It certainly took me a long time, but I finally finished reading Jeffrey Stout’s political, theological, and philosophical tome, Democracy and Tradition. In the work, Stout sets out to defend a pragmatic approach to building a democratic society that takes seriously each citizen’s right to reach decisions via whatever means or commitments they deem important as well as all citizens’ responsibility to offer reasons to others for their conclusions. Democracy happens in the confluence of peoples’ beliefs and reason-giving. For Stout, democratic pragmatism is not merely a label that best describes how we interact with people who hold different ideals and beliefs than us, but it is a tradition in and of itself that deserves thought, defense, and promotion. America is in danger, he warns us, if the citizens of the United States do not take seriously the fact that we are all in this thing called democracy together. Stout, a self-labeled atheist, shows great appreciation for religions and religious people and articulately defends their right to use religious reasoning to shape their beliefs and ethics. (I reflected on some of the book earlier here.)

Stout critically engages liberal secularists like John Rawls on the one hand and the New Traditionalists within Christianity like Stanley Hauerwas and Alistair MacIntyre on the other as holding positions that do not help democracy. Though his two main interlocutors see each other as opposites, Stout points out that they actually share very similar views of what democracy actually is. His main argument against the liberal secularists is that we cannot guard the public square with rigid demands of what counts as reasonable data for democratic decision-making. The social contract theory of Rawls does not accurately describe how democracy has functioned, nor does it offer a hopeful vision for a pluralistic society in that it seeks to keep religious reasoning either out of the discussion altogether, or to be seen as weaker evidence. For those who say religion should not be involved in democratic reasoning, Stout not only says that ideal is unrealistic given the passion people have for their religions—how does one cast aside their deepest commitments that shape their ethics and values?—but he also says it is inherently undemocratic to do so. American democracy has benefited largely from religious reasoning—he cites the abolitionist sermons of the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, and Martin Luther King’s speeches and sermons as high points in both religious and democratic thinking in America.

As seen above, Stout agrees with many of the New Traditionalists’ critiques of the social contract theory. He thinks, however, that the New Traditionalists have bought the line that this theory encapsulates modernity, pluaralism, secularism, and democracy. The New Traditionalists see democracy as a child of modernity that emphasized the individual over and often against community. They do not see how this system can engender virtues or community and thus it can hardly be described as a tradition in a classical sense. By its nature, democracy leads us towards an atomized society, they argue. They wonder if it is in their tradition’s (i.e., Christianity’s) best interest to continue to participate in democracy given the negative affects that system has had on their community (i.e., the Church). Stout pushes back against the New Traditionalists by saying democracy, which for better or worse, is our society’s system of organization, is not made better when groups of its citizens, whether they are Christians or Black Nationalists, decide to remove themselves from it. Nor are those other traditions improved by interacting only with others in their enclave. Again, he cites the religious reasoning of Lincoln, King, and the abolitionists to show religion’s positive impact on democratic thinking.

A while back Carey and I saw an episode of the PBS show Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason. In it Moyers interviewed novelist Salman Rushdie and it was one of the most interesting exchanges I had seen in a long time. Rushdie, an avowed atheist who strongly defends the freedom of speech offers several challenging ideas. As a religious person, I found Rushdie’s opinions surprising and hopeful. I recommend the interview highly, especially for those interested in the role of faith in the public sphere. I don’t necessarily agree with Rushdie on all points, but he is engaging on nearly every topic. You can watch the interview here. I watched other interviews online and also recommend the interview with Sir John Houghton, a well-respected scientist who discusses how he sees his Christian faith and scientific pursuits as compatible. That interview can be seen here. The interviews are about an hour each and I think show why we benefit from public television since I can’t think of another television venue where such conversations would be given the depth and time they find here.

As the images of of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 have been replayed in recent days, it’s tempting to make superlative statements. I find myself having thoughts containing the words, “worst” or “most evil.” Then I think of the terrors of the previous century including the perfection of genocide on several continents by various agents of evil and perspective comes. It is not that the superlatives are not accurate, it is that they are not necessary. I don’t feel the need to quantify the evil we witnessed on September 11, 2001. I only feel the need to point at the images of collapsing skyscrapers, the burning Pentagon, the remains of United flight 93 in the field in Pennsylvania, the heroic fire fighters and police officers dying to save victims of a senseless attack, or the crowds fleeing the debris in the streets, and say, “This is evil.”

