tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58466710561959172872024-03-18T23:00:05.769-04:00Ground MotiveDialogue at the intersection of philosophy, religion and social ethics.admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.comBlogger205125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-86293345842793735202024-03-04T13:48:00.003-05:002024-03-04T13:48:46.107-05:00Listening at Union Station: Unearthing and Assessing Privilege in Our Scholarship and Beyond<div style="text-align: right;"><div>written by Mark Standish<br />edited by Todd Dias</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This post is part of the series <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/philosophy-otherwise-knowledge.html"><i>Philosophy Otherwise</i></a>.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">- - - - -</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">2014 was the first year that I commuted through Union Station. It was a mess. When I stepped out onto the platform, I was like a lab rat trying to find my way down into the subway. The plywood, blocking certain pathways and revealing others, seemed to reconfigure itself every week. Back then, when the concourse sat just off a hurried Bay Street, Union proved no respite from the cold business district to which it sat adjacent. Union’s bathrooms, too, were gray and cold. Tiny aluminum sinks moderated water consumption. I had a complex relationship with those sinks. One summer evening, I found myself with my leg stretched over the counter so my foot could reach into the sink, trying to rinse off the dog poo that I stepped in while, unfortunately, wearing flip-flops (who doesn’t clean up their dog poo on Front Street?). Needless to say, those sinks are meant for washing your hands, not your feet. This is why I always thought it was strange that security patrolled those bathrooms so regularly. I mean, what would a homeless person do with those sinks? Weren’t the sinks themselves deterrent enough?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In those days, Union was a space that seemed to lack time, as if nothing happened within its walls. My trips through, twice daily, produced remarkably few memories. In fact, the dog poo and being handed free Cheese Whiz are the only two specific memories I have. I’ve since realized that that was by design; the experience was supposed to be as unremarkable as possible. I was supposed to go from point A to point B with the least possible obstruction.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Four years later, one of those plywooded areas was unveiled. The York Street Concourse. Just before the opening of the concourse, an elbow found its way into my forehead and sent me back into the all-too-familiar throes of a concussion. After spending a few weeks recovering, I decided to reenter normal life for the start of the winter semester. I emerged onto the platform at Union. Herded down the stairs, I stepped through the doors into the York Concourse. The food court, previously hidden behind caution tape, was open. I knew this immediately. The added LED screens, spectacularly wrapped around pillars, shouting advertisements at me, forced my eyes to the floor.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Then, in the subway station, I looked up to find more screens mounted opposite me. When I got to class, someone showed me a video on their phone, which I politely watched, thinking about the damage I was doing to my brain, growing dizzy and nauseous.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">A few days later, I was driving down King Street in Hamilton. It just so happened that there was a new digital billboard on King and Dundurn. Then, I was driving my girlfriend’s car. Did you know that the instruments on some cars are displayed on LED screens? Of course, you did. I did, too. It just didn’t really mean anything to me.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">At times in Union, or on the Gardiner, or in my friend’s living room, I felt overwhelmed. I felt like a person in a snowstorm, shielding my face from the elements. These moments of bombardment acted like synecdoche. They were minor aspects of the world that reminded me that the world at large wasn’t made for people with concussions.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In a sense, the recent history of Union Station says more about me than it does about Union. Union went from a place quintessentially free of obstacles to one littered with them. But Union hadn’t changed—not substantively, anyway. The truth is that there were screens enough to bombard me before the new concourse. Did I consider that those screens might be hurting people? Not once. Not until they were hurting me.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Did I consider the security guards patrolling the bathroom? Not really—not more than as a curiosity. But I’d imagine a homeless person would’ve considered them. I’d imagine a Black person would’ve considered them, too. (Or, indeed, anyone discriminated against by racial profiling.) </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Did I consider the difficulty that the plywood blockades would pose for someone who uses a wheelchair? Nope.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">People without certain privileges cannot simply pass through Union without a second thought. Union <i>forces</i> them to consider it. And yet, Union is designed to be left unconsidered—if it’s memorable, something is wrong. That’s why I didn’t have any memories of it. Though, once I felt that alienation—that sense that this place was not for me—I had to ask: Who was it made for? Has it always been like this, and I’ve just never noticed?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">This is one way I’ve come to understand my privilege: I have the privilege not to consider.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I don’t have to consider the police when they walk past me. I don’t have to consider my sexuality or gender when I walk into a church. I don’t have to consider which bathroom to enter. I don’t have to consider the hulking man walking toward me on the street. Just like I didn’t have to consider the LED screens in Union before.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So, what does this mean for me? How should I respond to this newfound realization of my privilege (which stems, ironically, from the loss of some of my privilege)? There are a few options.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">After realizing that I’ve lost some privilege, I could forgo considering my privilege in other areas. However, this option is naïve to the reality that privilege, like oppression, is intersectional; in some aspects of our lives, we have more privilege, and in others, we have less.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Or, I could pretend that I haven’t lost any privilege and force myself to continue inconsiderately. I could try to live as before without considering my new limitations. This option obviously perpetuates privilege and only works to delay the inevitable realization being thrust upon me as I face the consequences of neglecting my cognitive health.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Another option is to look inward; I could feel guilty about the privilege I’ve had my entire life. But guilt, in my experience, is debilitating. Being consumed with my own experience of privilege distracts me from actually considering others and the ways they’re typically not considered.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In the few years I’ve spent trying to reckon with my privilege, I’ve tried to avoid all three of these responses. This is why I’m telling my story. It’s not meant to highlight my own lack of privilege—I still have plenty to spare! It’s meant to highlight that in losing some of my privilege, I realized, in a small way, how much privilege I had and continue to have.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">But it wasn’t just a mindset. My mindset reflected my world because our world was made for people like me. Our way of being–the way of being for the privileged–has annexed almost everything. This is exactly what colonialism was/is; colonialism makes the world into a home for one group. Given that the world was my home, I felt comfortable, which shielded me from seeing the conditions of my comfort.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">My experience at Union disrupted the comfort I used to feel. That discomfort called me to respond. But I felt the three responses I outlined earlier were wrong-headed. Instead, I decided I needed to begin by changing my hermeneutic. My experience at Union prompted me to revisit how I consider the world. Unfortunately, privilege is ingrained in me and our culture. Because it’s ingrained in both me and our culture, I can’t always see it. It just seems natural.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Because privilege often feels so natural to me, I need to undertake some kind of practice to disrupt it. For this reason, I’ve been trying to teach myself to listen. But listening is really hard. It’s not just being in the presence of someone else talking. Listening takes work. As best as I can, it requires me to enter into someone else’s world and imagine being otherwise. And, as I’ve started to realize, when someone lets you into their world, their world can haunt you. For this reason, listening doesn’t stop when the person stops talking. In listening, it’s as if you carry their words and those words begin to illuminate your world differently. In this way, listening can reveal structures in your world that you couldn’t see before. Listening, then, is more than just lending an ear. Instead, when I listen, I submit my very way of seeing the world to the other person. In so doing, I submit myself to the call inherent to their experience. Thus, listening is not distinct from action. I would venture to say that you haven’t really listened if listening doesn’t call you to some form of action.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Further action might begin with more listening. Perhaps I’m called to seek out another text about how my world developed in relation to the other person’s—how the structures that subjugate that person are a part of my history. But it’s not enough for me to know and acknowledge the history of, for example, Residential Schools and my faith tradition’s complicity in them. I still haven’t listened to the call that those experiences demand of me. The call is to submit to the other’s perspective. This means relinquishing control over the world and the structures that uphold my security and the other’s precarity.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">As scholars, the work of listening must extend into our scholarly life. Being privileged means that the solutions I propose concerning the world’s problems are prone to being <i>my</i> solutions to <i>my</i> world. If unchecked, privileged scholarship that doesn’t <i> </i> easily perpetuates this insidious colonial impulse: to assume the world is ours (that is, for those of us with privilege) for the taking/making. Scholarly listening involves choices about who to read, what to write on, and how to write on it. It involves recognizing that my perspective and world are incomplete and that I should cede some of my airtime in classrooms, publications, conferences, and conversations. Conversely, I must recognize that another’s perspective might be complete in ways mine is incomplete. Therefore, scholarly listening involves submitting your world to colleagues, students, and scholars with whom you wouldn’t naturally engage.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Recently, I’ve been working on a very simple way to submit myself to others; I’ve been trying to combat my impulse to speak first. And when someone else speaks, I try to submit myself to them instead of formulating what I’m going to say next. That’s just one small response. But, small responses can snowball. Listening to your colleagues or students might cause you to see more deficits in your perspective, which in turn might call you to listen more. I hope that as I learn to listen first, I will begin to make listening my way of life. In this way, listening provides direction to my long pursuit of unearthing and appraising the privilege that cuts through myself and our world. </span></div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><i><span style="color: #0b5394;">Mark Standish is a PhD candidate at ICS. </span></i><span style="color: #0b5394;"><i>He is interested in the connection between the body, place, and ritual and its influence on the interpretation of political phenomena. Beyond that, he enjoys writing, sports, and a good pun.</i></span></div><div><br /></div></div></div>
admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-39978387078127256492024-02-07T16:16:00.000-05:002024-02-07T16:16:40.881-05:00Towards a Pedagogy of Listening: An Interview with Elisabeth Paquette & Gideon Strauss (Pt. II)<div style="text-align: right;">by <a href="https://philosophy.charlotte.edu/elisabeth-paquette" target="_blank">Elisabeth Paquette</a>, <a href="https://faculty.icscanada.edu/gstrauss" target="_blank">Gideon Strauss</a>, Héctor Acero Ferrer, and Andrew Tebbutt<br />edited by Todd Dias</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This post is part of the series <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/philosophy-otherwise-knowledge.html"><i>Philosophy Otherwise</i></a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">On February 28, 2022, Andrew Tebbutt and Héctor Acero Ferrer, conducted the following interview with Dr. Elisabeth Paquette and Dr. Gideon Strauss on behalf of the Philosophy Otherwise team. This interview has been published in two instalments. You can revisit <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2022/04/towards-pedagogy-of-listening-paquette-strauss.html" target="_blank">Part I</a> here. In Part II, presented below, the interviewees delve more directly into Dr. Paquette’s philosophical work and its bearings on a potential decolonization of pedagogical practices. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">- - - - -</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><b><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">Gideon:</span></b></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">Your research focuses on the work of Sylvia Wynter and Alain Badiou. Imagining their bodies of work as tectonic plates, how would you describe the boundaries where they press upon each other? What do you find salient in the field of tension generated between Badiou and Wynter?</span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Elisabeth:</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">That is a beautiful question. I have never thought of their bodies of work as tectonic plates, and so I appreciate it. I think that there is in some way significant overlap between Badiou and Wynter, and this is part of the reason why I brought them into conversation. In a general sense, they’re both interested in what universal emancipation looks like. They’re both interested in thinking about systems of oppression, systems of knowledge, and politics broadly construed on a global scene. This interest is fairly obvious in Wynter, but Badiou will also talk about Indigenous resistance to Canadian police in Quebec, and about various other locations around the globe in addition to France.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Where I see the difference, and it’s a significant one, is the way they respond to these concerns. In some ways it’s a difference in training, and in the fields of research that they turn to. Not that they’re completely different here, because Sylvia Wynter is quite a well-read person. If you haven’t read her work, I encourage you to do so. She’s talking about a ton of people within the canon of philosophy, in addition to brain scientists, literary theorists, languages and culture studies experts, and a variety of figures that exceed geopolitical or disciplinary boundaries. But their overall approaches differ significantly. Badiou is very much a Marxist, looking for a kind of traditional sense of Marxism, extending it through set theory and mathematics. In some sense, I think he turns to mathematics as having the answers to political questions. And I think that reflects a particular kind of training too—his father was a mathematician. And so I think that these orientations have coded Badiou’s approach to emancipation in certain ways. Also, in France, there is a certain conception of politics and of the ways that politics can operate, which really comes through in the way that Badiou approaches thinking about emancipation (you see it also in Quebec). </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">But Sylvia Wynter approaches emancipation from the position of being marginalized. She has very different experiences, and she turns to different scholarship. She’s well read in the Négritude movement in a way that Badiou isn’t, even though Badiou will name the Négritude movement. So, for me, the benefit of bringing them into conversation began with the fact that there are all these points of contact between them. I found that I could bring them into conversation, because they were already in effect in a conversation, even though Badiou wasn’t speaking to Wynter, and Wynter wasn’t speaking specifically to Badiou—although she was speaking to the kind of work that Badiou is doing.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And so in thinking of them as tectonic plates, I might think of them as overlapping in some ways. But the place between them is something of a mountainous region that has emerged, one that is very difficult to scale. So it isn’t an easy passageway from one to the other, and it requires significant work to climb that mountain and go back down again. But there are points of contact that bring them into conversation, even as their goals and points of departure are significantly different.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><b>Gideon:</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">Given your specific concern about space, how do you see the juxtaposition between Wynter and Badiou?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Elisabeth:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I think very seriously about space, about how space is constructed, and about how we move around it; and I think that we can also think about how Wynter and Badiou move through space. Badiou, for instance, lives in France, but he does work in other places. He had a big uptake in Brazil, and we know of him traveling to Brazil and working with scholars there. Sylvia Wynter held a significant position during the creation of the independence movements in Jamaica, and also studied in the UK and then moved to the US.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And so, various kinds of movements structure how they think and how we can think of them relating. In a lot of ways I think that Badiou is very much situated in a French style of politics. To echo what I said earlier, Badiou’s idea of the political space being empty of symbolism, is possible only in not recognizing the way that Christianity, for instance, already forms the undertone of that space. I think he holds this presumption throughout his work, and similarly thinks that mathematics has this possibility of doing its work from nowhere, of being politically neutral, and does not recognize the way that it is not politically neutral. It’s not just numbers, but numbers through a particular kind of culture and political system. Here I think his work reflects a lack of movement around spaces.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And in Wynter’s work, space comes up in various kinds of ways. She has a very particular way of talking about American universities and the way in which the field of Black studies is situated in American universities, off in the margins. She is influenced by being part of the diaspora, as someone who has a desire to move beyond boundaries. Here I think also of Rinaldo Walcott, an Afro-Canadian scholar at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and the University of Toronto. Walcott writes about the importance of thinking about diaspora broadly, and I see this orientation informing Wynter’s work, in her desire to go beyond disciplinary boundaries, which is tied to going beyond boundaries of nation-states and other such things. I think that we can see these scholars’ ways of moving, or their lack of moving, around space, as emblematic of the kinds of work that they’re doing. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><b>Andrew</b>:</span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">You talk about the idea of creolization, which is an idea you draw from Jane Gordon. It partly has to do with staging encounters between thinkers, who, for example, a thinker who represents a dominant knowledge system, say, European philosophy and those who are placed outside of that tradition. For this process of creolization to be effective, the encounter must be equally imposing on each side. Can you say more about this idea of creolization as a way of thinking about scholarship and how it might avoid just being an “inclusive,” appropriative mechanism?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Elisabeth:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So great question, Andrew, and there’s a lot to say there, and there's a lot of work being done on creolization right now, which I really appreciate. And so, there’s many different ways, I think, to approach this concept in particular. So, to your point about being inclusive, I’m not for the inclusive model. It just maintains problematic structures and just includes a couple people of color or women or something like that. And so I think that often what I’m looking for is a radical re-conceptualizing of philosophy, beyond the disciplines of what we see now. So, how to start?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So, there’s the question of "Why would I have written this book? Why bother spending the time on Badiou, instead of just talking about Wynter and rejecting Badiou completely?" And I struggled with that in particular. And so I think that also it’s the heart of your question too, because my goal wasn’t to recenter Badiou and thus recenter European philosophy in so doing, but rather what I also recognized is that there are a lot of people who read Badiou and who aren’t reading these other amazing scholars who are doing important work, who have historically continued to critique the kind of position that Badiou has offered. And so in this instance, to whom I am writing this book is often Badiou scholars in particular.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I’m telling these people that they aren’t drawing these connections and I’m doing that for them. They’re very obvious. They’re very plain. And so I want to say, “you need to be attentive to this and be able to account for it.” I think that Badiou scholars should be able to account for the critiques that I’ve provided. So that’s my first answer: it's to provide, recognizing the world in which we move through, an attempt to address [these overlooked connections] in some ways. So it’s offering these kinds of tools for thinking about how we should critique Badiou. And also, as I said at the end of the book, I’m addressing the question of why we should be reading Wynter: because she offers so much. So maybe that’s one way of answering your question. