Curtis A. Bronzan

Rob Bell’s latest NOOMA offering, Whirlwind, enters into an interesting conversation centered on the ancient story of Job. In it, Bell quotes at length from the earliest of books in the Hebrew Scriptures, which has played a central role in recent works by Slavoj Žižek and David Bazan (previously addressed here).

Bazan concludes his latest album:

When Job asked you a question
You answered “Who are you?”
That sounds a bit defensive
Did you just bite off more than you could chew?

And Žižek wonders if Job stayed quiet

neither because he was crushed by God’s overwhelming presence, nor because he wanted thereby to indicate his continuous resistance – the fact that God avoided answering his question – but because, in a gesture of silent solidarity, he percieved the divine impotence… What Job suddenly understood was that it was not him, but God himself who was in effect on trial in Job’s calamities, and he failed the test miserably. (The Monstrosity of Christ, 55-56)

After noting such quotations, the assertion that Bell enters into this conversation, as aforementioned, could be rightly questioned. It is by no mere chance, however, that all three thinkers are drawn back in to the same old story that has influenced all three monotheistic world faiths.

This is, of course, because this oldest of all biblical narratives addresses one of the most pressing questions of humanity: Why do we suffer? And what can be done about it? And after a century that was to end all suffering (and even “Christianize the world”), our capitalism, democracy and in some cases, even our faiths (other than capitalism and democracy!?), have led to increased suffering and systemic violence.

And so, we question like – and with – Job.

Žižek and Bazan (who was great at Detroit last night) are wont to conclude that God is impotent to stop it. Bell, on the other hand, concludes

We want answers, don’t we? We want explanations. We want to know why we suffer like we do. Could somebody please explain this? And there are times when the only honest, healthy, human thing to possibly do is to shout your question and shake your fist and rage against the heavens and demand an explanation. But true wisdom, the kind we find here with Job, the kind that endures, the kind that sustains a person through suffering – that kind of wisdom knows when to speak and when to be silent. Because your story is not over. The last word has not been spoken. And there may be way more going on here than any of us realize.

And then he invites:

So may you be released from always having to understand why everything happens the way that it does. May this freedom open you up to all sorts of new perspectives. And may you have the wisdom to know when to say “I spoke once, but now, I will say no more.”

Synecdoche, New York was written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, who also wrote and produced Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation, and Being John Malkovich, each of which examines the meaning of life in a rather existential fashion. In some ways, his films function like postmodern reappropriations of Albert Camus or Jean-Paul Sartre novels (or filmed David Bazan’s records):

I will be dying and so will you, and so will everyone here. That’s what I want to explore. We’re all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we’re going to die, each of us secretly believing we won’t.

Synecdoche, however – Kaufman’s directorial debut – functions as much more than a surrealist/existentialist musing on the meaning of life, and could be seen as an extended metaphor based upon the Apostle Paul’s metaphor for the church and the importance of narrative – metanarrative even. This emphasis upon Story may be paralled by Donald Miller’s new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life, especially considering the role of Robert McKee in the work of Kaufman and Miller.

Throughout Synecdoche, Caden Cotard (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) struggles to come to grips with his mortality, and all that entails, as seen in the aforementioned quote. His character is based upon Cotard’s syndrome, which is a nihilistic, neuropsychiatric disorder wherein a person holds the delusional belief that they are dead, do not exist, or have lost their blood or internal organs. In one scene, another character is seen reading Proust’s novel Search of Lost Time which features the charater Dr. Cottard, said to be based upon Proust’s father.

After directing Death of a Salesman, Cotard is awarded a MacArthur grant which allows him to build another body, in a sense, even as his own body fails him. After purchasing a huge dilapidated warehouse, Cotard begins recreating Schenectady, New York with a synecdoche (where a part is used to designate the whole). The recreation of Schenectady, however, begins to overlap with “real” life – and the viewer can become quite confused, at times, knowing which is which.

The actors, then, reenact their own lives, as themselves, based upon the events which take place inside the synecdoche of Schenectady. Caden is “God” inside the synecdoche, handing each actor their part to play, for each day. In hopes of opening the play (after around 40 years of rehearsals), he states

I know how to do it now. There are nearly thirteen million people in the world. None of those people is an extra. They’re all the leads of their own stories. They have to be given their due.