And also, when I see the pictures from that day and the following weeks of the heroic rescue workers running up the stairs of a doomed building, or the thousands of people sacrificing time and energy searching for survivors in the wreckage and later staying committed to finding the remains of those lost, I can point to the images and say, “This is courage, this is love, and this is good.”

September 11, 2001 and its memory are for me paradoxes. Such tragedy and such goodness. The pain of the tragedy is only briefly assuaged by the memory of the goodness that followed. The memory of the goodness is tainted with the horror of the tragedy.

I have gone on too long. I’d rather someone more eloquent speak. To that end, I leave it to Bruce Springsteen, whose album The Rising is a powerful elegy for the dead as well as a clarion call to hope for the living. I leave you with two songs, “The Rising,” and, “Into the Fire.” Please take time to read the lyrics to both songs as I believe they will stay with you for a long time.

“The Rising,” by Bruce Springsteen (2002)

Can’t see nothin’ in front of me
Can’t see nothin’ coming up behind
I make my way through this darkness
I can’t feel nothing but this chain that binds me
Lost track of how far I’ve gone
How far I’ve gone, how high I’ve climbed
On my back’s a sixty pound stone
On my shoulder a half mile line

Come on up for the rising
Com on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

Left the house this morning
Bells ringing filled the air
Wearin’ the cross of my calling
On wheels of fire I come rollin’ down here

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

Spirits above and behind me
Faces gone, black eyes burnin’ bright
May their precious blood forever bind me
Lord as I stand before your fiery light

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

I see you Mary in the garden
In the garden of a thousand sighs
There’s holy pictures of our children
Dancin’ in a sky filled with light
May I feel your arms around me
May I feel your blood mix with mine
A dream of life comes to me
Like a catfish dancin’ on the end of the line

Sky of blackness and sorrow ( a dream of life)
Sky of love, sky of tears (a dream of life)
Sky of glory and sadness ( a dream of life)
Sky of mercy, sky of fear ( a dream of life)
Sky of memory and shadow ( a dream of life)
Your burnin’ wind fills my arms tonight
Sky of longing and emptiness (a dream of life)
Sky of fullness, sky of blessed life ( a dream of life)

Come on up for the rising
Come on up, lay your hands in mine
Come on up for the rising
Come on up for the rising tonight

Li,li, li,li,li,li, li,li,li

Disclaimer: This is not a post about Plato and his cave or the contemporary versions of that allegory found in C. S. Lewis’ works or The Matrix trilogy, so relax. Nor is this about MTV’s long-running reality series.

Having spent the majority of my life in school—I finished the 19th grade in December – I have heard the common refrain that I would soon find out what it would be like in the “real world.” I also heard a lot of talk about the real world when I worked at a Christian summer camp. The real world, as I understood the term, was the one where had the responsibilities of families, bills, etc. In the real world, people are faced with concrete challenges. There is a sense that the real world is where most of the people spend most of their time.

The term the real world has always struck me as odd and condescending. First it is odd for no one has told me the boundaries of the real world. For example, the academy is not the real world presumably because it is a place of theory and research that is not ruled by the capitalistic theories that determine much of our society. That, and fewer people go to college or teach in college than work outside the university. But just because few people work in a setting doesn’t mean that their experience is not as important as others’ work. For example, relatively few people work in investment banking and yet we consider the realm of finance the real world whereas the realm of academics is not.

Second, I find the term condescending because it belittles peoples’ experience. What is it that we experience in our lives that isn’t real? Now everything I experienced in school or camp may not be applicable in the vineyards in Selma, California, but at the same time, not all the skills one gains harvesting raisins is applicable in the classroom. One realm is not categorically more real than the other. The danger as I see it is when we universalize our experience and assume that it is the totality of reality for everyone. My experience and knowledge is reality for me, but when I universalize my experience and deem it exclusively real, I run the risk of invalidating other experiences because they do not fit into my understanding of what is real. I’m not arguing for relativizing ethoses, but describing the fact that there is a plurality of experience.

For us living in the West, how can we say we live in the real world when our wealth is far beyond what the majority of the world experiences (see the Global Rich List to calculate your wealth relative to the rest of the world)? Does the fact that we experience a level of comfort foreign to the majority of the people on the globe mean our experience is less real? Perhaps, but I prefer not to speak about the “real world.” Instead, I prefer the term found in the film Fight Club: “Who you were in Fight Club was not who you were in the rest of the world.” (Emphasis added.)