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Here’s another way: I’ve been reading a lot of Audre Lorde lately. And so thinking about solidarity across differences and also the kinds of productive and creative capacities that comes from difference. And so thinking about multiple different localities and ways of theorizing and using the creative differences between them to understand and produce new kinds of things.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And so I think that’s part of what we could think creolization is doing: bringing things together that create certain kinds of frictions that will produce something out of it. What that looks like can be different in a variety of contexts. And so often we talk about it in European terms. But I think also there’s a lot of a really amazing work that’s being done across east-west philosophizing, Indigenous theorizing, across nations also. Whether you’d use the term creolization for it in particular, I'm not sure, but maybe we can think of it as this epistemic disobedience and moving beyond certain kind of boundaries and thinking of the kind of creative capacities that come through knowledge from different positionalities.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And that would also be a way of decentering European theorizing, which I think is often the critique that comes with creolization in the way that I described it. And Jane Gordon is really explicit about it. It’s not just centering on Europeans and then adding marginalized figures here and there. There are other things going on. There’s also what Souleymane Bachir Diagne calls “provincializing” the European canon. I think that is also another helpful way of thinking about it. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So it’s not that the European canon exists internationally or ought to be the foremost. It is just one among many that we could read or could not read. And so against the rejection of European canon, broadly construed, if we just provincialize it and think of it as one among many, then you can take it or leave it depending on what your interests are. And Souleymane Bachir Diagne is from Senegal. He teaches the United States and he’s also heavily influenced by not only various African theorists but also Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and a few other figures, European figures. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><b>Gideon:</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">Now shifting focus to your own practice as a pedagogue, how does your scholarship on Badiou and Wynter impact your pedagogy?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Elisabeth:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s a great but also a difficult question, because I feel as though my pedagogy and my research are inherently intertwined. I’m really fortunate to teach the classes that I want to teach; classes that I’m interested in, including texts that I’m interested in reading. This means I’m going to read more and more of what I want to teach, which impacts the kinds of things I research. The two are not separate from each other. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">With regards to the research we’re discussing, my engagement in the critique of canonical Western figures was related to a class that I was teaching. I taught a class in feminist theory that was cross-listed in Women and Gender Studies and Philosophy. In this particular class I taught Luce Irigaray, Simone de Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva, and Sylvia Wynter. I’ve been reading Kristeva, Irigaray, and Beauvoir since my undergrad, and these were very much the texts that I was taught for years. In my class, my students and I would perform critiques of these texts, from the perspective of disability, race, sexuality, gender, and Indigeneity, broadly construed. In this way, my class engaged in a kind of critique similar to the critique I did of Badiou. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">But, on the other side of things, I learn from Wynter all the time how to teach philosophy. I know from conversations with Lewis Gordon that Wynter doesn’t like philosophy (or rather, she doesn’t like European philosophy), and I hold onto this fact. I also think about how to go beyond the boundaries of what women think is philosophy, or what gets stated as philosophy, in my teaching. Again, I’m cross-listed between Women and Gender Studies and Philosophy, and no one’s looking over my shoulder at what I’m going to teach and whether or not it’s philosophy or not. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Holding onto all of these things simultaneously means that there is a need to go beyond what we might think is philosophy in order to do philosophy. What counts as knowledge is much broader than what I or someone like me might previously have thought, and broader than what we have previously been taught counts as knowledge and something that ought to be taught. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And one further point, which goes back to the conversation about the amazing work that you all are doing: where knowledge comes from is also something to hold onto in classrooms. I learn from my students at the same time as I am teaching them in the classroom, which requires me to think about how to manage these things simultaneously. I try to bring my students into this conversation, discussing with them how to create spaces that will support them, and I find that they teach me simultaneously as I teach them. But there are power balances to be aware of here—for example, it’s not the job of my students to teach me certain kinds of things. These are things I’ve learned in my research, and from Sylvia Wynter in particular.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><b>Gideon:</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">Can you offer an anecdote of a moment in your practice that illustrates the incorporation of your research into your teaching.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Elisabeth:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Okay, great question! Again, these are really difficult questions and I commend you for them, because I think they're very nuanced and it’s hard to do justice to them. I'll offer a story of success, one that felt good. There are also other feelings around it, of course, as there are always many feelings around teaching. You all know this: teaching is always nerve-wracking, and no matter how much you do it there are a lot of emotions involved. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I’m teaching a Queer Caribbean Theory class right now, for the first time this summer, and it is nerve-wracking also because it’s a new area of study for me in several ways, even though I've been reading Sylvia Wynter, Aime Cesaire, and Frantz Fanon for some time. It’s a relatively small class, with ten students. It’s a graduate level class also, which is great. There are a lot of queer folks in the class, and some gender non-conforming trans folks. It’s predominantly white students in the class, but there are a few people of color, and several bilingual students as well. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Much of the discussion circulates around Audre Lorde’s conception of the erotic, from her essay, “The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” We spent the first half of the semester engaging with various scholars who employ this conception of the erotic in their text. The students are therefore primed in thinking around this concept of the erotic for six weeks or so. And then, after the midterm break, we finally read Audre Lorde’s essay. As preparation for the class, I tasked students with asking themselves: “What is the erotic? What are a few keywords that you would associate with the erotic?” And so they’ve thought through some of the main themes beforehand. (I typically prime them with questions like this about their readings every week, and our classroom discussion is often structured around those questions.) In this sense the class was an opportunity for them to approach what Audre Lorde means by the erotic. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">To start things off, I asked them to take a couple of minutes to make some notes on what they think the erotic is, and, in conversation with another person, develop their ideas of what the erotic is. And then they get into groups of four—so two groups of two come together and compare discussions. We spend the three-hour class doing this escalating group discussion. The erotic is a central concept, as I mentioned, for a lot of the texts that we read, and so the point of this exercise was to give the students the opportunity to tell me what this concept means, and then to develop a conversation collectively. It would be easy for me to give my description of what I think the erotic is, but something that’s really beautiful about how Audre Lorde writes this essay in particular, is that she leaves it very much open to interpretation. And so this class was an attempt to engage in the practice of bringing our own responsibility to knowledge creation. A lot of these students are queer, and so they will have some understanding of what the erotic means to them in particular. And even if they’re not queer they might well have some sense of what it means to them. And so, providing them the opportunity to foster their own engagement with that concept and with their own experiences became central to our discussion of the erotic.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">And then I had a follow-up question for them that was, I think, even harder to engage—namely, “How is it that you see the erotic operating in your own life? What does it mean to employ the erotic in the way that Audre Lorde is talking about it?” The point here is to take hold of this conceptual tool that Lorde is giving to us. She provides these tools to provide language for people’s lived experiences, and the hard part, again, is to make a connection between the conceptual tool and our lived experiences. We didn’t finish with a whole lot of definite conclusions (this was only a week ago), and I told them at the end of the class: “Each class from now on, I want you to think through your activities, the things you do throughout the week, when do you see the erotic arise, those moments of joy that Audre Lorde talks about?” Again, I think it’s important to know that when we talk about philosophy, that it is very much bound up with our lived experiences. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In fact, I’m done with the cliche, “ivory tower” approach to philosophy that is just about concepts. I don’t think that any philosophy is just conceptual. I think that even for the people who are writing the history of traditional philosophy, it’s bound up with their lived experiences. They just have very specific lived experiences that we’re not always attentive to. And so being attentive and thinking about how it is that the philosophy that we’re doing is very much bound up with certain lived experiences is really important for all my classes, and for all the things that I’m doing. Often, I basically gave the class over to the students, asking them annoying questions every so often. I tell them repeatedly, “I’m just going to ask you annoying what-does-that-mean? questions,” pushing them to explain a little bit more. Last time we did this they took over the whole class and they did a wonderful job with it.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">As a teacher, it’s tempting to jump in and be part of the conversation. But I also know that there are instances when I ought to remain in the background and give them the space to foster their own point of view, pointing them in the right direction only when I need to. At the end of the class I have been describing, I had a student say, not to me, but to the class, that it was the best class that she’s had for a long time. And so it reminded me of the importance of the de-centering of myself in these spaces, and of the fact that students are very capable of doing this kind of work and having these kinds of conversations. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><b>Gideon:</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">In the context of this joyous story of students doing workshops on their own lived experiences of the erotic, as theorized by Audre Lorde, at an institution that is not friendly to such terms as “social justice,” what are your pedagogical tactics of survival in such an environment?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Elisabeth:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">That’s a great question, and is certainly an active one that I think is going on where we are in particular. There are various kinds of techniques that we employ. When our department received backlash for putting the words “social justice” on our website, the statement was crafted through pragmatism, because there’s a lot of pragmatists in my department. And so it became possible to use philosophy to provide language that would convey the same points that the words “social justice” were intended to employ.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So I think that, being trained in philosophy and being trained in argumentation, it’s become possible to provide these techniques to make arguments, to be sort of stealthy with use of language also. And that’s been a good tactic. There’s also the safety-in-numbers bit. And so I’m part of a caucus on campus that I helped found when I first arrived here in 2015. And that caucus, which is not part of the university, but is able to have an impact on the university, has been used to push certain things through at the university and often will turn to full professors to do the most heavy lifting and support people who are less supported at the university. And that includes students, it includes untenured faculty and adjunct faculty and staff as well.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So that’s another tactic. And so I think that there are certain kinds of skills and those kinds of navigating that are things that I hope to learn and hope to do for other people too moving forward. And I think that, maybe the point is that it requires many people across many spaces. It requires this kind of activism or solidarity, or thinking about how people are differently situated at universities, such that we can provide support for each other and step in and step back when we need to. But these are active things that we’re continually engaged with.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><b>Gideon:</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">That’s a great thought with which to end our conversation: your call to collaborate, to act in solidarity across university spaces. Thank you very much for your time and wisdom, Elisabeth!</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Elisabeth:</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Thank you for welcoming me into this conversion!</span></div></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><b>[<a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2022/04/towards-pedagogy-of-listening-paquette-strauss.html" target="_blank">Revisit Part I of this interview here.</a>]</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div></div><a name='more'></a><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><i><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b><a href="https://pages.charlotte.edu/elisabethpaquette/" target="_blank">Dr. Paquette</a></b> is an assistant professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina, and affiliate faculty with the Department of Africana Studies, the Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Studies. She was one of the guest speakers at ICS Philosophy Otherwise Colloquium. </span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #0b5394;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b><a href="https://faculty.icscanada.edu/gstrauss" target="_blank">Dr. Strauss</a></b> is ICS’s Academic Dean and Senior Member in Leadership and Worldview Studies. His current research interests are focused on the application of narrative inquiry to practice studies, with an emphasis on the reflective practice of leadership in organizations.</span></i></div><div style="font-style: italic;"><br /></div></div>admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-61480782919886259862022-04-30T14:46:00.004-04:002024-02-07T15:40:24.883-05:00Towards a Pedagogy of Listening: An Interview with Elisabeth Paquette & Gideon Strauss (Pt. I)<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="https://pages.charlotte.edu/elisabethpaquette/" target="_blank">Elisabeth Paquette</a>, <a href="https://faculty.icscanada.edu/gstrauss" target="_blank">Gideon Strauss</a>, Héctor Acero Ferrer, and Andrew Tebbutt</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This post is part of the series <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/philosophy-otherwise-knowledge.html"><i>Philosophy Otherwise</i></a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">On February 28, 2022, Andrew Tebbutt and Héctor Acero Ferrer, conducted the following interview with Dr. Elisabeth Paquette and Dr. Gideon Strauss on behalf of the Philosophy Otherwise team. This interview will be published in two instalments. In Part I, the interviewees frame the conversation through a series of reflections on the Philosophy Otherwise colloquium—which took place in ICS between November and December of 2021. In <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2024/02/towards-pedagogy-of-listening-paquette-strauss-pt2.html" target="_blank">Part II</a>, they delve more directly into Dr. Paquette’s philosophical work and its bearings on a potential decolonization of pedagogical practices. We present to you Part I of the interview.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">- - - - -</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><div><b><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">ANDREW:</span></b></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">Gideon, I'm wondering if you could briefly describe your impressions of the Philosophy Otherwise colloquium that we organized at ICS last fall (November-December 2021). In particular, how has it shaped your thinking about the practice of philosophy?</span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">GIDEON:</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Before I answer your question, I want to mention two of my own commitments in participating in the colloquium. One was to collaborate in ICS’s consideration of the white supremacist habits that are embedded in our own tradition of scholarly practice. I think part of the intention of the colloquium was to recognize as a school that we have continuing habits of scholarly practice that were shaped—acknowledged or unacknowledged, intentional or unintentional—in a context of white supremacy. Coming to terms with that legacy, I think, was part of the intention of the colloquium, and it was also one of my own commitments.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Another commitment that I brought to the colloquium was my investment in land acknowledgements. My hope was to learn from the conversations in the colloquium series about ways to integrate an acknowledgement of the histories of human presence in the regions that I inhabit and traverse. And “inhabit” and “traverse” are important words for me, because I inhabit two regions. I inhabit the ecologies around a town called Stellenbosch, in South Africa, which is an agricultural, university town, and I also inhabit Toronto. I traverse these spaces nomadically, in a kind of annual migration, residing mostly in Toronto, but spending significant time in Stellenbosch. And to think about how to acknowledge the colonial histories of these places was also an intention of mine. All of this raised some questions which I'm far from answering. What is it to “acknowledge”? What is even acknowledged? Whose histories do I attend to and how do I attend to those histories, taking into account my own situatedness as a settler twice over? I’m a 10th generation settler stock in South Africa, and by the privileges of my appearance, I’m grafted into the settler aspect of presence in Canada. And so, whose histories do I attend to, and how do I attend to those histories when it comes to acknowledging?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">This commitment to land acknowledgements translates into a query about the integration of land acknowledgements into my own practice. Here, there were three practices that I was concerned with specifically. The first is my practice as a scholar. The second is my practice as a citizen. And the third is my practice as a member and participant in the life of a particular local faith community. I was also concerned with how these practices interact with each other. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So those were the commitments and questions with which I came into the colloquium. Turning to my experience of the colloquium itself, I would say three things stood out to me. Perhaps the big one was the need to cultivate listening practices. I remember a particular conversation that we had with Colombian philosopher María del Rosario Acosta, who emphasized both a posture of listening and practices of listening as ways of doing philosophy that need attention. That resonates with me as someone who tries to do philosophy phenomenologically, but in a way that's informed by ethnography. But a question pressed itself on me: what does it mean to adopt a posture of listening? What does this look like? I especially appreciated the claim that there’s a tactfulness to listening, that listening requires an attentiveness, not just to context, but to shifts in context and to micro-contexts. This question also came up for me when we had a conversation with Lori-Anne Dolloff, a scholar from the University of Toronto, about Choral Practice and about a composition that included Inuit song. What stood out to me was how choirs along the hundredth kilometer from the US border engaged with Inuit song, and how this relationship to song has shifted over generations, so that a previous generation of Inuit had a certain response to the song while a current generation of Inuit have a different response to it. And so listening practices, in an ethnographically-informed philosophical practice, require listening, and then listening again, and then listening again…</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I also felt challenged by some of the conversations in the colloquium about the need to act in the face of the risk of doing wrong. And specifically, the question of how to negotiate the risk of offering offense, of doing damage, while at the same time needing to act—here considering scholarship as an act (or at least as a practice with a series of actions). This led me to think also about pedagogy and our institutional presence in the world, both in relation to other academic institutions, but also other communities and institutions, in terms of how we institutionally must act, while probably doing damage or causing offense, as we do so. How do you negotiate that risk? And how do you nurture a disposition institutionally, but also personally, that resists the temptations of cynicism and apathy in the face of difficulties like these?