Eros and Pseudo-Dionysius

I am moved when I read the great Christian theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius.  For him God is the transcendent and overflowing Good which surpasses all intelligibility and form--even surpassing Being-itself.  The Good is the source of all things, gives light to all, and sets all things in motion with erotic (yes, erotic!) yearning for the Good.  I find the lure of Pseudo-Dionysius in this:  rather than seeing the universe as simply ordered by static forms, or as governed by cold rationality and mechanic movement, or as a threatening chaos that has to be mastered (for example, consider the modernity), Pseudo-Dionysius sees the entire universe as fundamentally erotic--propelled and drawn by superabundant desire that overflows to beings and non-beings alike.

Pseudo-Dionysius is adamant that all things in the universe (celestial, human, inanimate and otherwise) are moved by God to desire and all things desire God.  Then, bucking against his Neoplatonic inclinations, the theologian affirms that, in God's excess, God erotically yearns for all things.  Then, he takes yet another step to assert that God is not only the foundation and the object of our desire, but God is desire itself in motion.  We don't have to accept all the Neoplatonic trappings to benefit from this joyous and erotic theology.

"And we may be so bold as to claim also that the Cause of all things loves all things in the superabundance of his goodness, that because of this goodness he makes all things, brings all things to perfection, holds all things together, returns all things.  The divine longing is Good seeking good for the sake of the Good.  That yearning (eros) which creates all the goodness of the world preexisted superabundantly within the Good and did not allow it to remain without issue."

-Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names, Ch. 4.10

"This divine yearning (eros) brings ecstasy so that the lover belongs not to self but to the beloved... And, in truth, it must be said too that the very cause of the universe in the beautiful, good superabundance of his benign yearning for all is also carried outside of himself in the loving care he has for everything.  He is, as it were, beguiled by goodness, by love, and by yearning and is enticed away from his transcendent dwelling place and comes to abide within all things, and he does so by virtue of his supernatural and ecstatic capacity to remain, nevertheless, within himself... In short, both the yearning and the object of that yearning belong to the Beautiful and the Good."

-Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names, Ch. 4.13

"He is yearning on the move, simple, self-moved, self-acting, preexistent in the Good, flowing out from the Good onto all that is and returning once again to the Good."

-Pseudo-Dionysius, Divine Names, Ch. 4.14

"When Gay Men Insult Women"

Originally, I wrote this article for The New Gay and titled it "Misogyny and Gay Rhetoric", but after it received a lot of hits and comments one of the editors passed it along to Jezebel.  They picked it up and re-titled it "When Gay Men Insult Women" (apparently words like "Misogyny" or "Rhetoric" have no place in an article heading).   I thank my boyfriend for his revisions and suggestions.


"Even though our histories are different, women and gay men suffer under similar forces which try to confine gender roles and control sexuality.  However, if we are secure enough in our own identities, we won't need to degrade others in order to find a voice; we won't have to push others aside in order to stand."

Enjoy!

Family Acceptance Project - "Always My Son"

I'm just stopping in to pass along a heart-warming video and article I found on Colorlines.  Enjoy! :)



All Families Can Love Their LGBT Kids—Really, There’s Data to Prove It

Is Zizek right?

Unlike many leftists, I'm not too impressed by Slavoj Zizek, however I enjoyed his article in the Guardian giving explanation for the Occupy movement and words of caution for its participants!  The follow excerpt from the article highlights some of my current struggles and questions:

"In a kind of Hegelian triad, the western left has come full circle: after abandoning the so-called "class struggle essentialism" for the plurality of anti-racist, feminist, and other struggles, capitalism is now clearly re-emerging as the name of the problem."

Can our all of our social ills be reduced to purely economic forces (capitalism) or are social injustices heterogenous (consisting of sexism, racism, heterosexism, and class struggle as just one among the many others)?  Is there a danger in reductionist tendencies?  Can a plurality struggles truly produce a strong resistance to injustices?

Excerpts from Sex and the Single Savior

Dale Martin's book, Sex and the Single Savior is an exciting and brilliant work!  In this book, he surveys many New Testament texts which address [or are used to address questions of] sexuality, gender, and family.  Martin employs amazing arguments and careful research to expose the uncertainty of many New Testament passages.  He is clear that he does not claim that the New Testament advocates or condemns homosexuality, rather he points out the ambiguities of texts and the power ideology has played in controlling our interpretations of them.  Through his many analyses, he emerges with many motifs in the New Testament which contrast contemporary sexism with ancient sexism, critique Western individualism, and challenge modern notions of family.  And, rather than leading us through the nuances and complexities of the text to a place of firm answers, Dale Martin robs us of any recourse to a foundation but (I believe rightly) leaves us dependent upon a Kierkegaardian faith and the grace that makes it possible.  Below are a few excerpts from this work.


