 |
| Ascension Hall, home of Kenyon's Defense Against the Dark Arts department |
Total Mileage: 807
Song of the Day: “Send Me on My Way” (Rusted Root)
Book of the Day
- The Great Divorce (C.S. Lewis)
Can You Go Home Again?
Okay, I’m at my alma mater, Kenyon College, crashing with Jeremy Abrams, David Spaudling, and Joe Valentine-White, who have very graciously opened their apartment to me (especially since it’s their finals week). Right when I got to Kenyon, the main thing that occurred to me was, “Whoa, where is everyone I went to college with? Who are all these young whippersnappers?” Yes, it seems that, in the time since I graduated in 2009, half of the people I was in school with have left for the professional world or another level of the academy, and the remaining half are mostly people I didn’t know that closely . . . well, that and the students for whom I was an RA. Yep, as I was walking around campus today, I did encounter a handful of people who greeted me with, “Papa Tom! What are you doing here?!” Yeah, I think I was a good RA. Reasonably well-liked. Used my powers responsibly. Had a cool nickname. Made hell for my bosses. Yeah, I think I can be pleased with that job performance. Today’s sea of unfamiliar faces (especially young unfamiliar faces) has been kind of intimidating, but seeing the people I knew well has made it all worth it. Sure, it’s still a little awkward walking around this campus as a 23-year-old grad student with few remaining connections here, but it’s also been a fun trip down memory lane so far.
Thanks to the campus’s recently-implemented swipe-card system, I can’t go visit the old hall where I was an RA, but I have seen plenty of my old freshmen, and they’re all excited for graduation (which made me feel like a fossil by comparison). The dining hall format has changed up slightly, but it’s largely the same fare and the same dish system, and I’m stoked to have free food for a few days. The post office and chapel and village market and restaurants all feel very much the same. The bookstore has changed slightly, but since it was in a state of constant flux while I was a student here, even that felt the same. I will admit that I am not a fan of the new art building. One of the things that made Kenyon so magical was the fact that stepping onto this campus felt like taking a detour into Hogwarts, but a recent crop of more modern-looking buildings have compromised that sensation in recent years, and the new art building (which is directly visible from Middle Path, the mile-long gravel path that serves as the campus’s main artery) might very well be the worst offender. Sure, I was a little peeved when our Great Hall received a very out-of-place, space-aged addition to it, but at least that wasn’t visible from Middle Path, so the campus’s picturesque quality was preserved. Not so much with the new art building-- it’s right there for everyone to see. Then again, people are starving in the world, so should I really give a damn that my school wouldn’t shill out for all the mined stone it would’ve taken to build another Gothic masterpiece? I digress: the place has changed, and yet, it has stayed paradoxically the same.
Walking around here, I feel simultaneously out of place and right at home. I’m realizing just how sheltered I was while I was here: never had to deal with beggars or feeling threatened in a dark alley or any of the things that the world loves to throw our way in larger cities. I barely even locked my room at Kenyon since the threat of theft was so low. I was insulated. Protected. Cradled in the Kenyon Bubble. Totally at peace in a tiny community isolated in a cornfield in Ohio.
Or was I really?
Yeah, the Kenyon Bubble was a great place to hide for a while, but it was here that I first started to learn about the social and economic injustices that would prompt me to seek answers in the study of religion. It was here that I would be reintroduced into Christian community after three years of rejecting that label and trying desperately to call myself something else that might be perceived as more “open-minded.” It was here that I would find support for the pursuit of my calling to divinity school when law would have been infinitely more practical. Of course, all of that is a very long story, and maybe as I continue to walk around here and reminisce, I’ll tell some of it, but not tonight. Instead, I want to meditate on something else that’s been on my mind lately . . .
Barbed Theology
After my conversation with the UMBC students on Sunday, there’s a new phrase that I want to introduce into Christian jargon: barbed theology.
Now, I have not read much Shane Claiborne, so most of this is coming somewhat secondhand. Take the things I say here with a grain of salt because they have been influenced by the opinions of others (who are both for and against Shane’s message). I did skim through Irresistible Revolution really quickly for the Poverty Seminar back during my sophomore year at Kenyon, and I took notes on the ensuing discussion, but that was the extent of my interaction with his book. I didn’t really retain any of it besides learning a bit about what Simple Way was and getting the bare basics of new monasticism (a term which I even forgot up until this year when I relearned it just in time to see Shane speak). Keep in mind, as a sophomore in college, the ministry wasn’t exactly Plan A for me, and my main involvement with the Poverty Seminar was on the technological end of things as a presentation designer. I was just sort of along for the ride and hadn’t really expected to learn so much about Mohammad Yunis and Peter Maurin and a lot of the thinkers I now treasure.
I like Shane Claiborne. I like what he has to say. I feel like I've learned a lot from him. My main experience with Shane Claiborne actually took place when he visited Duke earlier this year; I got to hear him speak on two occasions in the same 24-hour period, and I really enjoyed both talks, finding his choices in words insightful and provocative. In particular, I liked what he said about how we often isolate ourselves from the rest of the world and create our own little hells, and he accompanied this with the sound-bite: “Hell is a gated community.” He also talked about what a marvel it was for Jesus to take on human form by saying, “The Incarnation is the ultimate example of someone moving into a bad neighborhood.” Needless to say, I ate all this up. If you’ve read my New Song analysis, then you know that I’m a sucker for this kind of talk and very much want to pursue this line of thinking as far as it will take me. Yes, relocation! Move into bad neighborhoods! That’s where the Holy Spirit really works! Flee the suburbs! Reconnect with the inner city! Improve people’s quality of life! Bring an ethic of life all the way from the womb to the tomb! Reexamine every church budget! Abandon the big buildings! Bring the Church to the people! Yes! Yes! Yes!