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Lastly, I take away from the colloquium series as a whole an awareness of the immensity of these tasks, and of the immensity of the forces involved, specifically in relation to the smallness of our school and the relatively negligible effect of my own scholarship. Against the backdrop of what I've said above, I’m made aware of the need to cultivate both modesty and perseverance as parts of my disposition, but also parts of our institution’s disposition in the world. In terms of the effect of this in my practice of philosophy, I would say that it brings about an intensification of my awareness of the need to embed philosophical practice ethnographically, and to pay attention to what might constitute practices of listening, philosophically speaking, in these various dispositions, of modesty and perseverance in riskiness. </span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">ANDREW:</span></b></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">Thank you, Gideon. What you’ve shared provides some very helpful context for the conversation that we had in our colloquium, especially given that it was “in-house,” so to speak. I have just one further question, before we move on to your dialogue with Elisabeth. What stood out to you in particular about Elisabeth’s presentation in the session in which she joined us, especially in terms of the relationship between questions about philosophy and questions about pedagogy?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">GIDEON:</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">A few things stood out to me. The first one has to do with a question that I’m going to ask Elisabeth later on, and it concerns the “tectonics” of the encounter in Elisabeth’s work between the bodies of work of Alain Badiou and Sylvia Wynter, and how they press up against each other in Elisabeth's reading. And I have to say, as a caveat, that I’m not a Badiou or a Wynter scholar, so I’m coming at this question with the posture of a beginner. What stands out to me at this point is Badiou’s commitment to the emancipation of all, versus Wynter’s commitment to considering Indigeneity and race in particular (not to exclude the gender aspect of her work, which is there, but is not what jumped out to me in the context of our colloquium). The way in which those differing approaches to emancipation press up against each other and create fissures, fractures, and saliances is interesting in Elisabeth's work. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Also, in her dialogue with ICS Junior Member Abbi Hofstede, Elisabeth said: “One thing I try to think of when I think about the academy is what counts as knowledge in academic spaces, and who counts as knowledge keepers in these spaces as well.” And so those questions—what counts as knowledge and who counts as knowledge keepers—really stood out to me, as well as the implications of thinking through these questions. Elisabeth also said: “This should be a live question for us as philosophers always: ‘what counts as knowledge?’” I’m intrigued by that. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Also in the conversation with Abbi, Elisabeth talked about the importance of humility and the importance of unlearning and relearning over the course of one’s career. This connected with my concern for nurturing a kind of a modest resilience (or resilient modesty) in our scholarly practices, and for what the implications of this would be in the pedagogical relationships between newer and older scholars in their trajectories (especially taking into account your concern about hierarchies of knowledge keeping).</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Lastly—and this didn’t stand out that much in our conversation, but Elisabeth did mention it, and I found further reference to it in her online presence —I was intrigued by her concern for monuments, which has me thinking about the texturing of space by means of memorialization. In any case, the notion of texturing spaces by means of memorialization, by means of monuments, is very interesting to me. But then I also wondered about the <i>other</i> means by which we texture spaces in ways that memorialize, as well as the mnemonic effects of the texturing of learning spaces and what those effects are on the scholarly practice. And so I’d be intrigued to hear what Elisabeth might be able to take from her study of the public effect of monuments on the texturing of space, and what insights she might have for the structuring of pedagogical spaces, mnemonically. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">HÉCTOR:</span></b></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">Thank you, Gideon. Now we’re going to go over some introductory questions for you, Elisabeth. We want to get your thoughts about the experience you had with us in November, and ask you to point us to what you found interesting. The colloquium was an experiment for us at ICS, a way to create a space where spontaneous-yet-structured conversations and scholarship could be produced. But also so much work went on behind the scenes to create a space that was safe enough and open enough so that people could have conversations in which they could bring—in ICS language—their “whole selves” to the table, and have their own stories be part of what was discussed and interacted with. That was a way for us to foreground questions of racial identity and marginalization, and to incorporate those concerns into our dialogue—because you can’t incorporate stories without incorporating concerns about how different people interact in that space academically. And so, we want to ask you if you see value in that approach to doing communal scholarship. Do you think there are other alternatives we should explore in order to effectively incorporate the types of concerns that we want to address with this experiment? We know you do a lot of this work in your own context, so is there anything from your own learnings that can be incorporated in what we do here with this project?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">ELISABETH:</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">First of all, thank you for inviting me back. I do value the kinds of things that you are doing, because in philosophy spaces in particular, there isn’t a lot of time spent on conversation, collective learning, and skill-sharing, and I think that this is something that you all have brought to this philosophical space, and I think it’s extremely valuable. So I enjoyed participating in the colloquium, and I got a lot out of it because I don’t often get to have these kinds of conversations and be in these kinds of spaces.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I also think it’s wonderful that you have faculty and students who are doing this together, and that faculty show up for these initiatives. Often there is a kind of distance between faculty and students in which faculty feel like they ought not to be learning alongside students. But it’s really valuable to be able to learn from your students simultaneously, and this is something that flies in the face of a lot of how we think about academia. I often reflect on how we as faculty think of ourselves and of what we “ought” to do, as well as how we think about knowledge (in particular, the difference between thinking of oneself as a “holder” of knowledge versus understanding knowledge as something that’s produced between us and in community). I think these conversations are really valuable, and so you all are doing a lot of great work. I know that from the organizing I do with the “Feminist and Decolonial Politics” workshop that I do every year; these conversations take a lot of work behind the scenes. This work requires constantly shifting, navigating, getting feedback and then reshifting again, and having ongoing conversations about how best to implement things, how to change things, and whether to change things. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">From my own experience, I think it's always important to remember that there is no one way to do things, and that it is really important to create many spaces in which these kinds of conversations can happen. Creating these open dialogues about pedagogy and content is really important, as is having spaces where you read texts that you might not otherwise be introduced to. But I think it’s important to keep in mind that no one space is going to do everything nor should one space do everything. I often get comments in response to the workshop in which people say, “Oh, can’t we do <i>this</i> thing…?”, and I think to myself, well, you could do <i>anything</i>, in theory, but in reality you <i>can't </i>do everything. The workshop, as an example, can only do certain finite things. And so the more people are doing things, the better. The more we’re encouraging and empowering people to do these kinds of things collectively, the better. And the more we show up for other people doing these kinds of things, the better. Because no one space can do all things. And so I think this is related to the humility that Gideon brought up before, that you need to recognize that you can’t do everything, and you shouldn’t think that you could do everything.</span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">HÉCTOR:</span></b></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">I think that the insights you offer about space—that no space can do everything, that we need to be present to support others’ work, that we should recognize the limits of the spaces we create—are true “takeaways” for us. And our second question, which is more general, is along similar lines. Are you hopeful about these types of exercises? That is, are you hopeful about efforts to consider issues of oppression and marginalization in academic contexts? Are these conversations gaining momentum? Are they gaining momentum pedagogically? Or do you think this is something that we’re doing now, but once the urgency is gone, we will go back to things as they were before?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">ELISABETH:</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">I hear this question as asking whether I’m hopeful for the field of philosophy. I think this is a great question, because I think hope is really important, but is often felt to be lacking in the era that we’re in right now. So I think it’s something to really hold on to. I have a “yes/no,” or “both/and,” answer to this question. I’m hopeful in the sense that I think that the field of philosophy is changing. I think that there are more and more spaces that are opening up, more and more students and faculty being trained in areas that are distinct from the canonical conception of philosophy that I was trained in. So this is changing, and I think there are more spaces to do that kind of non-canonical study. I think that there is more attention paid to, and more funding for, this kind of work. And these are all things that I think are structurally important for changing the field of philosophy, in addition to people doing the content work, which really matters. There have always been wonderful scholars doing content work in non-canonical fields, but I think it’s also growing in various ways in terms of institutional support.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">So I'm hopeful in those ways. But I am also <i>not</i> hopeful that university is going to become decolonial in any sense. I think that this would require that the university look extremely different from the way that it looks right now, and I’m not sure what this would look like. It’s not a matter of saying that we ought not do this work. I think that doing the work is really important, but I also know that the institution of the university has huge structures of white supremacy and settler coloniality behind it. For example, the fact that institutions are on Indigenous lands is not something that’s going to change overnight. So there’s definitely a “both/and” to my thinking about hope: I think that we should continue to do the work as though it’s possible while also recognizing that there is a horizon of possibility that we may never get to, certainly not in my lifetime.</span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></b></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">GIDEON:</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Actually, before we continue with my prepared questions, I want to ask Elisabeth to elaborate on your last comment, where you point to the need of holding on to hope even if we don’t see the results in our lifetimes. Over the weekend I listened to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/15884799-kim-stanley-robinson-the-best-case-scenario-you-can" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">an episode of the CBC radio program <i>Ideas</i></a>, from December, that featured a lecture given by a science fiction author named Kim Stanley Robinson. Robinson is trained in literary Marxism at the University of San Diego. He’s written twenty or so volumes of science fiction, and last year (or late in the year before) he published a 700-page book called <i>The Ministry for the Future</i>, a work of climate fiction. In the lecture, Robinson made a distinction between utopia and what he calls "Optopia," and argued that both are necessary, that it’s necessary to imagine good places that are difficult to imagine achieving from where we are now. Robinson argued for the social importance of utopias, even though we can’t get there or can’t tell how we might get there. By contrast, Optopia, which is what Robinson describes in <i>The Ministry for the Future</i>, is defined as the best possible future outcome we can imagine, knowing what we know to be the case now. In his book, Robinson tells a story about climate change that focuses on what we must do, we <i>have to do to avoid extinction</i>, given the limited period that we have. So, given the system of nation-states and the reality of capitalism (and he’s an anti-capitalist, and is opposed to the nation-state), Robinson wanted to offer an imaginary that took into account what we’re going to have to work with while we are addressing the climate crisis. And he calls this an Optopia. And I wonder, when you look at the prospect of decolonization of the university, what is your Optopia? What is achievable for you, imaginably achievable <i>within</i>, say, your lifetime, with regard to decolonizing the academy?</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">ELISABETH:</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">That's a great question. I do some work in and across the university and with various caucuses to push for change around various communities. First of all, there are the easy things. For example, for the first time in the university’s history, we’re going to have a Native American woman teaching Introduction to Native American Studies. She was a student at UNC Charlotte, she’s also staff, and she’s adjuncting for the position, so she’s paid (although adjuncts in the southern US in particular do not get paid very much). Beyond this, having full-time tenured faculty who are Native American women teaching Native American studies, and also other topics that they would choose to teach, would be a great thing to see at the university. Additionally, having a full professor who is an African American woman would be a great thing to see at our university, which doesn’t exist right now. So there are small things like this that I can point to about our institution in particular in terms of what things should look like. But I don’t know if that’s what you’re asking about or not. Because in my dream world, I imagine having representation at the university that is consistent with the population of Charlotte in particular, in terms of the demographics of the university, staff positions versus faculty positions, race, gender and ethnicity.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">Also, there’s the issue of ensuring that university is affordable for more folks. This seems like a really far-off dream, but it would be amazing if this were possible, given the kinds of structural inequalities in Charlotte, North Carolina (which does not cost as much as it does cost to live as Toronto, I realize). However, the degree of poverty and the inability to move between socioeconomic status in Charlotte is ranked very low for the United States generally. Again, I don’t know if this answers your question, but if I were to write a list of the things I want to see implemented right now, these things would be on it.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><b><span style="font-size: medium;">GIDEON:</span></b></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">You did. You’ve given us some wonderful glimpses into your thinking here.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><b>[<a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2024/02/towards-pedagogy-of-listening-paquette-strauss-pt2.html" target="_blank">Continue with Part II of this interview here</a>.]</b></span></div><div><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div></div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><div><i><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b><a href="https://pages.charlotte.edu/elisabethpaquette/" target="_blank">Dr. Paquette</a></b> is an assistant professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of North Carolina, and affiliate faculty with the Department of Africana Studies, the Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Studies. She was one of the guest speakers at ICS Philosophy Otherwise Colloquium. </span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #0b5394;"><br /></span></i></div><div><i><span style="color: #0b5394;"><b><a href="https://faculty.icscanada.edu/gstrauss" target="_blank">Dr. Strauss</a></b> is ICS’s Academic Dean and Senior Member in Leadership and Worldview Studies. His current research interests are focused on the application of narrative inquiry to practice studies, with an emphasis on the reflective practice of leadership in organizations.</span></i></div><div style="font-style: italic;"><br /></div></div>
admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-79250836564080978082022-04-01T10:48:00.004-04:002022-04-01T12:13:56.658-04:00The Prosaic, the Exotic, and the Logic of “Othering”: A Medieval Account of the Nature of Things<div style="text-align: right;">
by <a href="https://faculty.icscanada.edu/bsweetman" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Bob Sweetman</a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">This post is part of the series <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/philosophy-otherwise-knowledge.html"><i>Philosophy Otherwise</i></a>.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">"I am betting that here, in Thomas’ <i>Liber de natura rerum</i>, we witness a depth of expectation about the world that is operative in the scourge of colonialism and racism, marking the modern history and everyday life of European societies and the many colonies they founded. I am wondering whether it is a logic we should watch for in our subsequent examinations?"</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Thomas of Cantimpré (c.1200–c.1270) wrote a sprawling encyclopedic work, the <i>Liber de natura rerum</i>, on what he called the nature of things. In it he surveyed the physical, plant, and animal life to be found below the circle of the moon. His approach was hermeneutical; he sought to understand the meaning of life and existence, both on and below the physical surface of things. For him, understanding involved penetrating distinctions. As our senses told us, “this” was not “that,” which allowed us to point at one thing as opposed to another. Moreover, each separate thing had a meaning to it that was both patent (available already to our physical senses) and hidden (demanding not merely conceptual thought, but insight into the moral horizon that contextualizes the whole nature of things, grounding their integrity, and setting them in relation to the Maker). </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Toward that end, Thomas relied on a variety of sources: works of geology that described the virtues as well as the appearance of minerals and gems; bestiaries and medical works that described animals and plants; and astronomical works that addressed the supra-lunary spheres (charting the influence of the moon, other planets, and the stars in the heavens on life and existence below). This conceptual work involved distinction-making followed by definition of the things so distinguished, whereby each thing could be understood as something internally </span><i><b>one</b></i><span> and at the same time </span><i><b>other than</b></i><span> everything else. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In his view there was a logic to life and existence, a logic available to us human beings by which we could make our way sure-footedly in the world. It was a logic that traded upon differences, irreducible differences that nevertheless were brought together in one unity or another via a harmony or equilibrium by which opposites were forged into composites that were themselves opposites to other composites. These composites could continue to be harmonized into greater compositions until one arrived at the first opposition: that between the divine Creator and the Creator’s creation.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Thomas’ view was a very complex play of sameness and difference, of unity and diversity, opposition and composition, generation and corruption, all integrated via principles of harmony into an eye-popping weave of equilibria at ever so many levels and of ever so many sorts. Thomas’ way into this complexity, as said, was hermeneutical: <i><b>the world was a text that could be read</b></i>. Moreover, the meaning of the text was itself multiple: it could be read on a literal level, an allegorical level, a moral level, and a mystical or eschatological level, much like the Scriptures of the Christian Church of the day. The world-as-text could be preached, and indeed, Thomas (who was a member of the Order of Friars Preachers), wrote this encyclopedic work to help preachers find material for their sermons.