"There are many excellent reasons why people in general and Christians in particular should not want to give the state the power to recognize and regulate marriage.  When we give the state the right to legitimize one kind of sexual relationship or social formation, we automatically give it the right to render all other relaiotns illegitimate.  Surely, the church should never cede its own perogatives to the state--especialy a state as bloodstained and beholden to the interests of the powerful as ours is.  But all people should realize this: when you marry, you give power the state over your sexual relations, your person, the most intimate details of your life and body.  To agree to marriage is to agree that the modern, violent, bureaucratic state has the right to control your life in its most intimate realms, public and private, personal and sexual, individual and collective.  Not to put too fine a point on it, marriage cedes your genitals to the government....
...But I believe the church should also get out of the marriage business.  Marriage is an exclusive and exclusionary technology for control.  Modern churches legitimate one kind of social and intimate bonding and therefore declare illegitimate all others.  This relationship is good--in fact, "divine."  All others are bad or at best inferior."

-Dale Martin, Sex and the Single Savior, 122-3

"Bastard children are not created by the absence of marriage, but by marriage itself.  Marriage makes bastards by making the category possible."

-Dale Martin, Sex and the Single Savior, 123

"Our knowlege of Christ is entirely mediated by something that is cultural: language, images, symbols, signs.  Culture necessarily shapes all our experiences and anything we are able to say about Christ whatsoever.  Since all language is cultural, and we can say nothing about Christ without language, everything we say about Christ is culture.  Scripture is not a separate source we have access to apart from cultural experience.  It is part of experience."

-Dale Martin, Sex and the Single Savior, 158

Modernity and the Holocaust by Zygmunt Bauman

Zygmunt Bauman had already grabbed my attention when I read his phenomenal work, Liquid Modernity; now I've picked up one of his more celebrated works, Modernity and the Holocaust.  Bauman's text exhibits profound insight, critical analysis and development, along with amazing accessibility (which helps initiate a broad readership into very complex ideas).  Below are just a few passages from this text:

Regarding bureaucracy and the suppression of moral capacity.

"Dehumanization is inextricably related to the most essential, rationalizing tendency of modern bureaucracy... Once effectively dehumanized, and hence cancelled as potential subjects of moral demands, human objects of bureaucratic task-performance are viewed with ethical indifference..."(Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 103)


And, on survivor's guilt and the indissolubility of  moral responsibility, Bauman writes:

"One story, however, carved itself into my brain deeply and haunted me for many years.  This was a story of a saintly sage who met a beggar on the road while traveling with a donkey loaded with sackfuls of food.  The beggar asked for something to eat.  'Wait,' said the sage, 'I  must first untie the sacks.' Before he finished the unpacking, however, the long hunger took its toll and the beggar died.  Then the sage started his prayer: 'Punish me, o Lord, as I failed to save the life of my fellow man!'...

.... Even if one knows that not much more could have been done practically to save the victims of the Holocaust (at least not without additional, and probably formidable, costs), this does not mean that moral qualms can be put to sleep.  Nor does it mean that a moral person's feeling of shame is unfounded (even if its irrationality in terms of self-preservation can be, indeed, easily proved)."(204)

This is an incredible book and I highly recommend it for anyone of us who are still caught up in the myths of modernity: progress, rationality, objectivity, and the supremacy of science.  He argues that modernity is the necessary condition, though not the determinative factor, for the Holocaust to have taken place.  In fact, the Holocaust is a demonstration of modernity's power, not modernity's failure.  He exposes contemporary racism as a thoroughly modern project (even though there were prejudices and forms of segregation in the past, racism as it is understood today has its roots in the modern project).  The emergence of racism coupled with guided by the principles of progress and the belief of social engineering lead to frightening results.  It was the The modern bureaucratic machine--in its division of labor, suppression of morality capacities, and cost-effecitve rationality--that enabled the Holocaust enlist "normal" citizen into carrying out the final solution.  Again, this book comes with my approval.

Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I'm nothing short of impressed by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  In Cost of Discipleship, he moves through the Sermon on the Mount and other teachings of Christ in the Gospel of Matthew--commenting on their implications for the Christian believer.  At every turn he reminds the reader that the life of discipleship is a costly one which puts the believer in sole reliance upon the Word of God.  The Word alone is the disciple's source of identity and direction which moves the disciple through a hostile world.  And the Word of God is nothing the believer possesses as his own, rather the Word of God both judges the disciple and calls the disciple to obedience.  Bonhoeffer is clear that our pretenses to take refuge in our efforts, in our self-recognition, or virtue are all overturned by the Word which calls us to discipleship, but our security and reward are established in Christ who is "for us" without being ours to own.  "Of course the righteousness of the disciples can never be a personal achievement; it is always a gift, which they received when they were called to follow him." (125)  For Bonhoeffer, discipleship consists of single-minded obedience--undivided and unswearving faithfulness to Jesus in his suffering.


