Lutheran World Federation in 1975. As Sanneh describes it, "The communiqué insisted that the time had passed when Christianity could raise questions for China, pointing out that these questions were already settled for Chinese Christians who had long ago reached the conclusion that Christianity was, at best, irrelevant and, at worst, inimical to China's interests." Thirty years later, of course, we would never be so uncritical about culture. Of course not.

re: asia, china, copying, gestures and postures, lamin sanneh, mission

Andy:

“Love your neighbour to the point of denying yourself” is the ethical core of the Gospel. “Fight selfishness; serve the people” is the ethical core of Mao Tse-Tung Thought. “By their fruits you shall know them” is the decisive criterion of the Gospel. Marxism has sworn by the same test of “fruits” or “practice,” and in the case of China at least has both preached and practiced “continuing revolution” in its name. . . .

The social and political transformations brought about in China through the application of the Thought of Mao Tse-Tung have unified and consolidated a quarter of the world population into a form of society and life-style at once pointing to some of the basic characteristics of the kingdom of God. . . .

Christians . . . have to free themselves from the parochial Western context in which many of their Churches have developed and realize that the Gospel might be more powerfully expressed and fulfilled in the new type of society which is promoted in China.

All cultural commentary that purports to find deep meaning in popular culture needs to begin with the null hypothesis: the possibility that what we are watching is in the end mere entertainment, or worse. Brant Hansen makes a succinct case for dispensing with critique and going straight to condemnation of the movie du jour. My gut tells me he's right.

re: condemnation, gestures and postures, movies, pop culture

Andy:

At one level, this movie is a bunch of violent, purposeless noise.

But there is a second deeper level.  At that level, “The Dark Knight” is a discourse on the nature of evil.

And then . . . there is a third, still deeper, final level. 

At that final level, this movie is a bunch of violent, purposeless noise. . . .

“The Dark Knight” is cultural rigor mortis.  It’s what happens when we are done, and we are done.  Jacques Barzun had it right, when he wrote a history of western culture up through the 1990s, and said, certainly, that our age is defined by boredom.  We are excited by nothing, really, but maybe for a moment here, or a moment there, we can try to be turned on.  Sex can do it (or fake sex, much more likely) but brutal violence can work, too, if for a short time.