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">What makes this text interesting in the present context is the logic of the world as Thomas describes it. It is a two-term or binary logic of distinctions in which a world of primary differences is yet understood to be a world with an underlying unity by which different things are composed into equilibrial wholes by the power of <b><i>harmonization</i></b>—opposites brought into compositions holding the opposites together at least for a time. This simplest of patterns was reproduced fractal-like across the whole expanse of the world from the hidden subterranean realms below land and sea to the highest reaches of deep space. In short, the world was a union of opposites for Thomas. Each unity has an opposite that contrasts to it as its contrary.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Thomas' experienced world was the Northern and Western quadrants of the world as he knew it. The North and West then had the South and East as its opposite. Persons, states, animals, plants, and minerals were fairly pedestrian in the Northern and Western quadrants of his experience and he describes them as such. And that meant that these same things would be opposite in the Southern and Eastern quadrants of the world. They would be exotic, marvels with strange and unaccountable properties. They would look strange and act strange, and be redolent with occult features unheard-of in the parts of the world that Thomas knew, even if his world was full of miracles and wonders by our contemporary standards and expectations. The North and West was wet and cold. The South and East was hot and dry. Life in the North and West was hard, with most eking out a bare existence against the looming spectre of starvation and death. Life in the South and East was soft. Cities were made of gold; people from the highest to the lowest lived effortless lives of torpid ease. People in the North and West were fair skinned, people in the South and East were swarthy. People in the North and West were morally striving. People in the South and East were morally indolent. You get the picture.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There is a logic to the world that guides Thomas of Cantimpré’s pen. It is a logic that is far older than him, and would far outlive him. It can be seen in the ancient Greek travellers’ reports that so interested Heroditus and in the soldiers' reports that interested the later Roman historian Tacitus. It is the logic at work in the early modern travellers’ reports to the Far East that set the European imagination alight in the 16th through the 18th centuries that Donald Lasch chronicled in the multivolume <i>Asia in the Making of Europe</i>. These were of course the centuries when Europe and its offspring forged a colonial logic that had room for the institution of slavery ironically (or perhaps not) just when the natively [Western] European species of unfreedom were disappearing. </span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I am betting that here, in Thomas’s <i>Liber de natura rerum</i>, we witness a depth of expectation about the world that is operative in the scourge of colonialism and racism, marking the modern history and everyday life of European societies and the many colonies they founded. I am wondering whether it is a logic we should watch for in our subsequent examinations? I am wondering if we should ask whether this logic is a peculiarly Western logic or whether it can be found at play in other civilizations of the globe? These are a few questions that thinking about Thomas of Cantimpré’s <i>Liber de natura rerum</i> for the first time in years has left me with. I think of them as interesting, even worthwhile, and so I leave them with you.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"> Bob Sweetman holds the H. Evan Runner Chair in the History of Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies. He is a trained medievalist specializing in Dominican thought (philosophical, theological, pastoral, mystical) in the thirteenth century. He is particularly interested in the interaction of these different discourses in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, and others. He also is interested in the florescence of women’s contemplative thought and writing that Dominicans supported. He brings these interests and competencies into contact with the Reformational tradition of Christian thought by using them to examine D.H.Th. Vollenhoven’s “problem-historical” historiography of the history of philosophy.</span></div>
admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-84821058918489642862022-03-15T14:07:00.000-04:002022-03-15T14:07:58.213-04:00Towards a Philosophy beyond Racism - Series Conclusion<div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: medium;">by Andrew Tebbutt and Héctor Acero Ferrer, <i>Series Editors</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">This post is part of the series</span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;"> </span><b style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/uprooting-racism.html">Uprooting Racism</a></i></b><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<div><span style="font-size: medium;">Over the past 18 months, we at ICS have been reflecting on the reality of systemic oppression and its impact on our institution and community. To bring focus to these reflections, we chose to begin our work with an exploration of the ways in which systemic oppression is weaved into our religious and scholarly tradition, attempting to identify how such tradition can speak to today’s world anew. One of the venues in which this conversation has taken place is <i>Ground Motive</i>, through this <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/uprooting-racism.html" target="_blank">“Uprooting Racism” series</a>. We invited members of our community to document their own reflections and conversations, certain that our internal discussions would be enriched through a broader, society-wide dialogue. We are grateful to the individuals who contributed to this series, as they provided a number of insights and responses that continue to nourish our community in its journey forward. In bringing this series to a close, we would like to highlight some key learnings from these contributions, so that they might continue to speak to us in our ongoing efforts to uproot systemic oppression in our context.<br /><br />In her contribution to this series, <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2020/09/something-about-gardening-uprooting.html" target="_blank">Junior Member Abbi Hofstede</a> describes systemic racism as one of the “pervasive weeds” that infects the soil on which ICS has founded itself. One of the striking aspects of this metaphor is the way it conveys the hidden and deeply-entrenched nature of systemic racism, which operates, as Abbi notes, less at the level of overt opinions and attitudes and more at the level of institutional habits and social structures—in “the roots,” so to speak, of the worlds in which we live and move. Together, the posts that make up our series “Uprooting Racism” reflect on this deeply rooted nature of racism, each grappling from a distinct vantage point with the past and present of ICS as an institution committed to the realization of divine justice in the world, while not immune to complicity with systemic injustice. In his contribution, <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2020/08/we-christians-or-our-racist-christian.html" target="_blank">ICS alumnus Dean Dettloff</a> draws our attention to the willful blindness to racial injustice cultivated by—even progressive, justice-oriented—forms of Christianity, and we have been challenged to reflect soberly on how our Christian worlds often perpetuate oppressive and colonialist orders. Abbi points to the difficulty of recognizing the manifestations of racism and white supremacy, which all too often operate through socially accepted codes of conduct, and whose “uprooting” falls specifically to the responsibility of white people. In his post, <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2020/11/about-us-but-not-for-us-phenomenology.html" target="_blank">CPRSE Research Associate Andrew Tebbutt</a> attempts to navigate some of the subtle pitfalls whereby efforts in antiracism end up re-centralizing whiteness, and <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2020/09/surprises-in-racisms-scope-hart.html" target="_blank">ICS founding Senior Member Henk Hart</a> (whose insights we have been blessed to publish in this series as well as in the series “<a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/from-henks-archives.html">From Henk's Archives</a>,” prior to his passing in March 2021) encouraged us hold our focus on the full breadth of discrimination, and to attend to the intersection of anti-black racism with discrimination toward other peoples of colour and members of the LGBTQ+ community.<br /><br />We originally envisioned including more than four contributions to this series. That we are “ending” the series here, however, is by no means a result of the conversation about institutional racism and ICS fizzling out. On the contrary, as a community we have seen this conversation evolve, spilling beyond the context of <i>Ground Motive</i> to a number of exciting and encouraging venues. For example, the conversations represented by “Uprooting Racism” also led to renewed efforts to incorporate topics related to race and racism in the ICS curriculum, as reflected in courses such as “Pragmatism, Race, and Religion,” “Colonization, Racial Identity, and What it Means to be Human,” and “Cultivating Learning Communities of Grace.” Additionally, in the fall of 2021, members of the ICS community participated in a colloquium series entitled “Philosophy Otherwise: Relearning the Philosophical Craft,” which invited guest scholars from around the globe to dialogue with us not only about institutional racism but also about the demands facing philosophy (and theology) in light of struggles for gender equality, justice for Indigenous communities, and the colonialist undertones of Western thought.<br /><br />In wrapping up “Uprooting Racism,” then, we intend to signal this broadened scope of our reflections on our institutional practice, and to focus more directly on their implications for <i>philosophy</i>. As many of the contexts listed above have urged, the institutional roots of racial injustice are intertwined with—if not identical to—certain conceptual roots, placing a special burden on institutions of higher learning such as ICS centred on engagement with ideas. Briefly put, thinking philosophically about systemic injustice, oppression, and marginalization may not reach the full depth of these issues, to the extent that part of the problem is <i>philosophy itself</i>. Consider the following statements from philosopher Linda Martín Alcoff:<br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #0b5394; font-size: medium;">If we say that race is not an ontological category, and that it is a mere artificial overlay on top of more basic and more real categories, we risk losing sight of how significant the effects of racial identities have been, and how those effects have permeated every philosophical idea. Ontology itself might then be able to avoid a needed self-critique. Metaphysics and epistemology could proceed with their habitual disregard for issues of race, and political philosophy could continue to introduce racial topics only in the stages of applied theory. *</span></i></p></div></blockquote><div><span style="font-size: medium;">These remarks appear in the overall context of Alcoff’s challenge to the view that the “socially constructed, historically evolving and culturally variegated” nature of racial categories entails that “race” is ultimately not real. Denying race the status of an “ontological category,” she argues, “exacerbates racism” by “conceal[ing] the myriad effects that racializing practices have had and continue to have on social life, including philosophy.” Reasoning along with Alcoff here, our goal in moving beyond this series is to deepen and raise the stakes of our “self-critique,” exploring the relationship not only of our institutional life but of our very philosophical practice to the struggle to dismantle racism. </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">In launching our next <i>Ground Motive</i> series, <b>“Philosophy Otherwise: Knowledge Reconsidered, Learning Reimagined,”</b> we look forward to continuing the efforts initiated here to lament our complicity in structural injustice, to listen to silenced and marginalized voices, and to imagine new futures for Christian thought and education beyond racism.</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">- - - - -</div><div><span style="color: #073763;"><b>*</b> </span><span style="color: #073763;">See Alcoff, Linda Martín, “Philosophy and Racial Identity,” in <i>Ethnic and Racial Studies Today</i>, 32–33, 2013.</span></div></div><span></span><span><br /></span>admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-64668505344988478762020-11-24T16:30:00.000-05:002020-11-24T16:30:20.757-05:00 About Us but Not For Us: Phenomenology and the Decentring of Whiteness<div style="text-align: right;">
by Andrew Tebbutt</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This post is part of the series <b><i><a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/uprooting-racism.html">Uprooting Racism</a></i></b>.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">Somehow, my very efforts to educate myself about systemic racism were symptomatic of systemic racism itself. How?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-73dd9e25-7fff-21e6-3985-da332bbb1543">I had a number of reactions after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis. It was of course horrifying to see a Black man restrained and suffocated in broad daylight, but over time I found myself increasingly disturbed by the subtle naturalization of police violence in certain responses to Floyd’s death. When a New York police officer <a href="https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/ny-police-union-chief-speech-transcript-stop-treating-us-like-animals" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">declared</a>: “I am not Derek Chauvin. [My fellow officers] are not him. He killed someone. We didn’t. We all restrained,” I wondered whether it was really up to us as regular citizens to draw this distinction, whether the tarnished reputation of police is really our problem when Black people are asked to accept a heightened possibility that they will be killed in encounters with police. I thought also about the destruction of property in many of the protests that Floyd’s killing inspired, and I found ironic that a nation, having established itself on the enslavement, displacement, and disenfranchisement of Black and Indigenous people, would now complain that parts of this establishment are being destroyed. These were the issues that stood out to me when I began thinking about how I could contribute to this <i>Ground Motive</i> series, and I was eager to speak out. <br /><br />Soon, though, I began to notice many of the ways that Black voices had already addressed <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/536075/the-skin-were-in-by-desmond-cole/9780385686341" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">police violence</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sb9_qGOa9Go" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">the destruction of property</a>, and other issues related to systemic racism. Although I was angered by the violation and marginalization of Black and Indigenous lives, both in Canada and the U.S., I started to wonder whether anything I would say would in the end just be about <i>me</i> and, <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2020/09/something-about-gardening-uprooting.html" target="_blank">like Abbi</a>, I began to feel as though I shouldn’t say anything at all. </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>But then I realized that, as someone who hopes to make a profession out of teaching philosophy, it was not so easy to let myself off the hook. Perhaps I did not have some brilliant new insight to offer to the conversation about systemic racism; still, my role as an educator made it necessary for me to engage with this aspect of our society and its history, if only by educating myself about the ways that I as a white man can make a difference in the struggle against systemic racism and white supremacy. Emboldened by this line of thinking, I bought books, watched YouTube videos, and had conversations with friends and colleagues about race and racism. I thought about how I would integrate the topic of racism into my <a href="http://courses.icscanada.edu/2020/11/body-language-power-question-of-human.html" target="_blank">winter 2021 ICS course</a>, following <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Teaching-to-Transgress-Education-as-the-Practice-of-Freedom/hooks/p/book/9780415908085" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">bell hooks’ advice</a> that the choice to include Black authors on your syllabus means that you should actually talk about race in your class (rather than simply profit off of the perceived “diversity” of your reading list). As an educator, neither silence nor passivity was an option for me, and if I wasn’t yet prepared to be a spokesperson for anti-racism, I could nevertheless do everything possible to educate myself on the issue.<br /><br />This, basically, was my mindset when I was stopped in my tracks by some lines from an <a href="https://www.artforum.com/interviews/saidiya-hartman-83579" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">interview</a> with author and Columbia University professor Saidiya Hartman:<br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span><i><span style="color: #073763;">What we see now is a translation of Black suffering into white pedagogy. In this extreme moment, the casual violence that can result in a loss of life—a police officer literally killing a Black man with the weight of his knees on the other’s neck—becomes a flash point for a certain kind of white liberal conscience, like: “Oh my god! We’re living in a racist order! How can I find out more about this?” That question is a symptom of the structure that produces Floyd’s death.</span></i></span></p></div></blockquote><div><span>I was familiar with the oft-repeated dictum that it is not the responsibility of Black people to educate white people about systemic racism and the struggles against it. Not only is it my job as a white person to educate myself about these issues (</span>the resources for this self-education already exist in the countless Black voices that have been speaking out for centuries), but Hartman’s words seemed to elevate the burden, and to turn it around. Somehow, my very efforts to educate myself about systemic racism were symptomatic of systemic racism itself. How?</div><div><span><br />I have provided this brief walk-through of my own thinking over the last few months because I suspect that I am not the only white person to experience an eagerness to make things better while finding it difficult to locate a place for himself in the struggle against racism. And I think this is precisely the point that many persons of colour want us white people to notice—that, as white people, we do not immediately <i>have</i> a place in this struggle. Or, more specifically, one of the central obstacles for people of colour is the fact that our place in the struggle is as yet <i>too much </i>at the centre, given the extent to which whiteness defines the landscape of our social order. Thus, another reason why we as white people don’t need Black people to educate us about racism is that we are already at the centre of it. As white people, we are essentially involved (as beneficiaries) in structures of racism and white supremacy, the destruction of which, however, is not <i>for us</i>. As a white person, one might say, the struggle against racism and white supremacy <i>is about me but not for me</i>, requiring first and foremost the destabilization of my comfortable place at the centre of the social order.<br /><br />Consequently, the effort to dismantle racism will be disorienting for white people, given how much of the world is “for us” in ways that we typically do not notice. In her essay “A Phenomenology of Whiteness,” feminist theorist Sara Ahmed discusses race and institutional racism using the theme of orientation, and develops an account of whiteness, not as a matter of skin colour or any other such visible trait, but as a function of the mutual shaping of our bodies and the spaces in which they move and act. </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>Ahmed begins with the well-established phenomenological insight that our own body is in the first place not the assemblage of head, torso, limbs, etc., that we observe in the bodies of other people, but rather is our point of orientation in the world, our point of contact with the world, which for the most part recedes into the background of whatever action currently occupies and engages us. Of course, I have fingers, and I can turn my attention to them in the same way that a doctor can inspect my body as an object, but my way of <i>living</i> my fingers—for example, in typing this sentence right now—in fact pushes “my fingers” as explicit objects or body parts into the background of my engagement with the world. The lived body, phenomenology shows, is in fact not an object at all, but is rather a kind of mutuality between my activity (as a subject) and the world that supports it.<br /><br />The problem, Ahmed points out, is that this mutuality does not function in the same way for all bodies. The world we inhabit reflects the history of this mutuality, each of us inheriting a <i>particular</i> world in which to orient ourselves. As Ahmed explains, we can see—or rather, we do not always see, but should—the mutual shaping of body and world at work in the way that white bodies in particular mark the point of orientation for most of our everyday environments and institutional spaces. “Spaces acquire the ‘skin’ of the bodies that inhabit them,” she writes; they “take shape by being oriented around some bodies, more than others.” Ahmed’s point is that our bodies orient us in space—are <i>enabled</i> as the site of our worldly activity—insofar as that space is oriented around our bodies, and that this mutual orientation is in place for some bodies more than others. Here, Ahmed speaks of the “whiteness of space,” the way that white bodies are granted the privilege of receding into the background of the social world, of “sinking” into their environment and going unnoticed in a public space that is set up precisely to support and accommodate them. Not to notice your body, accordingly, is to live in a world in which the mutuality of body and world is comfortably coherent—which is to say, to live in a white (and, typically, “able”-bodied, male, cisgender) world. In such a world, other bodies are destined precisely <i>to be noticed</i>, not to fit in, and thus to be denied the comfort and capacity provided to those bodies whose shape the environment has adopted.