Near the film’s conclusion, a priest in “Schenectady” muses on the meaning of life whilst officiating a funeral (which almost perfectly parallels Pedro the Lion’s song Priests and Paramedics):

Everything is more complicated than you think. You only see a tenth of what is true. There are a million little strings attached to every choice you make; you can destroy your life every time you choose. But maybe you won’t know for twenty years. And you may never ever trace it to its source. And you only get one chance to play it out. Just try and figure out your own divorce. And they say there is no fate, but there is: it’s what you create. And even though the world goes on for eons and eons, you are only here for a fraction of a fraction of a second. Most of your time is spent being dead or not yet born. But while alive, you wait in vain, wasting years, for a phone call or a letter or a look from someone or something to make it all right. And it never comes or it seems to but it doesn’t really. And so you spend your time in vague regret or vaguer hope that something good will come along. Something to make you feel connected, something to make you feel whole, something to make you feel loved. And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so [very] sad, and the truth is I’ve felt so [very] hurt for so [very] long and for just as long I’ve been pretending I’m OK, just to get along, just for, I don’t know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, [forget] everybody. Amen.

These lines recall some of Žižek’s thoughts, of course, about how the train never arrives, though I’m thinking also of his explanation that for the Christian believer the Event has already taken place. And, in light of Paul’s concept of the Body of Christ (written to the Corinthians, no less!), the Event has taken place but also continues to take place through the community of those seeking to follow Jesus, seeking to live faithfully in spite of the bodies and Body that can fail us, knowing ultimately that the Head of the Body – the Author of the Story – never will.

A while back Peter Rollins and Paraclete Press ran a competition of parable writing to mark the release of Rollins’ The Orthodox Heretic and Other Impossible Tales. The winner was announced last week via Rollins’ blog, and is none other than Kester Brewin, author of Signs of Emergence (The Complex Christ in the UK).

The parable is a sort of Žižekian parody of the well known Christian poem depicting life as a journey wherein God walks alongside us on the beach. When life was difficult, the author of the poem asks his Maker why during the difficult times of life God left him to walk alone. The response is, of course, that the one set of footprints seen in the sand was when God was carrying the author. Brewin’s reworking of the poem depicts, instead, the man carrying God:

The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when you carried me.

Alongside Rollins’ book title, this theological perspective is certainly heretical. As such, however, it reminds me of a number of things, including when ska band The Mighty Mighty Bosstones once defended themselves against riding the bandwagon, instead asserting that they had been carrying the bandwagon. Or, from a more theological perspective, Tom Waits’ song Road to Peace, which concludes:

And if God is great and God is good why can’t he change the hearts of men?
Well maybe God himself is lost and needs help
Maybe God himself he needs all of our help
Maybe God himself is lost and needs help
He’s out upon the road to peace

Or take John Caputo, who questions at the outset of The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event

Has not the name of God from time out of mind been associated with unlimited power so that “God Almighty” is practically a redundant expression? That I would never deny. I am not saying that power has not been a defining feature of theology right from the start; theology has been strong theology and religion has been strong religion, in love with strength, right from the gate. But I am suggesting that theology is a house divided against itself and that it lacks self-understanding to the point that it is intellectually bipolar, vacillating wildly between the heights of power and the depths of weakness. (The Weakness of God, 7-8)

There is no doubt an interesting conversation going on here between Waits, Brewin, Rollins, Žižek and Caputo (among countless others, including – I think – David Bazan). I certainly struggle with some of the ideas presented – especially when they limit the power of God – though I continue to affirm the centrality that we must start with Genesis 1, recognizing that all of humanity is called to co-creation and co-mission, to work together in remaking the world to what it was originally meant to be.

And, I will affirm the central message of the Last Judgment, that in caring for the created order we ultimately show devotion to the Creator:

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

Which is what Brewin may have been getting at all along.

I’ve been reminded not once, not twice, but thrice now, of some thoughts I’d hoped to express which got started with this previous post.

The first was an e-mail conversation with a great friend from my college days with whom I’d discussed David Bazan’s theological perspective. The second was ungrounding myself from Bazan’s recent release, Curse Your Branches. The third was overseeing John Caputo’s simple statement “Blessed are the weak!” in his The Weakness of God: A Theology of the Event, which I had grabbed off the shelf to compose this, namely his

Curse Your Branches‘ second track “Bless This Mess,” opens like this:

God bless the man who stumbles
God bless the man who falls
God bless the man who yields to temptation
God bless the woman who suffers
God bless the woman who weeps
God bless the children trying her patience

Later, Bazan sings

God bless the house divided
God bless the weeds in the wheat
God bless the lamp lit under a bushel
God bless the man at the crossroads
God bless the woman who still can’t sleep
God bless the history that doesn’t repeat

The prayer that God would bless many of these things seems pretty obvious, especially those stumbling, suffering or weeping, though such prayers fly in the face of many well-meaning religious platitudes. All too often, the faithful can become quite comfortable praying for blessing over things which are already blessed.

Take a stomach-filling dinner, for example, when how many around the world are going hungry? Or bumper stickers which ask for God’s blessing upon a particular, rather prosperous and powerful nation.

But where we in the religious community can miss the point, Jesus corrects us:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5.3-12)

In Jesus’ economy, then, it seems as if those who lack are the ones who can truly recognize blessing – and the Blesser.