And then I heard one of the UMBC students tell me something I hadn’t expected: “I had been doing all that. I had been working in the inner city, and then I had to move back out to the suburbs to be with my parents, and how do you think Shane Claiborne’s rhetoric in Irresistible Revolution made me feel then? I felt like I was being attacked in his book because I came back to honor my parents’ wishes. I couldn’t finish reading it.” Whoa. She had a point. It’s tough because Jesus presents such an uncompromising message in the gospels, telling a would-be follower not to bother burying his deceased relatives and telling a young ruler to sell everything he owns, give the money away, and follow. I feel like Shane is pushing for this sort of radical discipleship in a lot of the quotes we hear, but is everyone really called to this? I think Shane would say no (mainly because Erin is way more informed on this subject than I am, and she says he would say no). Based on what I’ve seen, I think Shane would talk more about relationships and getting to know people no matter where you live. I think he would talk about trying to use your resources to better the world around you. In fact, when asked if it’s a sin to be rich in an interview, Shane quoted Rick Warren: “It’s not always a sin to get rich . . . it’s a sin to die rich,” meaning that the real sin is not so much having resources as it is hording them. Maybe it’s not so much about voluntary poverty as it is about using your gifts to the maximum benefit of your neighbors. Still, I can see how Shane’s rhetoric at the meetings I attended would be jarring if you were not called to something like the Simple Way, and I’ve taken a lot of comfort in some wise words from my friend Emily: “Kids in the suburbs need Jesus, too.” That being said, what’s going on with Shane’s rhetoric that would provoke a reaction like the one I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph?
You know, I don’t really know a whole lot about Shane or Simple Way or New Monasticism, but what I do know a surprising amount about --partially because I’m so freakin’ terrified of them-- are bees:
A bee’s stinger has a hook-shaped barb on its tip. Because of this, when a bee stings you, the stinger catches in your skin, bringing with it the venom-secreting glands within the bee’s abdomen. When the bee stings you, it detaches both the stinger and the gland from its body, a process which costs the bee its life after a few minutes in this state. A bee’s stinger cannot simply be pulled out; it must be scraped away using a flat object --such as a credit card or knife blade-- in order to prevent the glands from excreting the maximum amount of venomous irritant into the sting. A straight stinger (like a wasp’s) causes a lot of pain, but a barbed stinger must be treated gingerly and removed carefully, and it will still leave a nasty welt no matter how well you pull it out.
I wonder sometimes if, in an age where people speak in sound-bites rather than sentences, our doctrine is now spread this way. I wonder if there is a pressure on theologians and other Christian commentators to produce little slogans that sting into people and cause irritation when you try to remove them. Take a provocative expression like “Hell is a gated community.” Sure, Shane was trying to make a point about how unhealthy it is to try and insulate ourselves from human suffering, and he was calling on a slightly tongue-in-cheek reading of Luke 16 to do so, but for someone who actually does live in a gated community, Shane may have put a barb in their skin, and it’s going to irritate, and it’s going to be hard to get rid of.
I’m still not sure whether barbed theology is a good thing or a bad thing. It’s certainly better than “sledgehammer theology,” but it’s getting late here, so I’ll have to define that one later. I guess, ultimately, barbed theology is like any other tool in an evangelist’s arsenal: something to be used responsibly and charitably. Was Shane’s use of barbed theology appropriate? I haven’t read the Irresistible Revolution, so I’m not going to say. In general though, I suppose it depends on the audience. I’m a bit of a theological masochist myself, so bring on the sound-bites. I love 'em. I love wracking my brain over a difficult and challenging quote and trying to discern the kernel of meaning within the shocking husk. Still, this may not be the best way to spread Christ's message in the current American political climate. With all the potential controversies that could arise from our theological conflicts in the modern Church, I think we should watch out words and beware falling into the trap of the sound-bite. We should use our barbs carefully and sparingly, because while they may irritate some people in all the right places, they can also leave some scars for others.
Peace and Blessings,
Tom
P.S.-- A few of my nights on the road will involve sleeping in a tent, and a certain special someone has expressed concern that I need to have a knife with me in case of bear attacks. I think I found something a little more effective against bears in Jon and Alyssa's apartment this morning, but since it was a souvenir of theirs from Toledo (Spain, not Ohio), I couldn't take it with me. Worry not though; I will find a way to ward off any furry assailants. Thankfully, bears don't seem to be a problem at Kenyon. We've got deer and groundhogs, but not bears.
Also, I think there would just be too much humor in my expressing hesitation about "barbed theology" and then going out and buying a bladed weapon.
Now, if I were using it on bees, that would be a different story.
I hate bees.
Also rats, but mostly bees.
I hate rats and bees.
I hate rats and bees.
No comments:
Post a Comment