<br /><br />Reading Ahmed’s piece led me to reflect on the “spatial whiteness” of the environments in which I grew up. The fact that as a kid I was hardly ever confronted with the reality of racial difference is evidence, not of the absence of race, but of the thoroughgoing whiteness of the spaces in which I moved. Not that I didn’t encounter people of colour growing up in the Niagara region (I did), but the relevant fact here is the way in which they were <i>noticeable</i> for me—the way in which, if I wasn’t easily able to categorize their otherness (“Oh, she’s a migrant worker”), they appeared out of place (“Oh, I wonder where they’re from—because it surely isn’t <i>here</i>”). </span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>I mention this personal detail because I think the disorientation of whiteness applies even to those of us who claim—sincerely—not to harbour racist ideas or opinions. For, as Hartman and Ahmed are suggesting, the struggle against systemic racism isn’t primarily about ideas, but rather is about space—that is, the spatial and material context of the world we have in common. We should, of course, be committed to the idea of antiracism, but what these and other voices are saying is that intellectual debates will have no traction if they are not premised on a spatial and material reorientation of our world. Here’s Hartman again:<br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="color: #073763;"><i>The possessive investment in whiteness can’t be rectified by learning “how to be more antiracist.” It requires a radical divestment in the project of whiteness and a redistribution of wealth and resources. It requires abolition, the abolition of the carceral world, the abolition of capitalism. What is required is a remaking of the social order, and nothing short of that is going to make a difference.</i></span></span></p></div></blockquote><div><span>It is natural to ask here: so what can we do? What I am hearing from many Black voices is that we will overlook the realities of systemic racism and white supremacy if we look too hastily for clear solutions and action steps, treating these realities as issues “over there” that involve Black people only and about which we might simply educate ourselves. The root of the problem, rather, is the way that whiteness forms the point of orientation for our social world, and so the struggle against racism must begin with a rigorous reflection on whiteness, lest we pursue “practical solutions” that serve only to perpetuate spatial and institutional whiteness. As Ahmed writes, <br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span><i><span style="color: #073763;">We… need to describe how it is that the world of whiteness coheres as a world… A phenomenology of whiteness helps us to notice institutional habits; it brings what is behind, what does not get seen as the background to social action, to the surface in a certain way. It does not teach us how to change those habits and that is partly the point. In not being promising, in refusing to promise anything, such an approach to whiteness can allow us to keep open the force of the critique. It is by showing how we are stuck, by attending to what is habitual and routine in "the what" of the world, that we can keep open the possibility of habit changes, without using that possibility to displace our attention to the present, and without simply wishing for new tricks.</span></i></span></p></div></blockquote><div><span>In this effort to make habitual whiteness more noticeable, I think Ahmed’s caution against “wishing for new tricks” is important at two levels. First, it can help us reject those demands for clear solutions that are nothing other than veiled dismissals of the critique of whiteness—e.g., “Until you give me clear practical solutions, I’m not going to hear you.” The demand that Black voices articulate themselves reasonably, consistently, and with applicable actions steps—is this not actually a refusal to really <i>hear</i> what these voices are saying, a reluctance to be unsettled and disoriented in the ways that an uprooting of racism really requires? We may not be this overtly cynical, but the disingenuous nature—conscious or not—of some demands for clear practical advice has led to a reluctance on the part of persons of colour to translate the struggle against racism and white supremacy into simple ‘how tos.’<br /><br />At a second level, though, Ahmed’s caution offers a challenge to those of us white people who earnestly want to know how to help, by shifting the conversation away from what “we” as white people can do to change things. Indeed, Ahmed reserves her most piercing criticism for the question: <i>What can white people do?</i> </span>“The sheer solipsism of this response must be challenged,” she writes, for the ways that it “re-position[s] the white subject as somewhere other than implicated in the critique.” In other words, the question <i>What can white people do?</i> centres the agency of white bodies as the source of change, rather than as already deeply implicated in the problem of racism. Ahmed is thus asking us to notice how the orientation of this question—“How can I, as a white person, contribute to the resistance, to <i>your </i>struggle”—denies the reality that white people are already at the centre of the struggle, comfortably involved in (if not altogether dependent on) the very structures that the struggle against racism aims to dismantle.</div><div><span><br />In this way, Ahmed is shifting our attention away from the practical question of resistance, and toward our <i>desire</i> for resistance and for the clear action steps toward achieving it. “What does it mean,” Ahmed asks rhetorically, to “assume that critiques have to leave room for resistance?”<br /></span></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><p style="text-align: left;"><span><span style="color: #073763;"><i>This desire to make room is understandable—if the work of critique does not show that its object can be undone, or promise to undo its object, then what is the point of the critique? But this desire can also become an object for us to investigate. The desire for signs of resistance can also be a form for resistance to hearing about racism. If we want to know how things can be different </i>too quickly<i>, then we might not hear anything at all.</i></span></span></p></div></blockquote><div>Now, Ahmed is not saying that we should avoid identifying action steps or pursuing real changes. But she is encouraging us <i>first</i> to become aware of the ways that racism, as rooted in the very spaces we inhabit, persists even where there is a genuine desire to eliminate it. Her worry is that if we press for change too quickly—too superficially, too comfortably—we will fail to hear the critique of Black voices in full, and we will simply reassert the centrality of whiteness. </div><div><br /></div><div>Don’t get me wrong, I think we should do the work of identifying practical changes that we can make as individuals and as members of communities and institutions. But we should not think of these as “ten clear steps to eradicate racism,” but rather as steps toward the unravelling of the centrality of whiteness. As white people, we must recognize our responsibility, not simply contribute to efforts to resist racism, but to expose ourselves to disorientation and to commit to the divestment of our place in the social order.<br /><br />In <i>Teaching to Transgress</i>, bell hooks makes the point that predominantly white communities can participate in the struggle against racism by reflecting on and studying whiteness, “so that everyone learns that affirmation of multiculturalism, and an unbiased inclusive perspective, can and should be present whether or not people of colour are present.” As an historically—though certainly not exclusively—white community, we at ICS are poised to engage in the dismantling of racism and white supremacy, here and now, by reflecting on whiteness, by making it noticeable in our world and the world at large, and by noticing the damage that it has done and does. At ICS we are set up to reflect on whiteness in our writing, classrooms, and casual conversation, regardless of whether our work deals with race explicitly, and regardless of how new we are to the conversation. For reflections on whiteness, doing a “phenomenology of whiteness” is the first step towards witnessing the true depth and breadth of racism and the stakes of the struggle against it. <br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">- - - - -</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div><i><a href="http://faculty.icscanada.edu/andrew-tebbutt" target="_blank">Andrew Tebbutt</a> is an ICS alum and recently received his doctorate from the University of Toronto. He currently serves as Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics at ICS. Among other things, his research interests include exploring the significance of ethical and religious community for the cultivation of personal identity and the development of political responsibility.</i></div>
admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-54163499483922253142020-09-21T12:35:00.007-04:002021-03-23T11:09:39.247-04:00Confession of a Dying Man<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i>This piece is later addition to the existing Ground Motive project <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/from-henks-archives.html">From Henk's Archives.</a> Here, Henk reflects on his experience of dying.</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><img border="0" data-original-height="286" data-original-width="231" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJraCiha79zng-Yuae4T54_qNN6j5GMvbOSPScDcl0zPu1VZHCcmdenUJDxcTYwkz_rszmfMQ66cWuIXMUQborkx_YgJ4nCa0IYPOnv2yBzc-S6__clizsXh-q_zoHAP5hIWyfDlfbHZ0/s0/Henk.jpg" /></div><div style="text-align: right;">by Henk Hart</div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I am embarrassed, ashamed at times, and I feel quite powerless. Many people reach out to me in my end time. Family and friends. People from church or my work community. Children. Strangers sometimes. I am deeply touched by this and the touch is healing. At times I am able to show my appreciation, my gratitude. Yes, I am truly grateful. To all. But I do not always or to everyone make that visible. That’s because I have begun to struggle with mail: email, letters in the mail, cards. Part of my new reality is that responding to mail takes time and energy that I now no longer have. I try. But it doesn’t happen. So I feel ashamed. I know that most people understand. I am grateful for that. But I am still embarrassed. And sad.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For the longest time I have not experienced death and dying as a burden. They are part of living. For many people they are sad, painful, beyond bearing. For me they were not. Bit by bit I gave up parts of what it means to be alive. Food, a hobby, an activity, a bodily function. I have seen death coming and expected it for a long time. Even now that my medical team says it’s coming closer faster I feel that in many ways I am ready and it’s ok. But the last few weeks I have become aware of my unanswered mail as a part of dying for which I am not ready. And I think I know why. It breaks lines of communication, it ends part of what it means to be alive. And to be the offender is sad and shameful to me. Suddenly dying is no longer what it has been so far. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So I confess: as I am dying, I am part of death’s ruptures in living. Not just for myself. I bring the pains of dying into the lives of others. And I confess: I do it especially to those who reach out to me. I am sorry. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Though confessing helps living with the shame, it does not stop the dying. Life goes on, also the life of which dying is part. And that life, for me at least, is also full of blessing that surrounds the pain. Shame is not the whole story of my dying. In our electronic world I can share my story with my work community, my confessional community, and my community of family and friends. In that way my world of dying could be life giving to others. That gives me joy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-59915810746873926722020-09-18T15:58:00.001-04:002020-09-18T15:58:31.141-04:00Something About Gardening? Uprooting Racism at ICS<div style="text-align: right;">
by Abbi Hofstede</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">This post is part of the series </span><i style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/uprooting-racism.html">Uprooting Racism</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="font-size: small;"><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="font-size: small;"><br /></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">While we don't need to feel guilty about the past, we can (and should) feel responsible for how the past manifests itself in the present. </span></span></div>
<p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: left;">It is difficult to know where to begin. I want to say something about how uncomfortable I am with writing about this topic, but my discomfort is nothing in the grand scheme of things, especially when I think about the real beast that is systemic racism.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My first reaction to being asked to write for ICS’s blog was to say no, because I am not the one who we need to listen to right now. As a white Canadian woman of Dutch descent I would feel much more comfortable with doing my own personal work on these issues out of the public eye. The reality is, however, that I am among one of the privileged demographics here at ICS. I grew up going to a CRC church. I ate things like <i>boerenkool </i>and <i>hagelslag</i>. I am steeped in a reformed understanding of Christian education, attending Christian schools my whole life. Since I am in a position of privilege, then, it is not enough to do my own personal work while remaining silent on these issues. In this case, silence would imply assent to the status quo, and that is not okay.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I am not the voice we should be listening to, but I am also not willing to make others do the work for me. For that reason, as a white person, I want to take a moment and recognize that this blog post is intended to engage other white people, as we collectively acknowledge the work we need to do (and the fact that people of colour have not had the privilege to be as unaware of these issues as we are). The reality is that ICS doesn’t have many students of colour, and there are no Black students currently attending. While it is imperative we first and foremost pay attention to and amplify Black voices during this time, we also should not force other people to do the heavy lifting for us.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;">It is only in recent years that I began to see how deeply systemic racism is ingrained in my experiences of Christian educational institutions <span style="background-color: white;">(as it is, to varying degrees, in all institutions that have historically been predominantly white)</span>. When I stop and think about this reality, I am deeply saddened—not only by my own ignorance, but more importantly by the fact that this systemic racism <i>still </i>persists. Thinking back, I was so unaware of what some of my peers were going through. Because of my privilege, I’ll never fully know all that they experienced, and I lament my lack of understanding to this day.</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Recently, I was talking to a friend about the difficulties of navigating this topic. She suggested a really helpful metaphor for conceptualizing systemic racism in an institutional context, one that makes a lot of sense to me as I have spent my summer landscaping and gardening. If we view our institution as a garden, we can think of it as something like this:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><i><span style="color: #073763; font-size: medium;">ICS’s garden has been nurtured on Anishinaabe, Huron-Wendat, Haudenousaunee, and Mississauga of the Credit First Nations land for over 50 years. Some seeds were brought over from the Netherlands and planted in this soil. These seeds have used the nutrients, as well as the water, sun, and other resources from the land in which they were planted in order to sprout and bear fruit. Many varieties of delicious fruits and vegetables have been grown. Unfortunately, many weeds have sprouted too. Some of these were brought in with the original seeds, and others have popped up over the years. Some existed in the soil when ICS first planted its garden, as the soil had been worked before by a country founded on colonialism. Many of these weeds were not pulled and were allowed to go to seed, producing new generations of weeds that threaten to choke out the other plants.</span></i></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"></p><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: left;">Systemic racism, in all its manifestations, is one of these pervasive weeds. To continue the gardening metaphor, I would like to propose that those of us who are “insiders” in this tradition need to bear the brunt of the work in uprooting these weeds. We cannot leave this solely to those who have been working for generations, those who face this struggle every day, without any choice in the matter. It is also our responsibility to put in the work. At the same time, we may not be able to recognize some things as weeds. Overtly racist occurrences are a rarity and there are many ways in which racism manifests itself that we may not recognize right away. As Dean pointed out in his post, for example, we might need to call into question just exactly who are the voices that we prioritize here in our classes at ICS.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For more examples of how racism manifests itself in many different ways, see the below illustration of a pyramid of white supremacy. This pyramid helps us to see how overt white supremacy builds on these “smaller,” socially acceptable forms of racism and covert white supremacy. While we may recognize the overt things as “bad,” it is sometimes much more difficult to identify the covert forms. This is where we need to listen to Black voices, and the voices of other people of colour, to help us identify those weeds to which we are blind. Then, we—and I’m speaking to white people here—need to put in the work to pull those weeds. As the pyramid illustrates, these covert logics and acts of white supremacy may be buried deep, which means that we might need to dig deep within our own thinking to uncover them.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: left;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="361" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/H9L3qNzjyGZbWm3MzUsScOKVUNcP6GWDZD8YKg7MYAG2cjd5f814G4gjXc9odtCyKKLws1_PTf3QA89C4Q2-elRlLRCt05ZBgUWV1T4CPNwtV_EU5tfEjpDY9TLhwABED-DZRoY=w400-h361" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-61fc92ba-7fff-968d-a820-e08b26c312a1"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Source: Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence (2005). Adapted by Ellen Tuzzolo (2016); Mary Julia Cooksey Cordero (2019); The Conscious Kid (2020).
</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: left;">Recently, I participated in an anti-racism workshop put on by <a href="https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/chapters-and-affiliates.html" target="_blank"><b>SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) Toronto</b></a>, and to prepare we were asked to read an excerpt about the characteristics of white supremacy culture from <i><b><a href="https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/white-supremacy-culture-characteristics.html" target="_blank">Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups</a></b></i> by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun (ChangeWork, 2001). Reading this list shook me, if I am being honest. Although at first I didn’t want to admit it (which itself is part of the problem, as we will see), I could immediately see in myself these characteristics of white supremacy culture. Since I have grown up in a culture where whiteness is the norm, this should have been unsurprising. And yet, I was shocked. It was another reminder of how far I as an individual and we as a society have yet to go.</div> <div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The pyramid can also help illustrate an interesting faultline that often springs up around conversations about race. For some, racism or “being racist” refers only to those things at the top of the pyramid—the overt forms of racism. This can lead to miscommunications in our discussions, with those who hold this view of racism vehemently objecting to admitting their own racism <i>because they view racism as</i> <i>only those things at the top of the pyramid</i>. What the pyramid shows us, however, is that racism takes many different forms. It’s sneaky. It’s embedded in everything from personal attitudes to institutions to government and civil society. This means that you can be racist without intending to be racist—without even knowing it.</div></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Take one example from the pyramid: Eurocentric curriculum. It’s not as if ICS consciously set out to build a Eurocentric curriculum, but it still happened. We come from the Dutch Reformational tradition, so it is natural that a lot of our scholarship is rooted in this area. One of the strengths of this tradition is its deep-seated emphasis on engaging culture and public life. But maybe we need to take a hard look at what culture it is that we are engaging. Too often, the other voices we interact with philosophically are other white voices. How much could our scholarship be enriched if we really made an effort to engage with the voices of people of colour?</div> <div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">During my time at <a href="https://www.kingsu.ca/" target="_blank">The King’s University</a>, I once heard a professor describe it like this: there is a difference between guilt and responsibility. While we don’t need to feel guilty about the past, we can (and should) feel responsible for how this past manifests itself in the present. As we have seen from recent events, the reality is that racism is alive and well in our society today. ICS has a responsibility to take a hard look at our own practices as a predominantly white institution. Perhaps we need to question why, after 50 years of existence in one of the most multicultural cities in the world, our student body still doesn’t reflect this. And further, have we ever had one Senior member who was <i>not </i>white? These questions just barely begin to scratch the surface, and we evidently have much more digging to do.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">ICS stewards a rich tradition of Christian scholarship, one that comes out of the Dutch Reformational tradition. There is nothing intrinsically racist about being committed to a tradition <i>per se</i> (although it is worth noting that Abraham Kuyper, among many others, had some very racist ideas).<b><span style="color: #073763;">*</span></b> However, in stewarding this tradition for the future we <i>must </i>be willing and able to critically engage with those parts of our past that are oppressive. We cannot be so committed to a tradition that we fail to recognize our weaknesses alongside our strengths. In the 90s, ICS was a leader in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. We have done this kind of thing before. And we need to do it again.