Way deep in the catacombs of comments to my post on being in relationship as essential to being a person, Micah made the brief and important statement, “Fortunately, I can’t think of a single real-life difference either of our positions would make.” This is an important statement in that if our views—whether mine or my dissenter’s—do not affect the way we live, it likely isn’t worth the time and effort to either hold that position or to argue for it. I don’t mean to belittle the long discussion we had and I especially don’t want to belittle the position Timbo argued for as he was my main challenger in the discussion. This post is not intended to continue that debate, but to respond to Micah’s claim through a personal narrative. Of course, one should always be wary when reading a post that opens with a disclaimer, especially a disclaimer this long.

I came to my view of communion as necessary for personhood rather late in the game, as it were. As I said in the post I mentioned, the view as articulated by John Zizioulas that relationship is essential to personhood came to me through my studies in systematic theology during my time in seminary. It immediately resonated with me and like so many things that resonate with me, the view did not so much show me something altogether new, but put into words what I had been thinking and experiencing for quite some time. Zizioulas may have put matters in terms I would have never considered prior since philosophy and systematic theology have never been the disciplines I naturally gravitate toward.

On The A-Team Blog, Timbo and I have had an ongoing conversation about gender and whether it is a cultural creation or if it is something deeper.

Timbo asked me this question:

I don’t think gender is inherently relational (though I do think that gender is inherently potentially relational). My thought-experiment was not intended to imply Adam, but was an attempt to look at the concept of gender without interference from anything non-essential to it. If there had only ever been one male, would he be gendered?

I would like to respond here on my blog.

Here is where Timbo and I are going to split as I do see being in relationship as essential to being a person and I will explain this point below. I’m comfortable saying that gender as an aspect of being human is relational. The question about someone being gendered apart from relationship is a hypothetical one that I cannot see happening. (That last sentence may come off as being dismissive of Timbo’s question, but please know that certainly is not my intention.) I suppose I have been influenced by what I understand of John Zizioulas’ theology that holds that communion is not an addition to being, but an ontological category in and of itself. Zizioulas has built off the Cappodocian fathers. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen summarizes Zizioulas’ theology in An Introduction to Ecclesiology (2002):

There is no true being without communion; nothing exists as an “individual” in itself. Communion is an ontological category; even God exists in communion….

Being in communion does not, however, mean downplaying the distinctive personhood of each individual. “The person cannot exist without communion; but every form of communion which denies or suppresses the person is inadmissable. (93-94)

My point in quoting the above is this: if personhood and being means being in communion (with God and with others), those aspects of our identities such as gender would be rooted in our being in communion and thus be relational categories. Just as Zizioulas would know of no person not in some form of communion, I know of no male or female not in relationship with others. Now I don’t know if Zizioulas would take the turn I have with regard to gender; I am merely using him as my starting point.

That is a long response as to why my understanding of personhood and gender cannot adequately answer the question Timbo posed above. Not only has the idea of an individual person existing completely in isolation never been an historical reality, it is in my understanding an impossibility philosophically since I hold that being a person means being in community. Community is not interference to the person, but the essence of being human. All aspects of being human will be grounded in the notion of being in communion. I may have taken us down another rabbit-trail with this post, but I hope it clarifies my position on how I view persons.

The following quotation comes from Miroslav Volf’s discussion about the relationship between justice and embrace in Exclusion and Embrace (1996). The quote is long, but I find it to be full of some of Volf’s most profound statements. This section challenges our notions of justice through solid biblical exegesis and theological reflection.

“There can be no justice without the will to embrace,” I remarked earilier. My point was simple: to agree on justice you need to make space in yourself for the perspective of the other, and in order to make space, you need to want to embrace the other. If you insist that others do not belong to you and you to them, that their perspective should not muddle yours, you will have your justice and they will have theirs; your justices will clash and there will be no justice between you. The knowledge of justice depends on the will to embrace. The relationship between justice and embrace goes deeper, however. Embrace is part and parcel of the very definition of justice. I am not talking about soft mercy and tampering harsh justice, but about love shaping the very content of justice.