One of the better parts about roadtrips is the opportunity to listen to the full length of records, as opposed to a song here and there when driving around town. En route from Visalia to Los Alamitos we listened to the 18 track entirety of the CD companion to Daniel Lanois’ Here Is What Is DVD.

The fifth track, “Beauty,” features a conversation between Daniel and producer Brian Eno, which, despite it’s lackluster visual setting on the DVD (especially compared to other scenes), always plays in my mind’s eye, when listening to the audio release. I’ve had the pleasure of incorporating it as well as another scene into gatherings at church. It closely resembles one of Jesus’ parables, which I doubt is a coincidence, even considering Eno’s assertion “I’m an anti-romantic, which is part of being an atheist” (which, considering other statements he makes, may ultimately need be questioned, under rather obvious philosophical terms):

Daniel: I’m trying to make a film that’s beautiful in itself, about beauty, about the source of the art, rather than everything that surrounds the art and I was hoping you might say a couple of words about that subject matter, because you’ve always operated in a relatively quiet way, and yet, you’re like a world artist.

Brian: Well, I tell you, one thing I would say about your film is that what would be really interesting for people to see is how beautiful things grow out of [crap]. Because nobody ever believes that. You know everybody thinks that Beethoven had his string quartets completely in his head, that it somehow appeared there and formed in his head, and all he had to do was write them down, and they would kind of be manifest to the world. But I think what’s so interesting and what would really be a lesson that everybody should learn is that things come out of nothing. Things evolve out of nothing. You know? The tiniest seed in the right situation turns into the most beautiful forest, and then, the most promising seed in the wrong situation turns into nothing. And I think this would be important for people to understand because it gives people confidence in their own lives to know that that’s how things work. If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted, that they have these wonderful things in their head, but you’re not one of them, you’re just sort of a “normal” person, that you could never do anything like that, then you live a different kind of life, you know? You could have another kind of life where you can say, “Well, I know that things come from nothing very much and start from unpromising beginnings, and I’m an unpromising beginning and I could start something.”

Bazan may be on to some of the same ideas in “Weeds in the Wheat,” but that’s another post for another day.

I finally sat down to watch Bill Maher’s documentary Religulous the other day.

IMDb reports that Maher and friends used the working title ‘A Spiritual Journey’ and did not include his name when booking interviews with persons of faith. This presents a sort of undercurrent of the film, with Maher questioning why no one would want to talk to him. Even in light of their aforementioned “precautions,” I join Maher in this question, and personally, would welcome any and all of his questions.

Many of those with whom Maher discusses matters of religious faith have a hard time engaging with him however, and often even react as if they are being personally attacked. Unsurprisingly, his questions – and statements – are entirely indebted to a modernist epistemology.

He questions, for instance, the historical reality of the “talking snake” in the Garden of Eden (alongside recent songs by Cursive and David Bazan). Since – by his reasoning – there was no talking snake, Maher concludes that the whole idea of religious faith must be a fraud, instead of actually engaging thoughtfully with some thoughtful people. In doing so, Maher is really setting up a sort of fundamentalist paper tiger, which is easily tackled (though that might not be the best way to treat real tigers, no matter how strong your faith – or it’s denominational background).

He’s an equal opportunity offender, however, which won him few friends – and many enemies no doubt – through the filming. In fact, hardline atheists are probably upset with his shoulder-shrugging agnosticism, though not nearly as much as the folks in Florida’s Holy Land Experience theme park. The closest – and possibly only – friends he does make in the film are a couple Catholic priests, who discuss theology with Maher after he’s thrown out of St. Peter’s.

I thought of a couple previous posts (this one and this one), when Maher asserts

Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don’t have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it’s wonderful when someone says, ‘I’m willing Lord, I’ll do whatever you want me to do.’ Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions and limitations and agendas.

Though I’m sure it would upset some of my friends something awful if I were to list the things Maher says that I actually agree with – especially if I were to try going down the rabbit trail of thinking through how some doubt can be a good thing, which I’ll just leave to Peter Rollins and John Caputo – I will include his final closing thought (with some minor editing) for comment.

The irony of religion is that because of its power to divert man to destructive courses, the world could actually come to an end. The plain fact is, religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge having in key decisions made by religious people. By irrationalists, by those who would steer the ship of state not by a compass, but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken. George Bush prayed a lot about Iraq, but he didn’t learn a lot about it. Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It’s nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith, and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction… And anyone who tells you they know, they just know what happens when you die, I promise you, you don’t. How can I be so sure? Because I don’t know, and you do not possess mental powers that I do not. The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt. Doubt is humble, and that’s what man needs to be, considering that human history is just a litany of getting [stuff] dead wrong. This is why rational people, anti-religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves. And those who consider themselves only moderately religious really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you comes at a horrible price. If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you’d resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler, a mafia wife, for the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travelers. If the world does come to an end here, or wherever, or if it limps into the future, decimated by the effects of religion-inspired nuclear terrorism, let’s remember what the real problem was. We learned how to precipitate mass death before we got past the neurological disorder of wishing for it. That’s it. Grow up or die.