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In a <a href="https://soundcloud.com/thesacredpodcast/71-willie-jennings" target="_blank">recent episode of <i>The Sacred Podcast</i></a>, Theologian Willie Jennings, in speaking about his new book called <i><a href="https://www.eerdmans.com/Products/7844/after-whiteness.aspx" target="_blank"><b>After Whiteness</b></a></i> (Eerdmans, 2020), points out that when you ask Western educators: “What image comes to mind when you think of the formation of an educated person?” the almost subconscious answer is a white self-sufficient man, one who embodies what he calls “three demonic virtues: possession, control, and mastery.” In any field, according to Jennings, that person is generally considered the archetype. He illustrates that this image is killing us, leading to pain and suffering in our entire education system, as students and teachers are forced to contort themselves and their experiences to fit into this one very specific box. In place of this image, however, Jennings proposes an alternative by which to steer theological (and really all) Western education: that of Jesus and the crowd. By this he means that the educated person is one who, like Jesus, is able to gather people together—even people who normally would not want to be together. In this view, the sign of being fully formed or educated is that you are able to bring people together through what you do, regardless of your field. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Can we imagine ICS as a place that does this? A place that brings together a diverse cohort of teachers and students who are <i>all </i>committed to learning from one another? Can we uproot barriers to this vision such as Eurocentrism and the prioritizing of white voices so that we can really <i>listen </i>to the voices and insights of people of colour? Can we critically engage our own tradition by listening to scholars who may disagree with us, challenge us, and force us to <i>be </i>and <i>do </i>better? I hope so (otherwise, what are we really doing here?).</div></span><span style="font-size: medium;"> <div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">ICS has a real opportunity here to consciously embrace this kind of education, and put in the hard work of uprooting the systemic racism in our midst.<b><span style="color: #073763;">**</span></b> As we continue the process of reforming our academic handbooks and policies this fall, I want to challenge us all to have a look at <a href="https://www.showingupforracialjustice.org/white-supremacy-culture-characteristics.html" target="_blank">the list I mentioned before</a> and identify the areas of white supremacy culture that exist in our midst. As the authors illustrate near the bottom of the linked article: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><span style="color: #073763; font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: left;"><i>One of the purposes of listing characteristics of white supremacy culture is to point out how organizations which unconsciously use these characteristics as their norms and standards make it difficult, if not impossible, to open the door to other cultural norms and standards. As a result, many of our organizations, while saying we want to be multicultural, really only allow other people and cultures to come in if they adapt or conform to already existing cultural norms. Being able to identify and name the cultural norms and standards you want is a first step to making room for a truly multicultural organization.</i> </div></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If we want to be a place that brings people together, then, we need to de-centre whiteness to ensure that other voices truly feel welcomed and that we have the ability to hear them.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It seems to me that it is more than time to put the old archetype of white mastery fully and completely to rest, just like a noxious weed needs to be thrown into the trash. This means, among other things, listening to different voices—in our classes and in the broader life of the institution. Nothing about this process will be simple or easy. It is going to involve making mistakes, let’s just acknowledge that. As a white person, I am blind to many of those weeds that are perhaps all the more insidious for just looking like “the way things are.” I am going to need direction and guidance, and I am going to have to do a whole lot more learning from people who are different from me. This blog series is a start, as we will be first lamenting our complicity in these abuses and then looking to how we can grow. In a future post, we hope to have a curated list of resources to help us learn and grow, to help us as we put in the work and begin the process, (so stay tuned!). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The old ideals have deep roots. But I am ready to grab a shovel and start digging. I hope you will join me.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span><div style="text-align: center;">- - - - -</div><div><span style="color: #073763;"><b>*</b> For more on this (as it is a topic that deserves extensive treatment in its own right), a good place to start is this blog post written by Rev. Reginald Smith at <a href="http://dojustice.crcna.org/article/does-our-strength-lie-isolation">http://dojustice.crcna.org/article/does-our-strength-lie-isolation</a></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #073763;"><b>**</b> It will be important to recognize too that there are some things on this list that ICS has already consciously engaged with, and as a result these areas may not need as much work. There are many things we can (and should) celebrate about the culture of ICS, for example, its participatory governance structure that invites Junior and Senior Members alike into the process of governing the institution. At the same time, the point of this blog series is to draw attention to and lament the areas where we have failed in the past, which is why I have chosen here to focus on these areas.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #073763;">- - - - -</span></div><div><span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #073763;"><br /></span></div><p></p>
<a name='more'></a>
<div><i>Abbi Hofstede is a Junior Member at ICS in the second year of her MA. Previously, she completed her BA in Politics-History-Economics at The King's University in Edmonton. She is interested in studying questions of human agency, especially in the context of socio-economic life.</i></div>
admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-11846544088406986612020-09-09T14:07:00.008-04:002020-09-09T15:10:41.674-04:00Surprises in Racism’s Scope? Limits of ICS’s Calling?<div style="text-align: right;">
by Henk Hart</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This post is part of the series <i><a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/uprooting-racism.html">Uprooting Racism</a>.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: start;"><i>Now that we are seriously beginning to face up to racism, is it helpful to realize that what we see in racism is a broader phenomenon than discrimination focused on someone’s race? </i></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: black; font-size: medium; text-align: start;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I thank Dean for <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2020/08/we-christians-or-our-racist-christian.html" target="_blank">starting off this blog series</a> with a contribution that clearly outlines what some of the key issues are. I thank him also for being as critical as necessary. Necessary for the health of ICS, necessary also for assessing the integrity we need to address the obvious problems. Finally, I thank him for focussing on black racism, which in our time presents itself as the defining face of racism. By writing as he did he introduced us to a blog series on racism as both relevant and significant. Inescapably so. The intensity with which this evil presents itself and the tenacity with which it is being addressed by its victims and their supporters gives us hope that our time can become known as the beginning of the end of universal white supremacy.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I would normally experience this challenge as a divine calling that calls for an energetic response. Unfortunately, my personal circumstances are far from normal. So I limit myself to briefly addressing two issues I think I encountered in Dean’s blog. One concerns the scope of racism. The other is how an institution like ICS may be expected to take on racism as part of its calling.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Today, racism presents its ugliness in North America specifically as black racism. But what of fellow citizens who are Chinese or Indigenous? Indeed, what of the multitude in our multiracial society who experience racism in one form or another but are not black? Will they be forgotten and will that add to the racist pain they experience? Or can “black racism” serve as a temporary indicator of all racism? Or is “black racism” an unavoidable focus for our time, lest the momentum be lost?</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Now that we are seriously beginning to face up to racism, is it helpful to realize that what we see in racism is a broader phenomenon than discrimination focused on someone’s race? Are trans people less vulnerable to painful discrimination because the police cannot spot them? Is it easier to be a lesbian than being black? Is racism not a specific manifestation of a deeper problem with a greater scope, namely discrimination focused on a dimension of who a person unavoidably is beyond that person’s ability to change? Is the average white male God’s norm for being human?</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I believe these issue are more important than we customarily think. So I take it to be part and parcel of the second issue I wish to raise: is ICS just the kind of institution suitable to investigate in a practically relevant way what racism really is? Could that be as important as studying black authors or appointing black faculty? Dean emphatically challenges ICS by asking about the significance of our work: "not as a byproduct of themes or ideas we study, but <i>directly</i>?" The question is important beyond its rhetorical effects in a blog. Just what does "directly" mean? What does it mean for an institution like ICS?</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I do not foresee my continuing participation in this blog. I deeply regret this. Doing so would add to the meaning of the last months of my life. ICS has always meant to me the kind of institution characterized by blogs like Dean’s. So I am grateful that after almost 55 years, the existential engagement with the key issues of our times remains.</span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://faculty.icscanada.edu/hhart">Hendrik "Henk" Hart</a> was the first Senior Member at the <a href="http://www.icscanada.edu/">Institute for Christian Studies</a>, where he taught from its founding in 1967 until his retirement in 2001. Over the course of his career, Henk has explored such themes as, among others, the relationship between reason and faith, what the call to do justice means for Christians, and how the Bible might be read for the sake of wisdom in God's world.</span></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><div style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: center;">- - - - -</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div></span></div><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: small;"><b><i>*Editorial Note, cont. from <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2020/08/we-christians-or-our-racist-christian.html" target="_blank">previous post</a></i><br /></b><br /><i>Since our last post, Henk has graciously expanded upon ICS's engagement with colleagues in South Africa, as well as his own experiences and time spent in South Africa during the apartheid era. The following note stems from a conversation with Henk on the topic.</i></span></div><div><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: small;"><i>Henk locates the beginnings of ICS's engagement with issues of apartheid in the controversial visit of </i></span><i style="color: #666666;">pro-apartheid philosopher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendrik_G._Stoker" target="_blank">Hendrik Stoker</a></i><i style="color: #666666;"> to ICS in 1973. After this visit, Stoker encouraged Henk to visit South Africa for himself, which Henk and his wife Anita then did. Henk arranged a multi-week tour of the country through official South African government channels, and a parallel tour was privately arranged for him by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyers_Naud%C3%A9" target="_blank">C.F. Beyers Naud</a></i><i><span style="color: #666666;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyers_Naud%C3%A9" target="_blank">é</a></span></i><i><span style="color: #666666;">. The goal of the government's tour was to propagandize the apartheid government, while the tour Naud</span></i><i><span style="color: #666666;">é</span></i><i><span style="color: #666666;"> arranged put Henk into direct contact with some Black South African communities and took Henk around to various universities.</span></i></div><div><i style="color: #666666;"> </i></div><div><span face="" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: small;"><i>Henk describes then first becoming aware of t</i></span><i style="color: #666666;">he radically different narratives between the two tours, as well as the differences between the pro-apartheid government spokespeople and Afrikaner Calvinist universities, and </i><i style="color: #666666;">the Black communities into which</i><span style="color: #666666;"><i> Henk was invited. So again in 1975, Henk returned to South Africa to spend a year's sabbatical there. Issue <a href="https://ir.icscanada.edu/handle/10756/277669" target="_blank">9.3 (1975) of </a></i><a href="https://ir.icscanada.edu/handle/10756/277669" target="_blank">Perspective</a><i> details the then-upcoming trip, and issue <a href="https://ir.icscanada.edu/handle/10756/277660" target="_blank">10.6 (1976) </a></i><a href="https://ir.icscanada.edu/handle/10756/277660" target="_blank"><i>of </i>Perspective</a><i> provides a post-sabbatical account of his journey. </i></span></div><span style="color: #666666;"><br /><i>Henk's time in South Africa deeply informed his later work--especially his thought on justice. While lecturing, preaching, and visiting all over the country, he wrote the manuscript for what would become the book </i><a href="https://ics.insigniails.com/Library/ItemDetail?l=0001&i=23789&ti=0" target="_blank">Understanding Our World: An Integral Ontology</a><i>. Upon his return to Toronto, he also delivered the lecture entitled "The Just Shall Live," at the Conference on Calvinism and Racism at Calvin College (now University) in 1985. Out of this conference, </i><a href="https://calvin.edu/contentAsset/raw-data/be862943-3ab5-44ef-a2d1-f2110d5df1a0/fullTextPdf" target="_blank"><i>Calvin adopted</i></a><i> its "Comprehensive Plan for Integrating North American Ethnic Minority Persons and Their Interests into Every Facet of Calvin's Institutional Life" (which continues to inform its institutional <a href="https://calvin.edu/news/archive/calvin-hosts-conversation-about-race-faith-and-justice" target="_blank">actions</a> and goals <a href="https://calvin.edu/about/diversity-inclusion/commitment/" target="_blank">today</a>), and Henk went on to publish that lecture in the journal </i>Catalyst <i>and </i>Christian Scholar's Review<i>. </i><br /><br /><i>Henk suggests (as he does in this post) that other ICS Senior Members' wrestlings with racism throughout the years have often taken shape under the broader topic of justice, wherein issues of racism are considered specific examples of a larger/systemic problem. While many of our Senior Members' reflections on these issues have made their way into published forms like books and articles, many (like Henk's) were also delivered as addresses on speaking tours across Canada and the U.S., sermons in local churches, or academic symposia, and are no longer (or, at least, not easily) accessible today. </i><br /></span><br /><br /><div><span face="" style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div><i style="color: #666666; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br /></i></div>
</div>admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-77820636429528239182020-08-17T09:47:00.004-04:002020-09-09T15:05:29.684-04:00We Christians, or Our Racist Christian World<div style="text-align: right;">
by Dean Dettloff</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This post is part of the series <i><a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/uprooting-racism.html">Uprooting Racism</a>.</i></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: 12pt; text-align: left; white-space: pre-wrap;">[T]he principles governing the rites and customs of the churches in which I grew up did not differ from the principles of other churches, white. The principles were Blindness, Loneliness, and Terror, the first principle necessarily and actively cultivated in order to deny the two others. I would love to believe that the principles were Faith, Hope, and Charity, but this is clearly not so for most Christians, or for what we call the Christian world.</span></div><span id="docs-internal-guid-4b13dda4-7fff-8745-32f8-4dd65a9e4a4c"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ef81359e-7fff-8485-b284-7f12bca6fd3f"><br /></span><span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- James Baldwin, “</span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/11/17/letter-from-a-region-in-my-mind" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Letter From a Region in My Mind</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”</span></p></span><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;">- - - - -</div><span id="docs-internal-guid-234f88b4-7fff-f144-2f7e-72bcd7059ca5"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We tend to think of our world today as a “secular” one, whatever we might mean by that term. James Baldwin, however, one of the most incisive writers on race in the United States, calls to mind the ways in which Christianity shapes our political and racialized order. Christianity is not, Baldwin suggests, simply a private affair, something one either believes or disbelieves; it has a collective, formative power. Baldwin’s conclusions about that power are difficult to hear, but not for that reason untrue. On the contrary, Baldwin describes a Christian pattern of behavior that continues to shape our world today, and one we have to understand if we want to change it. Let me illustrate the point with a recent example.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On June 1st, protesters and clergy demonstrating as part of the ongoing wave of the Black Lives Matter movement were </span><a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/01/867532070/trumps-unannounced-church-visit-angers-church-officials" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tear gassed</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> out of St. John’s Church in Washington. The crowd was there peacefully and legally, and with the support of the church. Police nevertheless cleared the protesters with a chemical weapon for a photo opportunity, in which Donald Trump brandished a Bible using the church as a backdrop, holding the text without comment, wielding the Scriptures like a talisman to invoke the moral authority and continuity of the Christian world against the rabble of a movement for racial justice. The fact that other Christians on the side of racial justice were removed for this display is a testament to the ambiguities of Christianity, but their removal also highlights the material power of Christianity as a defender of racist order, in this case exerted by the highest office of the most powerful country on the planet. Trump’s exhibition of the Bible is a striking illustration of Baldwin’s formula, that the Christian world effectively cultivates a willful blindness, used to deny the loneliness and terror that surround us. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Christian world</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This phrase appears throughout Baldwin’s work in essays, novels, and interviews, always in the context of an indictment. In </span><a href="http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/03/29/specials/baldwin-antisem.html" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">another essay</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Baldwin, says that the feeling of oppression among black people toward America is ignored as “</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the Christian world has been misled by its own rhetoric and narcoticized by its own power.” The phrase is especially biting in a conversation with Margaret Mead:</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></p><blockquote>“I don’t understand at all what the white man’s religion means to him. I know what the white man’s religion has done to me. And so, I could—can—accuse the white Christian world of being nothing but a tissue of lies, nothing but an excuse for power, as being as removed as anything can possibly be from any sense of worship and, still more, from any sense of love. I cannot understand that religion.”</blockquote></span><p></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The precise contours of the Christian world, sometimes qualified as white, are not clearly drawn, at least not in Baldwin’s writing. But as I read the phrase, even as a white Christian, I think I have a sense of what Baldwin means. The Christian world is not only the world I encounter in homilies or church coffee hour, although it entails that. It is not the initial phases of colonial Christendom, built on indigenous genocide and racialized slavery under the sign of the cross, although it clearly descends from that. The Christian world is, rather, a social imaginary that funds the political arrangement in countries like the United States and Canada. These are countries founded by Christians and sustained still today, in some ways explicitly and in many ways subtly, by Christian practices and assumptions, all undergirded by an abiding, historically constitutive, antiblack racism. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Among thoughtful Christians who know that the biblical God is a God of justice, it is an easy thing to rush to condemn the basest, most obviously evil expressions of Christianity, and to say </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Christians are not like </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">those </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Christians. We Christians, who have read the biblical prophets, who know God cares for the poor, who talk about “the marginalized,” who study the humbling trends of postmodernism or pragmatism or feminism—</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Christians know better. That may be the world that some powerful Christians have built, but it is not the Christian world that we want to build, nor is it the world that we think God wants to build. Perhaps we even find ourselves saying “I cannot understand that religion.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet, have we Christians—a group in which I am included—really reckoned with our own contribution to the Christian world that Baldwin accuses?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">***</span></span></p><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am a product of Christian pedagogy. Soon I will finish a PhD in philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, and I have over a decade of post-high school education exclusively at Christian schools. To get to this stage, I have had to learn an immense variety of theories, put in hours of work to understand the minutiae of debates among idiosyncratic philosophical traditions, and spend hours more finding something to say about the people and ideas my education has required me to engage, all in curated Christian spaces, in small Christian worlds within the larger Christian world.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In all of these efforts, however, have I ever </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">had </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to study—really </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">study</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">—a black author? Did required reading ever make me buy a book by a black person? Institutionally, have I ever been accountable for knowing, representing, and struggling with the text of a black philosopher? Has a grade or a paper or a class presentation ever hinged on demonstrating a close knowledge of a black theorist or the conversations and disagreements among black theorists? Even in those few times I recall when a black author briefly appeared on a syllabus, was I forced to learn from and dialogue with that author with the same focus and rigor demanded of me when discussing Foucault, Kristeva, Rorty, Irigaray, Habermas, or a host of other white theorists? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the answer to any of these questions is “yes,” I can’t remember; and in my Christian education, I have had no academic pressure to remember.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #3d85c6; font-size: x-large;">***</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When Baldwin names blindness as a key principle of the Christian world, we might quickly think of obstinate conservatives who live in intentional denial when it comes to the realities of racism in our society. But this reflex is an incredible mechanism for racism’s reproduction, for it diverts our attention and ensures that we are unable to see our own contributions to the production of a racist, Christian world. Instead, if one can take a sober moment in our narcotic state, Baldwin poses a question directed squarely at us: what kind of world is it that </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Christians are inheriting and making?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In my own case, if I were to judge solely based on my academic curriculum, from my undergraduate years to the near-end of my Christian education, I inhabit a world almost completely without black people. A classroom and an education are more than assigned texts, to be sure, but the demographics of my colleagues and the pedagogy that takes place in hallways or over meals do not counterbalance or exonerate scores of syllabi. Whatever discussions I have had or heard about a black theorist, like Cornel West, or racial injustice, like the murder of black people by police, have not had a recursive effect on the formal architecture of my education. As W. E. B. Du Bois writes in his essay “The Souls of White Folk,” “How easy, then, by emphasis and omission to make children believe...that every great thought the world ever knew was a white man’s thought…” How easy to do with adults, too.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know that my philosophy and theology teachers have not gone out of their way to ignore black theorists on their syllabi, and I can say with confidence that my teachers have instilled in me a genuine concern for justice, hospitality, and solidarity. Their teaching led me to begin my own struggles into studying and working to dismantle the racist systems that have shaped me and the world I inhabit. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But this is precisely what is so troubling about racism—that otherwise intelligent, thoughtful, and responsible people nevertheless exist in and as part of a society that endangers other people’s lives. Racism and white supremacy are not reducible to personal opinions or intentional prejudices, but are structural and political problems with long, winding genealogies. Deeply embedded, these structures continue to shape us and our institutions with or without our conscious participation. So often, it is our unconscious participation that guarantees racism’s staying power, since those of us who think of ourselves as “good,” “kind,” “educated,” “Other-oriented,” or “on the side of justice” can be easily blinded by these self-perceived attributes, trusting that we are on the right path without coming to terms with the fact that the path itself may be part of the problem.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When it comes to our own institution, the Institute for Christian Studies, it might be tempting to assume the root issue of our antiblack racism is a lack of representation, which would be solved by including black theorists on our syllabi. We certainly should include other voices in a way that is meaningful and not tokenizing. The problem of racism, however, of </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">our </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Christian racism, is deeper. More than recognizing our representation patterns, we have to ask </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">why </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">an institution like ICS, even while it does not have an exclusively white student body, staff, or alumni community, dialogues almost singularly with white thinkers, and why it is unable to consider its racism on its own without the intervention of a massive social movement. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We have to inquire, in other words, into the whiteness, antiblackness, and racism of </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">our </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Christian world, by which I mean both the confessionally Christian pedagogical world of ICS specifically and the Christian world in which ICS is situated generally. We have to inquire into the mediations between the wider Christian world Baldwin interrogates and our own niche within it. The Christian world </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">we </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have built, no matter how many important essays it has produced about hospitality, the Other, relativity, obligation, justice, or many other truly good words, is one that is nevertheless blind to racism—and more, one that therefore reproduces racism. Addressing our racism, to put it another way, would mean not only registering our blindness, but recognizing, as Baldwin does, how this blindness enables loneliness and terror, how it participates in the building of a whole racist world. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To make the stakes clear, the problems black people face in Canada and the United States are not simply matters of inclusion, and the challenges for white people, like me, are not simply matters of checking our privilege or becoming better listeners; these are </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/07/anti-racism-checking-privilege-anti-blackness" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">matters of literal life and death</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Racism is more than bad opinions or failing to meet the best practices of diversity trainings. Racism, as Ruth Wilson Gilmore explains in her book </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Golden Gulag</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, is “</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the state-sanctioned and/or extralegal production and exploitation of group-differentiated vulnerability to premature death.” </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Considered in this way, we might ask: What is ICS doing or not doing that provides support or cover for a racial regime that produces and abuses foreshortened lifespans? What are we doing to oppose this regime, not as a byproduct of themes or ideas we study, but </span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">directly</span><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">? What precedents are there in our community for addressing structural racism? How and why have we failed to make the struggle against racism an enduring feature of our work for justice? How have the reformational tradition and Dutch Calvinism contributed not only to the racist horrors of apartheid South Africa, but to the racist horrors of Canada and the US? As Angela Davis famously put it, “in a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.”</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What I have always appreciated about ICS, what drew me to ICS, is its commitment to trenchant criticism </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Christianity from </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">within </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as part of </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the Christian community. ICS has been so committed to this criticism that it has historically been a liability, as Senior Members questioned the homophobia, patriarchy, and assimilationist tendencies of Christianity and the Reformed tradition. ICS also carries a spirit of activism, which blurs the boundaries between theory in the ivory tower and work in the trenches and refuses a clean break between ideas and practice. It is a spirit that led the first generations of ICS students to oppose the Vietnam War, led Senior Members to speak out against apartheid, and continues today in our research on refugees in Canada.<span style="color: #0b5394;">*</span></span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I take it that this spirit is also what motivates this blog series, and it gives me a fragile hope that ICS could, in fact, really engage the reality of antiblack and other forms of racism, internally and externally, with all the inevitable mistakes, failures, and difficult work that will mean. It is that spirit that might also help us to not only call into question, but</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> hasten the end</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of our racist Christian world, its ideas, habits, and brutalities, and our own contributions to it. Historically and ideologically, Christians have played a unique and outsized role in the construction of a racist society, so much so that black theologian </span><a href="https://christiansocialism.com/cedric-robinson-racial-order-christianity-socialism/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Amaryah Armstrong</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> urges us to see the “history of Christian order as the maintenance of racial order”; as Christians who dare to say the word “justice,” we have a responsibility to dismantle this order—starting with ourselves.</span></p><div><span><br /></span></div></span><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>
<a name='more'></a>
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-2964239b-7fff-2ad8-898b-4e5e8c5dd50b"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dean Dettloff is a Junior Member in the PhD program at the Institute for Christian Studies, where he researches media theory and religion. He is also the co-host, with Matt Bernico, of </span><a href="https://themagnificast.com" style="text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Magnificast</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a podcast about Christianity and leftist politics. You can find more of Dean’s work on his website </span><a href="https://deandettloff.com/writing/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-skip-ink: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://deandettloff.com/writing/</span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></span></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-style: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><span style="font-style: italic;"><!--more--></span><span style="font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: center;">- - - - -</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div></span></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>*Editorial Note </i><br /></b><br /><i>From the early 70s through the 90s, some ICS Senior Members engaged with the black consciousness and anti-apartheid movements in both the South African and North American contexts, especially through the lenses of philosophy, theology, and political theory. In an effort to provide a historically-informed starting point for our institutional reflection and to fill out the author's mention of past work done by ICS Senior Members on anti-apartheid efforts and race discourse, we will highlight the contribution of two particular Senior Members over the next couple weeks: Bernard Zylstra and Hendrik Hart (although Senior Members Paul Marshall and Jonathan Chaplin, ICS fellow Bob Goudzwaard, and ICS adjunct faculty Elaine Botha also engaged race issues).</i><br /><br /><i>ICS Senior Member in political theory (1967-85) and President (1978-85) </i><a href="https://www.allofliferedeemed.co.uk/zylstra.htm" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank"><b>Bernie Zylstra</b></a><i> conducted numerous in-person interviews with Bob Goudzwaard in South Africa in the early 70s. During one of these trips, Zylstra </i><a href="https://ir.icscanada.edu/handle/10756/277652" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">connected with Steve Biko</a><i>, founder of the Black Consciousness movement in South Africa, and interviewed him just months before Biko's murder while in police custody in 1977. This interview was published in an abbreviated format in </i>The Globe and Mail<i> upon news of Biko's death, and garnered international attention through a number of re-publications and fuller publication in journals like </i>The Canadian Forum<i>, </i>The Reformed Journal<i>, </i>Trouw<i>, and </i>Vanguard<i>. The </i>Globe and Mail <i>version of this interview can be accessed freely through many major Canadian </i><a href="https://login.ezproxy.torontopubliclibrary.ca/login?qurl=https://search.proquest.com%2f23fff32a-e04f-4f3b-a0f4-2fda05ee5f95" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">public library archives</a><i>, other of Zylstra's writing on racism and apartheid are listed on the site </i><a href="https://www.allofliferedeemed.co.uk/zylstra.htm" target="_blank">All of Life Redeemed</a><i> with much of it archived by </i><a href="https://archives.calvin.edu/?p=collections/controlcard&id=97" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Calvin University</a>. <a href="https://ir.icscanada.edu/handle/10756/348497" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Zylstra's continuing influence</a><i> can be seen especially in the work of those who followed his footsteps in the discipline of political theory. </i><br /><br /><i>ICS Senior Member in systematic philosophy (1967-2001) </i><a href="http://faculty.icscanada.edu/hhart" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank"><b>Henk Hart</b></a><i><b> </b>was also involved in anti-apartheid work in South Africa during this time, and he maintained (among other things) a close association with C.F. Beyers Naudé, South African civil rights worker and apartheid-era theologian. Further details about Henk's work and experiences in South Africa can be found in <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2020/09/surprises-in-racisms-scope-hart.html" target="_blank">the next post in this series</a>.</i><br /><br /><i>All this is not intended to rebuff the author's claims above, nor does it counter the predominant whiteness of our tradition. Rather this reinforces the point that it is necessary to ask—as the author does—why such work has not driven or featured more prominently in </i>current <i>ICS curricula, discussions, and projects; and why it has not prompted us to attend more closely to BIPOC voices</i> in our own day.<i> </i><br /><br /><i>Click here for other works by </i><a href="https://ics.insigniails.com/Library/AdvancedSearch?action=search&at=2688&p=1&ps=20&1=1&StrValue1=&StrToValue1=&SearchType1=t02Titles&MatchType1=Start%20With&MergeType1=0&StrValue2=zylstra&StrToValue2=&SearchType2=t02Authors&MatchType2=Start%20With&MergeType2=0&StrValue3=&StrToValue3=&SearchType3=t02Subjects&MatchType3=Any%20Match&MergeType3=0&SearchNums=1%7C2%7C3&ifs=0&st=t02Titles&c=c&Rating=0&HasRate=false&IsSelectAllLanguage=false&IsSelectAllMediumType=false&IsSelectAllAudience=true&IsSelectAllCurriculum=true&IsSelectAllCollection=false&StrLibraryID=0001&NewBooks=false&Available=false&instantName=advancedSearch&bySubmit=1" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Bernie Zylstra</a><i> and </i><a href="https://ics.insigniails.com/Library/AdvancedSearch?action=search&at=1875&p=1&ps=20&1=1&StrValue1=&StrToValue1=&SearchType1=t02Titles&MatchType1=Start%20With&MergeType1=0&StrValue2=hendrik%20hart&StrToValue2=&SearchType2=t02Authors&MatchType2=Start%20With&MergeType2=0&StrValue3=&StrToValue3=&SearchType3=t02Subjects&MatchType3=Any%20Match&MergeType3=0&SearchNums=1%7C2%7C3&ifs=0&st=t02Titles&c=c&Rating=0&HasRate=false&IsSelectAllLanguage=false&IsSelectAllMediumType=false&IsSelectAllAudience=true&IsSelectAllCurriculum=true&IsSelectAllCollection=false&StrLibraryID=0001&NewBooks=false&Available=false&instantName=advancedSearch&bySubmit=1" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Henk Hart</a><i> available through the ICS library.</i></span>
</div><div><i><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></i></div>admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-13407049489075937862020-08-10T15:29:00.000-04:002020-08-10T15:29:04.128-04:00Uprooting Racism: A Ground Motive Series<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuYsE3-dymT5OSO0l3HTtJogU35TZ_9W4D1AbNgk_cCdN0B-f_ucoisJQ1n3ZNT1463gpu7wRAkqcKuMAylhEx302Lgzi_C7PmVE8JFiW4K8n16RM1EEVUjUwENt4esr-XKgRxD8G__Xw/s1200/GM_UprootingRacismBanner.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="1200" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuYsE3-dymT5OSO0l3HTtJogU35TZ_9W4D1AbNgk_cCdN0B-f_ucoisJQ1n3ZNT1463gpu7wRAkqcKuMAylhEx302Lgzi_C7PmVE8JFiW4K8n16RM1EEVUjUwENt4esr-XKgRxD8G__Xw/w512-h170/GM_UprootingRacismBanner.png" width="512" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><h2 style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #0b5394;">Introduction</span></i></h2><div><br /></div>The killing of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis, which has launched countless protests and demonstrations in the U.S. and around the world, has made the conversation about systemic racism unavoidable. Much of the outrage surrounding Floyd’s death, however, is due to the fact that for many this conversation is not at all new. Calls for radical social and political change, such as the renewed and increasingly popular demand to defund police forces, highlight the tragedy of Floyd’s death as yet another representative of entrenched institutional racism, yet another horrific instance of the aggression, violence, and marginalization that Black and Indigenous persons and People of Colour (BIPOC) experience on a daily basis. It has become increasingly difficult as well for non-BIPOC persons to avoid confronting these realities, as the events of the past several weeks have helped to expose the ongoing presence of white supremacy and have forced white persons to address their own privilege and complicity in racist systems. And as a larger society we are seeing many of the familiar assumptions and thought-patterns that have guided our discussions of race and systemic injustice in the past crumble before our eyes: Must protest always be “nonviolent” in order to be legitimate? Is it really necessary to have a militarized police force? Is there a way out of this crisis within our current political systems?<div><br /></div><div>Here at <i>Ground Motive</i>, we want to bring these questions close to home for ourselves as members of the ICS community. As institutions and communities become aware of their participation in systemic racism, we would like to begin by recognizing the need to <i>lament </i>– in a biblical sense – our involvement in the systems that have victimized so many; to <i>listen </i>to the voices that continue to be marginalized and oppressed in our fields of study, academic circles, and communities; and to <i>imagine</i>, together with those voices, ways to effectively dismantle racism within our institution. Authentic engagement in this process entails reflecting on what it means for us to participate in antiracist efforts as Christian scholars and educators, acknowledging that the tradition that supports Christian educational institutions rests (at least in part) on colonialism, marginalization and oppression of minorities, slavery, and many other concrete outworkings of systemic racism. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is because of the tainted nature of our tradition that one of our most pressing challenges in engaging with the struggles of BIPOC communities is to look <i>within</i>, to acknowledge, assess, and address the ways in which we have benefited from and continue to perpetuate racism in our scholarly practice. In particular, as we embark on this process of self-examination and deep reflection on our practice, we must acknowledge:<br /><br /></div><div><ul><li>Our complicity, as a predominantly (although not exclusively) white and settler community, in systemic and institutional racism, as well as our privilege not to be subject to the oppressions experienced by BIPOC communities<br /><br /></li><li>Our responsibility to engage in the practice of thoughtful reflection on issues of systemic racism, injustice and marginalization, and to bring these issues to the forefront of our work as scholars<br /><br /></li><li>Our responsibility to create spaces for equal participation among diverse communities together with members of such communities, and to empower those voices that represent perspectives beyond our own <br /><br /></li><li>Our need to join others in dismantling the systems of racism in Canadian society and elsewhere.</li></ul><br />As a first step in our self-examination, we have created this <i>Ground Motive</i> series as a space for institutional reflection on the practice of philosophy and its bearings on racial inequality. In an effort to foster internal critical engagement, we will invite faculty, students, and other stakeholders to share their personal reflections on our institutional complicity with systemic racism in our practice. In an attempt to attune our ears to the struggle of BIPOC communities, we will invite people from those communities in the field of philosophy or in the context of Christian education, within and outside the ICS community, to contribute their own reflections. Finally, in an attempt to develop concrete outcomes to our reflections, we will invite some of our community partners who work in equity and diversity advocacy to suggest strategies and tools to translate our discussion into an action plan designed to assess and combat racism within ICS.</div><div><br /></div><div>We welcome your questions, thoughts, and reactions to these posts, and invite you to engage them with the spirit of respect and openness that has always characterized our learning community. As we struggle together through these issues, we hope to help build a more critically and socially-engaged ICS.</div><div><br /></div><div>Welcome to this <i>Ground Motive </i>series, <b>Uprooting Racism</b>.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">- by Andrew Tebbutt and Héctor Acero Ferrer, <i>Series Editors</i></div></div><div style="text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #0b5394;"><a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/uprooting-racism.html"><i>Follow along with this series here</i></a></span></h1><div><span style="color: #0b5394;"><br /></span></div></div>