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During the past few months I found myself in several discussions regarding the use of rights language and responsibility language. Most of these discussions involved someone arguing that we should move beyond rights language to responsibility language. Rights imply something inherent to an individual or group (e.g., the individual’s right to liberty and a nation’s right to govern itself within its borders). Responsibilities also refer to individuals and groups, but in our common use of the term, it is a person’s role that determines his or her responsibilities. Parents are responsible for their children’s upbringing. Police are responsible for maintaining the safety of the general population of a city. We do not tend to think of people being born with unalienable responsibilities.

The news that truly shocks, is the empty, empty page.—Peter Gabriel, “I Grieve”

At the hospital, the reality of death regularly confronts me. Either I come to the actual death of a patient or I speak with people contemplating their own mortality in the face of chronic or terminal illness. Experienced from my relative distance, death is a confounding thing—I am confused like those suffering who ask the tremendous questions of meaning.

On my first week visiting patients, I was called to a code with a staff chaplain. We raced to the patient’s operating room and sat with the wife of the patient whose heart had just stopped. During the emergency procedures, the wife had a social worker call her adult daughter who showed up just a few minutes prior to her father’s eventual death. There in the waiting room, the paradox of death confronted me. In that moment with the newly widowed woman and her daughter, I sensed that we stood on sacred ground. I believe that the Holy Spirit was present with us in the fold of grief and shock. Yet earlier this year I reflected on my niece’s premature death, and I proclaimed, “Death is a truly evil thing.” How could this be sacred ground when death, that evil and vile enemy brought us together in the first place?

In the space created by the small community of hospital workers trying to support the bereaved, the patient’s daughter looked horrified and the widow seemed calm, but her gaze was distant. Was it the separation, the lack of personal connection with their loved one that allowed me to think that there is something sacred in experiencing death? Certainly neither the widow nor the daughter would say that death was sacred at that moment—as far as I could tell they were in the midst of experiencing the unique evil that only demise can bring.

How can death be both beautiful and vile? Perhaps it is nothing about the nature of death itself that is beautiful, but the fact that God chooses to be present in death that creates a sacred space. It was a holy place because the Trinity was there with us, mourning with us. The comforting ache of the Holy Spirit did not offset or trump the frightening ache of death’s presence, but they remained there in the room together. The peace of God created a tension in the face of death’s violence. And while I believe that Jesus has triumphed over death (1 Cor 15.26), I also believe we will not know that victory in its fullness until the eschaton.

Carey and I returned home from vacation today, and I am about to begin my final quarter at Fuller Theological Seminary. Though we were only gone twelve days, it seems more like years since we had so many deep and transitional experiences during that time. We stayed with good friends in Sacramento, ate wonderful food both there and in Davis, and were able to finally congratulate an old roommate on his recent engagement. We camped and backpacked in the South Lake Tahoe region, laughing with friends as we played games of Bang and Fluxx, and sitting in awe over God’s creation as the Moon rose above the eastern side of the lake. On the trails in the backcountry towards Meiss Country, we witnessed a terrific lightning storm and came across two bearded mountain men who made me wonder if the Valar had sent the Istari back to Earth to guide the affairs of humanity again. (For those who don’t understand that last clause, it means I wondered if the gods of Middle-earth had sent the wizards back here—one of the hikers so closely resembled Ian McKellen’s Gandalf that I did a double take.) From Tahoe we traveled to the weekend-long wedding celebration of dear friends Monica and Simon. Finally, before returning to Alhambra, we went to see my family in Clovis and Sanger to bury the youngest and unborn Watson, whose stillbirth occurred while we were in Tahoe.

For the past few days since learning of my niece’s death I have been in a state of juxtaposed emotions. The contrast between the extreme joy of witnessing two friends become one in Christian marriage and the terrifying grief felt from the loss of Emily Elizabeth Watson has disquieted me so much to the core, that I find it difficult to form cogent thoughts during my days. I smile at the memory of my wife standing with other bridesmaids supporting a newly married husband and wife as the priest said the words of institution of the Eucharist and I crumble into tears as I recall the tiny white casket covered with a brilliant bouquet sitting on the platform in the cemetery this morning. My prayers bounce between thankfulness and blessing on the one hand, and lament and indictment on the other.

