Curtis A. Bronzan

From the BBC:

Anne Rice has quit. After garnering attention a few years back for becoming a Christian, this week she posted this on her Facebook page:

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to ‘belong’ to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else. As I said below, I quit being a Christian. I’m out. In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of …Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

In an interesting response, the Huffington Post thinks this makes her more Christian than ever.

Hat tip: nevermindthebricolage

I’m thankful for videos like this one, from Above the Influence by the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. Though I doubt it needs to be said, any attempt at keeping teenagers from trying any kind of drugs is a good thing – and should be supported wholeheartedly.

That said, I fear this ad might actually communicate that by choosing not to “get twisted”, one can expect to be rewarded in some way. I realize this may seem like a kind of backwards, psychoanalytic, deconstructed, Peter Rollins/Slavoj Žižek-like “reading” – but notice how the commercial is shot from the perspective of the man at the counter, instead of the perspective of the students at the table, concluding with the man giving them a free meal.

Again, without seeming to be pessimistic, wouldn’t a truer account be one where the students who choose not to use drugs end up paying for their friends who skip out on the bill? And then, we would be faced with the reality that the true reward isn’t the free meal, it’s not doing drugs.

I’m all for generosity, and encouraging those who don’t “get twisted” in any possible way, but fear that if they “just say no” in hopes of a reward, they’ll miss the reward of being healthy and drug-free. Notice also, right before the man says “we’re straight”, there are straws on the counter that are straight! Coincidence? I think not!

Muse’s most recent album is, like their previous work, rather brilliant. Today I was struck again by the lyrics of Guiding Light, which seem to so clearly describe the dissolution of metaphysical thought:

Pure hearts stumble in my hands they crumble
and fragile and stripped to the core I can’t hurt you anymore
Loved by numbers you losing life’s wonder
and touch like strangers detached I can feel you anymore

And sunshine trapped in our hearts it could rise again
but I’m lost and crushed
I’m cold and confused with no guiding light left inside
You were my guiding light

And come from and won’t come be found I still reach for you
but I’m lost and I’m crushed
I’m cold and confused but no guiding light left in sight

You’re my guiding light you’re my guiding light
There is no guiding light left inside there’s no guiding light in us

And yet, there’s hope. Notice: “sunshine trapped in our hearts… it could rise again” and “still I reach for you.” Further, could the concluding stanza be an explication of man’s depravity?

The Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic?, by Slavoj Žižek, John Milbank, and Creston Davis must have sold well. The three are teaming up again with Paul’s New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology. Amazon’s description asserts:

The rediscovery of the Apostle Paul by atheistic or agnostic European philosophers is one of the most striking developments in recent philosophy – and certainly one of keen interest to the church. These philosophers view Paul as having a revolutionary understanding of authority and politics. Bringing together Radical Orthodox theologian John Milbank, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, and Creston Davis, who has been a student of both, this book reflects on Paul’s new moment in secular philosophy. In a debate format, Žižek brings Marxist and post-Marxist ideas into a discussion with Milbank about the influence of Paul. The book also includes a contribution from Catherine Pickstock.

I’ve engaged a bit of this “rediscovery” in Alain Badiou’s Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, which may be engaged by Milbank in chapter 8 of Paul’s New Moment, entitled “Thinking Backwards, Again! Badiou and the Death of Philosophy.” I look forward to possibly reading this one, though Žižek and Milbank’s sparring previously proved a bit tiresome. Adam Kotsko, author of Žižek and Theology has written of Žižek (and then Milbank) some thoughts I’m tempted agree with:

What I do find important is that very bizarre thing that seems to have happened in Christ and in his wake. People who help me, directly or indirectly, to think about that wierd (sic) happening in new or more rigorous ways inspire gratitude in me. People who do not inspire boredom and frustration in me – or in the case of Milbank, both. I think that’s probably a more helpful way of divvying things up, if we must so divvy.

Notice also Baker’s description, which is searching for a different audience, it seems:

Are there moments in Christian history when non-Christians in some ways understand Christianity better than Christians? The church fathers and mothers often did especially acute theology because they could remember well what it meant to inhabit non-Christian philosophies and religions. The Hindu Ghandi saw and acted on something in Christ’s witness that many confessing Christians overlooked. Today, some leading secular thinkers have turned to a surprising source: the Apostle Paul. The rediscovery of Paul by atheistic or agnostic European philosophers is one of the most striking developments in recent philosophy – and certainly one of keen interest to the church.