Maher is obviously following up on a recent trend (of say, the past few thousand years) of looking at religion for all it’s evils and wrongs. And there are many.

Yet there are a few (people, that is) in the world for whom faith actually drives them toward an all embracing love, and away from “bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence and sheer ignorance.” I’m convinced such all embracing love is the faith one is called to when one is called by the One, which has been revealed in and through the person of Jesus. And the (I’ll quote again) “bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence and sheer ignorance” that persists in His name may be a religion vaguely justified about Jesus, but it’s not the religion of Jesus.

And that makes all the difference in the world. For while religions continue bring forth death, Jesus continually asserted He brings life.

David Bazan’s forthcoming record, Curse Your Branches, continuously explicates his current theological outlook. Through the years Bazan revealed his personal doubts through the lenses of a cast of characters, in largely existentialist terms. Curse Your Branches, on the other hand, is entirely in the first person, including a track entitled “Bearing Witness.”

I clung to miracles I have not seen
from ancient signatures I cannot read
Though I’ve repented I’m still tempted I admit
but it’s not what bearing witness is
Too full of fear and prophecy to see
the revelation right in front of me
So sick and tired of trying to make the pieces fit
’cause it’s not what bearing witness is
When the gap between what I hoped would be
and what is makes me weep for my kids
I take a cleansing breath and make a positive confession
But is that what bearing witness is?
Though it may alienate your family
and blur the lines of your identity
Let go of what you know and honor what exists
Son, that’s what bearing witness is
Daughter, that’s what bearing witness is

Of all the tracks, it feels one of the most hopeful, both musically and lyrically. Note especially the line “I take a cleansing breath and make a positive confession.” Lines like this, among others, prompted my previous post attempting to short circuit Bazan with Slavoj Žižek. This is due not only due to the theological questions they ask, but also what they affirm, what could be referred to as a “materialist theology.” Thus the admonition, “Let go of what you know and honor what exists.”

While I cannot go as far as Žižek and Bazan, affirming only a materialist theology (thus negating any form of Transcendance), there is, of course, a wholly materialist element to the Kingdom of God, which the church desperately needs to recover – especially in the demise of modernity. May we recognize our “materialist” calling found throughout the Scriptures. As the Son of Man proclaims:

Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

There seems to be, then, at the conclusion of Matthew’s gospel, the command to honor the Invisible in caring for the Material. This is no new concept, but has existed throughout the Hebrew Scriptures with the command to care for “the widow, the orphan and the stranger,” as a response to God’s liberation from the hands of the Egyptians.

David Bazan’s forthcoming Curse Your Branches has been spinning in my car all day; round and round in all it’s brilliance. While Bazan (formerly of Pedro the Lion) has always engaged in the theological, in recent years his perspective has shifted considerably, from evangelical Christian to agnostic, if not atheist.

Though each of Curse Your Branches’ ten songs engage a lofty – and rather modern – theological construct, the final verse of the last song on the record, “The Stitches”, sounds like the Seattle area songwriter has been sitting down with the Slovenian “Elvis of cultural theory.” Curse Your Branches concludes thusly:

When Job asked you a question
You answered “Who are you?”
That sounds a bit defensive
Did you just bite off more than you could chew?

In his recent theological title fight with John Milbank – and in conversation with Vattimo and Caputo’s weak thought – Marxist, militant atheist Slavoj Žižek (the aforentioned “Elvis”) equates Christ’s death with Job’s suffering.

Christ’s death on the Cross thus means we should immediately ditch the notion of God as a transcendent caretaker who guarantees the happy outcome of our acts… (The Monstrosity of Christ, 55)

He goes on:

What, then, if this is what Job percieved and what kept him silent: he remained silent neither because he was crushed by God’s overwhelming presence, nor because he wanted thereby to indicate his continuous resistance – the fact that God avoided answering his question – but because, in a gesture of silent solidarity, he percieved the divine impotence. God is neither just nor unjust, but simply impotent. What Job suddenly understood was that it was not him, but God himself who was in effect on trial in Job’s calamities, and he failed the test miserably. (The Monstrosity of Christ, 55-56)

Žižek concludes this section asserting the “radical notion” that Job even foresaw Christ’s suffering!

How interesting that both Bazan and Žižek engage faith – at least in part – from the perspective of a narrative that predates any other canonical book. Are there deconstructive efforts at work here that end up leaving the rest of the Narrative on the cutting room floor?

Ought Job and Jesus be so closely intertwined? And which should interpret the other? And what of the charge of impotence? Can it be justified if we gather up all that has been cut out?