I have made it a conscious decision to refer to my niece by name. Emily is not “the baby” or any such thing. She was a wonderful and beautiful person who sadly died before I was ever able to know her. My sister-in-law Natalie went into the ob/gyn on Monday for a regular appointment and the doctor was unable to find a heartbeat. He performed a C-section and Natalie and my brother Josh lost their daughter seven months into the pregnancy. In an almost unbelievable twist, the same doctor performed a C-section on Natalie’s sister for the birth of her own son, John, that same day. The funeral was scheduled for today and Carey and I drove into town yesterday. We spent Sunday night talking with our family at a depth I have never experienced. I was on the verge of tears and cried several times as I listened to my brother—a wonderful father to his two-year-old son, Joshua—elaborate on his experiences of the past week, which I will not describe for respect of our confidentiality. As an uncle my grief has brought me to a place of gargantuan devastation; one can only imagine what Emily’s parents must be experiencing.

My own thoughts on grief and mourning have been manifold. I realized that I have room in my head for understanding murder and other forms of human evil since they are the actions of choice, but it is the unknown and seemingly random deaths like Emily’s that truly shock my faith. I have thought of three options for Emily’s death: 1. God caused it, 2. God allowed it but could have stopped it, 3. God could do nothing to stop it. I believe that option 2 is reality, but it brings little comfort to me. What little comfort I do have comes from the fact that God allows me to complain to him and ask questions of him.

I have also decided that the question, “How are you doing?” is perhaps the single most useless thing one can ask a mourning person. How are they to respond to this? Good? What does good mean? What does bad mean? Value judgments on one’s mental and emotional states are pointless in such times. If one is “doing bad” that carries the notion that something can be done to make him or her better. What remedy can you bring to such a person? Can you bring back the deceased? If grieving is a long process that according to researchers takes anywhere between 18 months and 5 years and includes denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—and these stages are likely repeated several times over different intervals—how can one take personal inventory in the first few days? Denial is natural. Anger is natural. There is in a sense, no good or bad way to grieve. The only thing I can say is perhaps good is for the mourner to be attentive to what he or she is feeling at any given moment. Right now I feel a slew of emotions, anguish, terror, and sorrow being chief among them. These are debilitating emotions—I have had to stop writing several times during this post to wipe my tears—but I will not trade them for anything. I want to feel the pain of Emily’s loss and not because I am a masochist, but because I want to acknowledge the reality that Emily, my niece whom I loved very much, has quit this world.

After we initially heard about Emily’s death I was saddened that I had no real physical memory of her other than seeing her create a bulge in her mommy’s belly. When we learned that there would be an opportunity to view Emily, I was grateful and we went this morning prior to the funeral. She is a tiny, beautiful little girl who looks so much like her brother, whom I consider to be the cutest nephew this world has ever seen. I didn’t know what to expect when I saw her, and I don’t know quite what to make of the experience yet, but I am grateful to have at least some interaction with my niece. My wife and I were able to be alone with Emily for a few minutes and she looked asleep. As we touched her and spoke to her, I was actually afraid we might wake her from her slumber. Her skin was the thin, wrinkly, and fragile epidermis of an infant. Her fingers were long and elegant. Her shut eyes had the expression of so many newborns who seem constantly exhausted their first few days out of the womb. But it was her frigid skin that consistently reminded me that my dear, beloved niece Emily was no longer living.

I realized as I looked at her in her casket that Emily never saw daylight, the mountains, or a Giant Sequoia. She will never have the opportunity to play with her bigger brother. I was so looking forward to seeing my father, her grandfather, melt in her presence—she would have had him wrapped around her little finger from day one. She never met her wonderful grandmother, who would have spoiled her to no end. Emily won’t have her hair done by her mother on her first day of school. She won’t know the joy of playing with her splendid father. Emily will never meet Super Moose, the creation of Carey’s imagination using a moose puppet and Superman cape from my childhood.

Joshua, my nephew, was a saving grace for me the past two days. He reminded me of the power of life and his joyfulness is something to behold. My father has commented that Joshua’s smile and laughter is worth millions of dollars and he is correct. Joshua grounded me as we played with his cars and trucks and as he acted like Buzz Lightyear, shooting me with his mock laser beam and shouting as clearly as he could in his jumbled toddler speak, “To infinity and beyond!” He doesn’t understand what has happened, but he has some sense that something isn’t right. Today at the graveside service he behaved himself well and smiled at his family, but also wanted a tissue of his own so he could join in with all the adults wiping their eyes and noses.

What horror must a parent endure to decide on the gravestone for an unborn child? Death is a truly evil thing, the product of sin and I am eternally grateful that I worship the conqueror of death. My Savior died and rose again. He lives. He is taking care of my niece. He knows my anguish. I feel little comfort, but I choose to latch onto this truth.