Bringing together Radical Orthodox theologian John Milbank, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, and Creston Davis, who has been a student of both, this book reflects on Paul’s new moment in secular philosophy. In a debate format, Zizek brings Marxist and post-Marxist ideas into a discussion with Milbank about the influence of Paul. The book also includes a contribution from Catherine Pickstock.

Paul’s New Moment will be of interest to theologians, philosophers, cultural critics, and literary scholars.

While looking for pictures of Vattimo for an upcoming post, I ran across this realy cool sculpture, entitled Failed Dawn, here.

I clicked onto the Fuller website tonight for I don’t know what. I guess I have a tendency to surf aimlessly at times. But this time it paid off!

I came across this article (from which I also stole the above image) about Dr. John Goldingay, who is continuing the “For Everyone” series started by N.T. Wright, which are short, accessible commentaries on the Scriptures. I – and others I get to work with – utilize Mark for Everyone for our current study at the community I serve, and are always astounded how simple, and yet, profound he can make passages.

Wright covered the Christian Scriptures, the locus of his scholarship, while Goldingay will be writing similar commentaries for the Hebrew Scriptures. Two paperback volumes examining Genesis have already been released.

It’s a joy for me to see him pictured in the t-shirt he was wearing during my first class of my seminary education. Like other professors I’ve had, he exudes the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, that all are equal. And he treats his students as such.

And he loves rock and roll. In fact, his musical tastes are rather brilliant. When I joined other students at his house to watch and discuss a film (back in 2003), we talked about a recent Nada Surf show he’d seen a few nights prior!

So, if you’re ever in the market for any books on the Hebrew Scriptures, look for the ones written by John Goldingay. He doesn’t require any for his classes – only the Bible!

For the church newsletter:

On March 21^st, at 11:12pm – a mere five hours after the conclusion of my ordination service – I updated my Facebook status. It read, “Curtis A. Bronzan is not now, nor will he ever be, a reverend. ‘Curtis’ is just fine.” Amidst the myriad responses was a friend from my seminary days who wrote, “hmm…not just a river in Egypt?”

In one sense, I suppose, he’s right. I now am a Reverend. Which is fantastic. Serving the Church of Jesus Christ is all I’ve ever dreamt of doing with my life. But, in another sense – as many of you know – I bristle at the thought of being “Pastor.” Notice Jesus’ strong words for the religious leaders of His day:

The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law. You won’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be careful about following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it. They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior. It’s all spit-and-polish veneer.

Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure in watching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting a finger to help. Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next. They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions, preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’

Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates. Don’t set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No one else should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, and he’s in heaven. And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them – Christ. (Matthew 23.2-10, The Message)

In “Jesus’ day” – as we might say in Sunday School – the religious folks put themselves up on pedestals because of their knowledge, prestige, and power – and they didn’t live how they taught others to live. I fear that things haven’t changed all that much in 2000 years. And as I recognize the sinfulness of my own heart, I fear that being called Reverend might just go to my head and keep me from trying to, as Paul says, “work out my salvation with fear and trembling.” (Philippians 2.12) Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful to have received a profoundly transformative education and am honored to serve at Good Shepherd, amongst some of the most wonderful people God ever created. But I never want my office to become who I am. Instead, I want to follow the one true “Life-Leader” for you and me – Christ.

That brings me to a second reason I’m uncomfortable with my new title: in short, where’s yours!? The Christian Scriptures repeatedly affirm that the Church of Jesus is a Body where everyone has a part, and I fear that seeing pastors “up there on a pedestal” negatively influences the inherent worth of the other parts of the Body. One of the foundational doctrines of our faith is the priesthood of all believers, which reminds us that each and every one of us is a priest in Jesus’ Church. In sports terminology, everyone gets to play! Or, better yet, in the Apostle Paul’s words,

Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be?” (1^st Corinthians 12.14-19)

In short, if I’m “Reverend Curtis,” then among us are also “Teacher Joanne” and “Pray-er Michelle” and “Administrator Jack.” Yes, administration is a spiritual gift! (see 1^st Corinthians 12.27-31)

Another Facebook response that night asserted that my wife’s grandmother would be proud. It went on to explain “She thinks it’s ‘irreverent’ to call any person, but Christ, Reverend.” In short, I’m with her. But, I suppose you can call me anything you like – as long as it’s not late for dinner. But know this: if you call me “Reverend” or “Pastor,” be prepared for me to grimace – and then call you by your spiritual gift as well.