There are a few times when I think Bonhoeffer would make a good Anabaptist, especially in his chapters addressing revenge and love of enemies.  In the former, he reflects on Jesus' command to "Resist not evil" (Matt. 5:38-42).  Here he explicitly opposes the traditional interpretation of this passage offered by Reformers who distinguished between the evil suffered by the person as such and the evil suffered as one who holds a public office.  For the Reformers, the call to "resist not evil" only applies to the evil suffered personally, but it does not apply to instances when one suffers evil while holding an ordained office.  For example, according to the Reformers, Jesus' commandment of nonviolence applies to the individual who is mugged and beaten while strolling through the city, but it does not apply to the judge or the military officer who oppose criminals and foreign enemies with violence.  Bonhoeffer writes:

"The distinction between person and office is wholly alien to the teachings of Jesus.  He says nothing about that.  He addresses his disicples as men who have left allto follow him, teh precept of non-violence applies equally to private life and official duty.  He is the Lord of all life, and demands undivided allegiance." (143).

And, in addition to evoking the sovereignty of Christ over the life of the believer, Bonhoeffer also explains the difficulty found in such a distinction between private life and the public sphere.

"Am I ever acting only as a private person or only in an official capacity?  If I am attacked am I not at once the father of my children, the pastor of my flock, and e.g. a government official?  Am I not bound for that very reason to defend myself against every attack, for reason of responsibility to my office?" (143).

By removing the distinction between the private and the public sphere, by understanding that Jesus' commandment to nonviolence remains no matter the capacity in which the individual acts, Bonhoeffer makes a move in an Anabaptist direction which rejected Luther's claim that Christians must live in the two kingdoms--that of the world and that of the Church.

Moreover, in accordance with themes of the Anabaptist tradition, Bonhoeffer sees the call to love one's enemies, not as an unrealistic command where, by issuing it, our ethical limitations are revealed.  He again refuses to make the distinction between acting in a private vs. public capacity.  Rather, "love is defined in uncompromising terms as the love of our enemies," (146). He also writes, "Christian love draws no distinction between one enemy and another, except that the more bitter our enemy's hatred, the greater his need of love," (148).  While he ultimately refuses to make the leap into the Anabaptst pool, he reads his Lutheran tradition with a lens that refuses to allow Christians to live comfortably in the kingdom of the world, challenges them to nonviolence, and demands full adherence to the teachings of Christ in the total life of the believer.  Our remaining in the world in our worldly capacities is depended on the degree to which our worldly duties and obligations are in alignment/conflict with the call to obedience.

Finally, for Bonhoeffer, discipleship means nothing less than suffering and being joined to Christ's suffering.  For Bonhoeffer, suffering is the result of the self-renunciation demanded by the call upon our lives by the Word.  We suffer as we give up the securities of worldly peace, dignity, self-assertion, or guarantees to life.  However, suffering is not only necessary for embarking upon the life of faith, it is the very mark of discipleship.  Suffering is the Christians' response to evil and suffering is found on the cross as the extraordinary: the place where unconditional love for one's enemies is made present.  He even writes:

 "Discipleship means allegiance to the sufferings of Christ, and it is therefore not at all surprising that Christians should be called upon to suffer.  In fact it is a joy and a token of his grace.  The acts of the early Christian martyrs are full of evidence which shows how Christ transfigures for his own the hour of their mortal agony by granting them the unspeakable assurance of his presence.  In the hour of the cruellest torture they bear for his sake, they are made partakers in the perfect joy and bliss of fellowship with him.  To bear the cross proves to be the only way of triumphing over suffering." (91)

This is his only text I've read so far, but I found a few themes lacking in his discussion of discipleship, particularly the Spirit and the resurrection.  The Spirit gets brief mention during his chapters on ecclesiology, but isn't the power the Spirit central to the life of the individual disciple?  Similarly, what is the role of the resurrection in the life of the disciple?  Eventually, Bonhoeffer mentions explicitly, yet in passing, what is, in fact, essential to the entire discussion of suffering and discipleship:

"But between the death of Christ and the apostolic gospel of the cross there lay the resurrection, which alone gives the cross its redemptive power.  The gospel of Christ crucified is always the gospel of him who was not held by death." (276)

The resurrection must always be present whenever Christians look to the cross, contemplate suffering, and think upon their own call to suffer.  Without it, as Bonhoeffer eventually mentions, the Good News isn't good news at all.