Early Morning Ramblings

I think I suffer from some weird form of insomnia (but then, what other kind would I have?). I have no trouble getting to sleep, but I awaken at an ungodly hour (like 4:00AM) and then cannot fall back to sleep. So this morning, I found myself sipping coffee at 4:30, listening to Christmas carols and writing...

 

** In the past week or so a travesty of justice has been committed. And I won’t be speaking here of war, disease, genocide or poverty. I have expounded on those global realities of evil often enough in these blog entries. No, this is not a universal injustice. It is, some might judge, a trivial one but I am compelled to speak of it. Bob Dylan’s Modern Times has not been nominated for a Grammy Award in the categories of Album of the Year, Record of the Year, or Song of the Year. He has been nominated for three Grammys in less prestigious categories; Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album (Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album??), Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance (well, make up your minds. Is it folk or is it rock?), and Best Rock Song (Someday Baby, which is actually my personal favorite from the album…why do we still call them “albums?”).

 

Regarding the nomination for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance I would snub my nose at those who make no secret of telling me that they think Bob Dylan “can’t sing.” Screw you.

 

By way of protest this week I have been playing Modern Times at Starbucks during every shift I have worked and I have sported my Bob Dylan denim jacket. I mentioned the gross insult which has been hurled at the best damn album of the year to a colleague this week at which point he  said, “Hasn’t Bob Dylan had enough recognition?”  Huh?  What’s THAT got to do with anything?  When did Muhammad Ali get enough? When did Bach get enough? Hasn't Albert Einstein received his due? Shouldn’t each achievement be judged on its own merit? Shoot, if “enough recognition” is the criteria for no more recognition than maybe we need to stop talking about how great Jesus was.

 

OK…Ok… I’m finished now. Who cares about the Grammys anyway? I just don’t like it when Bob is underappreciated.

 

** Final exams have been graded. Final grades have been submitted to the Registrar’s Office and I am now officially on “Christmas” vacation. And yet, I cannot stop thinking about something a student wrote in a paper. My Intro to World Religions classes had a choice of four topics on which to write their final paper. One of the topics was to “choose a religious tradition we have studied this semester and write a paper that describes how that tradition addresses the ‘human condition.’  Consider the following questions in your essay:                                                              

* What does the tradition assume concerning the self, human nature, and human freedom, e.g., about the  human capacity to know truth or the “good” and to do it?  What problems do you see with these assumptions?

* How are the tradition’s concepts of deity or ultimate reality reflected in the ultimate resolution, i.e., its account of salvation or enlightenment? What IS the solution according to the tradition?

* How does the tradition describe the human condition and what does it present as the fundamental, or root cause?”

 

One of the students chose Christianity. In the body of his paper, he wrote this sentence, “However, to be good is not the point of Christianity.” In the margin I wrote, “How unfortunate.”

 

I should know better by now, but it was a stunning remark. I marveled at how a person could be raised a Christian (which he admitted) and walk away from 20 years of Christian education without a sense that Christianity entails ethical teachings and obligations. Perhaps it is because I was raised a Catholic and it was made abundantly clear to me even as a child, that central to the commitment of being a Christian are the mandates to love, to be charitable, to be virtuous, generous, self-sacrificing and concerned enough about the suffering of others to extend a hand to alleviate it.

 

So, what did he say was “the point of Christianity?” Why, salvation of course. But of course! Set your sights on the prize of the afterlife and to hell with the world down here. Who cares as  long as I am  saved?

 

And by what means is one saved?

 

Good ole’ Martin Luther… He won his place in history when he nailed his 95 theses to the door of Wittenberg chapel in the 16th century and thus launched the Protestant  Reformation. With all due humility (ok, maybe not so much), I charge that he made a grave error when he asserted that salvation is achieved through faith alone. “Justification by faith, not works.” Under this system (evidently) all one need do is declare, “I believe” and eternal salvation is won. So, why give a flying #@*! about anything or anyone else, except for those one would tend to love anyway as a result of being human and of having a family and friends?

 

This is the kind of Christianity that views Jesus of Nazareth primarily in terms of the spiritual salvation he brought to humanity rather than the ethical model for living he exemplified. The focus is on his death, not his life. The imperative is to declare the ascending Jesus rather than the earthly Jesus who sought justice. Liberation theology (all of them) has its roots in the work of the Jesuit priests who lived with the poor in Latin America. They asserted a theology "from the bottom up," i.e., God leans on the side of the poor rather than the triumphant. The liberation theologians thought that theology is useless if it isn't on the ground. And theology as a project is empty if it doesn't lead to justice.

 

In Hinduism and Buddhism one must work towards one’s liberation from Samsara, or for one’s Enlightenment. Imagine  how Buddhist practice would change if all one need do to attain nirvana is to accept the Buddha into one’s heart and declare him an Enlightened Being. I suspect the Noble Eightfold Path would quickly fall into disuse.

 

OK, admittedly I have oversimplified the analysis. And yet, that student’s remark was indeed astonishing to me and perhaps poignantly representative of the underlying theological and (non) ethical imperative of American Christianity today.

 

** one more thing to tell. A friend and I went for a pizza the other night. On the wall of the little pizzeria is a reproduction of DaVinci's The Last Supper. My friend asked, "Why are the disciples all facing the same way?" I said, "Because the TV is on the opposite wall."