admin1http://www.blogger.com/profile/16479743334126277132noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-79971790065076239982018-08-09T13:38:00.000-04:002018-08-09T13:38:39.785-04:00An ART in Orvieto Missive: Week 3, Sacred Recycling and Artistic Vocation<div style="text-align: right;">
by Julia de Boer</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYztDofs-3KfG-WvBob6hi1wYUtbqZrS0kO2twV37xgG5FegtEaVWqCFYvPr1tPJ2K5CmxwkpvTktlQLyfiNkutt81wV16szlCdc-SQokt3TlxMSvnMyKSa73bVRZ94FPtF8i8ZXSRpep9/s1600/1.+Gallery+night%252C+where+all+participants+shared+their+work+from+Orvieto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYztDofs-3KfG-WvBob6hi1wYUtbqZrS0kO2twV37xgG5FegtEaVWqCFYvPr1tPJ2K5CmxwkpvTktlQLyfiNkutt81wV16szlCdc-SQokt3TlxMSvnMyKSa73bVRZ94FPtF8i8ZXSRpep9/s400/1.+Gallery+night%252C+where+all+participants+shared+their+work+from+Orvieto.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gallery night, where all participants shared their work from Orvieto.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In our last week in Orvieto, we took a little "field trip." Instead of being in Rome, Florence, or Assisi, this one was within the city itself, just a short walk from the convent. It was arranged for our group to go below the church of San Andrea, to see the archaeological excavations that were going on underneath the floor of the present-day church.<br />
<br />
Human activity on top of this rock foundation dates back to at least the Bronze age, to some Italic peoples. Etruscan activity begins in the 7th century B.C.E. Our guide was able to show us the cobblestones of an Etruscan road and some home dwellings. After the Etruscans are brought under the long and forceful arm of Roman administration, the distinction between people groups begins to disappear and the Etruscans and their descendants intermingled with the Romans. What is clear, however, is that after they were Christianized they went to nearby Bolsena to avoid a Barbarian invasion, and then later returned to Orvieto and built a church on that site, making use of the Etruscan wells for their baptismal font and the stones of their homes for the church walls. The church at street level is the second one built on the site, the seat of the bishop before the Duomo was built a few hundred metres away. The blending of various people groups and religious traditions is significant, because the Christians who returned to Orvieto and built the font were related to the Etruscans who dug the wells initially.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHtMXGMNUkhL1RodvdrEcYAjis3W9kaW9YFGqNNwLsM685wPkR7zRiDMcHpHu6Ka11RenmD2WU43C73cwDf96nD9J9GhS1y_A53-fK_wzJAw6dqbCAu234ayEn5ntgVR2CoB9uzCubaxAx/s1600/2.+Decorations+from+the+first+Christian+church+built+on+this+site%252C+above+Etruscan+homes+and+roads.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHtMXGMNUkhL1RodvdrEcYAjis3W9kaW9YFGqNNwLsM685wPkR7zRiDMcHpHu6Ka11RenmD2WU43C73cwDf96nD9J9GhS1y_A53-fK_wzJAw6dqbCAu234ayEn5ntgVR2CoB9uzCubaxAx/s400/2.+Decorations+from+the+first+Christian+church+built+on+this+site%252C+above+Etruscan+homes+and+roads.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Decorations from the first Christian church built on this site, <br />
above Etruscan homes and roads</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
It felt to me like a physical hermeneutic spiral, going around and coming back at the problems of life with fresh insight. Or like an ambitious recycling project, reusing bits of mosaics from pagan temples in Rome to decorate around the altar.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
It is interesting to consider the future potential for Christian art within the city of Orvieto (and the Italian context in general). With so much famous and genre-setting art inside these churches, what place do artists have today? As conservation gets better and better, the need for fresco painters is for restoration and not innovation. Am I advocating for painting over priceless, Holy-Spirit inspired works of art? Not really, or… maybe, since there is something stirring about the idea that faithful Christians will be needed throughout time to add to the history of a single building in a way that is not "merely" mimetic. There are a few new frescoes in San Francesco, Assisi, and a beautiful new baptismal fount in Orvieto’s San Andrea that show a continuation of expertise and artisan craftiness. This current baptismal font functions as a time-machine, once one has learned about the recycling of Etruscan wells for this new Christian sacrament. All of the interactions of space and time, people and place, are recalled by this one liturgical object. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizHwGEkFuyHaQnlcyxyxuZACsO0-p5Ed3-q776YW8KvzlXknVhtp2cpvLlVcYgFWWmW0wv1kQfcjQt-vqXK36Kfux6wk6RrpTAB-SESdBMAr4Yj87BnAIsJl9eEZBp2NIY4oh-Ym611o32/s1600/3.+Covering+over+an+Etruscan+well%252C+later+used+as+a+baptismal+font+in+the+church+built+on+top.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizHwGEkFuyHaQnlcyxyxuZACsO0-p5Ed3-q776YW8KvzlXknVhtp2cpvLlVcYgFWWmW0wv1kQfcjQt-vqXK36Kfux6wk6RrpTAB-SESdBMAr4Yj87BnAIsJl9eEZBp2NIY4oh-Ym611o32/s400/3.+Covering+over+an+Etruscan+well%252C+later+used+as+a+baptismal+font+in+the+church+built+on+top.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Covering over an Etruscan well, <br />
later used as a baptismal font in the church built on top</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The question then evolves: “What would Christian art be like in Italy in contexts other than the church?” This is not really about religious images that are no longer in context, but the possibility for religiously suggestive art to partake in other societal contexts. It is an investigation of how persons of faith in Italy, with the co-extensiveness of the Catholic church, are participating in art-making communities that are not parish related.<br />
<br />
In North America, where the idealization of parish life is relaxed or non-existent, it is more necessary to imagine contexts which are pluralistic or secular. Some of the post-modern philosophers we discussed during this course (Richard Kearney, Charles Taylor, Nicholas Wolterstorff, et al.) expressed a deep optimism that art could have a transcendent, ecumenical, good-news-sharing capacity within secular and pluralistic communities, not something to be feared but embraced and celebrated for its evolving character and sensitivity to the dangers of modernist meta-narratives. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivm7H6sMMA_xRCMTVBpNoMzw0QAmINE5Ezsl8t12sUUaRLUapFgC6L_315WWcTdc_3ynVS1YfHHLIfDzfIw31PAqdvHptXWYR_6wp_KM90RygBaawIIpZlqq9njgVq9GN63rci57o85OQS/s1600/4.+The+newest+baptismal+font+in+San+Andrea%252C+Orvieto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivm7H6sMMA_xRCMTVBpNoMzw0QAmINE5Ezsl8t12sUUaRLUapFgC6L_315WWcTdc_3ynVS1YfHHLIfDzfIw31PAqdvHptXWYR_6wp_KM90RygBaawIIpZlqq9njgVq9GN63rci57o85OQS/s320/4.+The+newest+baptismal+font+in+San+Andrea%252C+Orvieto.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The newest baptismal font in San Andrea, Orvieto</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Theodor Adorno, whose work we also briefly addressed, explicitly denied the possibility of religious art that was not propogandistic, or tied to a hierarchical religious institution or hegemonic truth paradigm. All the artists on our course were bound to disagree with him; of course we want to hold out for the possibility of religious art which is not mere propoganda. However, examining Adorno’s work in the context of the Second World War was powerful in helping to elucidate why expanding the work of the artist from the church alone to all other spheres of life was attentive both to the abuses of power from which Christians should hope to remove themselves and perhaps the movements of the Spirit.<br />
<br />
It is impossible to distill this class down to a single nugget of wisdom, because the contexts to which our students will return are so diverse. In the way that the discussion of religious art has similar and dissimilar vectors to the discussion in Toronto because of their seperate histories and their relationships to institutional religious practice, so it differs again in the lives of each of our participants, returning home to other countries and cities. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAl5CjU4yWI_IQ7QYEP6i1TlWZjPNRUuvzHHBea3fOiH2703idiSycZCeRxxJoOf16xHlTo8mIb95GyBocpGAGR1GRuoAa4KNgPUpXxZWazGGjvjzPAbP8nPEeb-xB1HM7NZhYIYSJKJCB/s1600/5.+The+vividly+coloured+ceilings+in+San+Andrea%252C+Orvieto.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAl5CjU4yWI_IQ7QYEP6i1TlWZjPNRUuvzHHBea3fOiH2703idiSycZCeRxxJoOf16xHlTo8mIb95GyBocpGAGR1GRuoAa4KNgPUpXxZWazGGjvjzPAbP8nPEeb-xB1HM7NZhYIYSJKJCB/s320/5.+The+vividly+coloured+ceilings+in+San+Andrea%252C+Orvieto.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The vividly coloured ceilings in San Andrea, Orvieto</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Personally, I came away again this year with a profound sense of gratitude, a thankfulness that there could be such differently abled and talented artists and scholars returning to their lives, jobs, teaching positions, and studios after this shared experience of mind and creativity together in Italy. Having met these artists and those last year, heard their stories, and felt their enthusiasm for the subject, I feel such a certainty that Christians can and will continue to make art suggestive of faith and transcendence.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">
Julia de Boer is a PhD student at ICS and assistant to Dr. Smick in Orvieto, studying philosophical aesthetics and linguistics. Orvieto had a special place in her heart, even before she went on the ART in Orvieto course the first time, and she continues to fall deeper in love with this city on every sequential visit. Photos by Julia de Boer.</div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-62026417223417437992018-08-02T13:31:00.001-04:002018-08-02T13:31:42.040-04:00An ART in Orvieto Missive: Week 2, Part 2, Chasing Grace through Art History<div style="text-align: right;">
by Julia de Boer</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiftRsDpd2KWcwnAVgybwgJHqD6pC7H1GGes6epzRNr3sM1QFW1sx1DQTzpkdFOl1WGFhsx2rT3KhghM5utEOPTpFF1c2QWjpXLpFppMAON1fy5HgHKBV28GTsDBf5LCAxUhF7NQXDTp4HW/s1600/1.+Basilica+Papale+di+San+Francesco%252C+Assisi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiftRsDpd2KWcwnAVgybwgJHqD6pC7H1GGes6epzRNr3sM1QFW1sx1DQTzpkdFOl1WGFhsx2rT3KhghM5utEOPTpFF1c2QWjpXLpFppMAON1fy5HgHKBV28GTsDBf5LCAxUhF7NQXDTp4HW/s320/1.+Basilica+Papale+di+San+Francesco%252C+Assisi.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Basilica Papale di San Francesco, Assisi</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
This week, the temporal proximity of two of our day trips provided our students with a study in contrasts. There are three day trips incorporated in the three-week ART in Orvieto program, these two being proceeded by a sojourn in Rome. This year, our Assisi and Florence trips happened on the Wednesday and Friday of the same week, in distinction to last year (when they were a week apart).<br />
<br />
The Assisi trip is the first of the two for the simple fact that works Dr. Smick highlights in Assisi are older than those which are our foci in Florence. One of our course readings, a selection from Giorgio Vasari’s <i>Lives of the Artists</i>, shows the significance of each city’s treasured works within Italian art history. Vasari is included in our syllabus not just for this biographical content, but for his philosophical content; because historical writing is never uncontextual and a reader may see emerge from Vasari’s biography a dedication to certain aesthetic concepts, particularly an interest in the idea that some art discloses a sort of "grace" or "gracefulness." And consequently, that some art does <i>not</i>. <br />
<br />
Our day in Assisi was as much a contemplative’s journey as it was an art history field trip. Before leaving, many of the students had read selections of Bonaventure’s hagiography on St. Francis, and we paused throughtout the day to re-read some of those passages and some Franciscan prayers at each of the sites. Besides bringing a real spiritual warmth to our day, this had the added benefit of highlighting the interactions between literature and image in the early middle ages. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXVHs6p3zMdRSJMyISR-Z6pCaCQFpwKLEH8k755jE8a4byGctdQ3wWDlZPu8IUmmqYbRMF_Ir7YjREAaqE14UJvhGfO6cIxsypv7s0GJ_cAdUo8ryAT-S1DgXE9IigtYjkQt06bm5J2mDY/s1600/2.+The+Hermitage+of+St.+Francis%252C+Assisi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXVHs6p3zMdRSJMyISR-Z6pCaCQFpwKLEH8k755jE8a4byGctdQ3wWDlZPu8IUmmqYbRMF_Ir7YjREAaqE14UJvhGfO6cIxsypv7s0GJ_cAdUo8ryAT-S1DgXE9IigtYjkQt06bm5J2mDY/s400/2.+The+Hermitage+of+St.+Francis%252C+Assisi.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Hermitage of St. Francis, Assisi</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
We started our day at San Damiano, the crumbling monastery where St. Francis received a divine message to rebuild the Church, starting from those very ruins and continuing outwards. Francis eventually gave the monastery to St. Clare, and it became the first home of the order of Poor Clares, the sister order of Franciscan nuns. Next we saw the Basilica di Santa Chiara, the church built in her honour and housing the belovèd San Damiano cross. Even before lunch time we made it up to the hermitage of St. Francis and his brothers, then picnicking while overlooking the valley that Francis himself observed in his many months of isolated contemplation.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
From there, our itinerary took us to the Basilica Papale di San Francesco. The Bonaventure readings became especially important here, since the fresco cycle in the Basilica <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Saint_Francis_cycle_in_the_Upper_Church_of_San_Francesco_at_Assisi">depicting the life of St. Francis</a> (attributed in Vasari’s time to Giotto) is drawn directly from Bonaventure’s description, so that one may read a page or two in front of each fresco and see how all the description was transliterated into painting. The Assisi trip is so full of gracefulness and contemplation, and so steeped in a type of patient, calm spirituality, that we were fully prepared to be startled by the rhetorical overtures of Vasari’s commentaries.<br />
<br />
Vasari’s contention was that artists like Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo, and Titian had managed to capture a certain divine <i>je ne sais quoi</i> in their art that previous Italian artists had not managed, in no small part because they had access to recently uncovered Greek and Rome sculpture (Michelangelo even being present at the disinterring of some pieces). Of the artists who immediately proceeded this titanic group of painters he says “The distinguised artists described in the second part of these lives made an important contribution to architecture, sculpture, and painting, adding to what had been acheived by those of the first period the qualities of good rule, order, proportion, design and style. Their work was in many ways imperfect, but they showed the way to the artists of the third period and made it possible for them, by following and improving on their example, to reach the perfection evident in the finest and most celebrated modern works” (Preface to Part Three). How convenient for Vasari that all the best artists were of his own day!<br />
<br />
Conversely, Vasari says of Giotto: “Now the work of Giotto and the other early craftsmen did not possess these qualities, although they did discover the right principles for solving artistic problems and they applied them as best they could. Their drawing, for example, was more correct and truer to nature than anything before…they in turn fell short of complete perfection, since their work lacked that spontaneity, which, although based on correct measurement, goes beyond it without conflicting with order and stylistic purity” (ibid.).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcX2DlpkK_-Ep6V_08wd-y2bCrbp_KTlZ_BvTJcJUpMTgItxJxgVT7vG7JdplONLwh_JjWoR9axZjVmBDFMnmOTnSMDfODsbGYlB5PgsmmjuznVsKo6M5Ss4wl6v7tQCXjbahLPvoKp6PD/s1600/3.+A+_Non+Finiti_+of+Michelangelo%252C+at+The+Academy+of+Florence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcX2DlpkK_-Ep6V_08wd-y2bCrbp_KTlZ_BvTJcJUpMTgItxJxgVT7vG7JdplONLwh_JjWoR9axZjVmBDFMnmOTnSMDfODsbGYlB5PgsmmjuznVsKo6M5Ss4wl6v7tQCXjbahLPvoKp6PD/s400/3.+A+_Non+Finiti_+of+Michelangelo%252C+at+The+Academy+of+Florence.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A "Non Finiti" of Michelangelo, at the Academy of Florence</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
The trip to Florence is when students get to see some of the works which number among Vasari’s "A-list." A stop at the Academy provided the chance to see, in addition to the David, some of Michelangelo’s Non Finiti, the unfinished carvings he began for Pope Julius II’s tomb. “But the man whose work transcends and eclipses that of every other artist, living or dead, is the inspire Michelangelo Buonarroti, who is supreme not in one art alone but in all three” (ibid.). There is an undeniable breathiness to them, that spontaneity of form and motion which Vasari considered lacking in Giotto and other "craftsmen." In Florence, among other sites, students saw the San Marco Monastery (chock-a-block with stunning Fra Angelico frescoes) and the private Magi chapel in the Medici palace. These pieces set up the median between Giotto and Michelangelo, in the mind of Vasari at least. Michelangelo’s genius was that his "design, artistry, judgement, and grace," (ibid.) came with ease. But any cursoury examination of Michelangelo’s life or writing show the torturedness which really followed his creations, the pressure he felt to produce art with such liveliness, and the existential disappointment he felt when he considered that he had failed.<br />
<br />
Besides the problematics of setting up art history as a continuum toward ever greater works, there are two things which much be accounted for: the gracefulness present in Giotto’s work despite Vasari’s lackluster review, and the identifiable but nearly intangible "something" that he correctly sees in Michelangelo. It seems that both these things might be better accounted for with phenomenonological experience, or at least that the theory might be found nestled there. The two times which I have followed this itinerary around Assisi (I lean here on the full Latinate sense of "journey-ing" rather than merely hitting points of interest) have served to bring a sense of humility and sacredness of place that is recognizable by even the most Stoic or Protestant corners of my heart. Giotto’s frescoes, albeit with less naturalism than later Italian painters of Vasarian approval, have a piety which seems appropriate to the life of Francis. I hesitate to affirm that simply replacing Leonardo or Titian as painter for Giotto would increase the "grace" of the space. There is a gesturing toward the Beyond, especially in the image of Francis’ Stigmata, which is not collapsable to it being a represent ion of a sacred moment in narrative form. The story alone is not what moves, but its portrayal by Giotto specifically. There is a sense of divine light moving between the surprised and delighted Francis and the six-winged angel who delivers nail marks to his hands and feet. Giotto’s individual style contributes to the grace present in the work, he does not merely record Bonaventure as perfunctorily as possible and then dust off his hands. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirNAm_fQKhHNZiqvm9VMaI-CCQvymVijRsdwvbOKZYLFhUkQyFbt7LxmZLuOiI5qRD5T7kiBez9fJEh5H1GmVMnFNJOQbulpFfD_ew87oxTO-FXjGIa8hRj8GaeCo-W91kiJXdIR1vftCa/s1600/4.+A+Fra+Angelico+fresco+at+San+Marco%252C+Florence.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirNAm_fQKhHNZiqvm9VMaI-CCQvymVijRsdwvbOKZYLFhUkQyFbt7LxmZLuOiI5qRD5T7kiBez9fJEh5H1GmVMnFNJOQbulpFfD_ew87oxTO-FXjGIa8hRj8GaeCo-W91kiJXdIR1vftCa/s400/4.+A+Fra+Angelico+fresco+at+San+Marco%252C+Florence.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Fra Angelico fresco at San Marco, Florence</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Similarly, much of the literature that we’ve taken up in class over these three weeks seems to deal with the idea of whether art can be religious because God drops inspiration into the hands and minds of artists, or because those artists are created in the image of God and subsequently create works that are transcendent. We’ve come to affirm both as true, through examples as diverse as Orthodox icon writing (God writes through human hands so inventiveness or novelty is not needed) and Michelangelo being convinced that a form was ordained for each piece of marble but that he alone was responsible for bringing it into being. Indeed, his Non Finiti jump to be released from their stone, a more willing Galatea to his Pygmalion chisel perhaps because God-as-first-creator is acknowledged in his process.<br />
<br />
The ART in Orvieto program of 2018 is in its final week. Expect a final reflection soon! Joyfully, learning about this <i>je ne sais quoi</i> gracefulness in philosophical aesthetics can continue back home; Dr. Smick will teach a class entitled “<a href="http://courses.icscanada.edu/2018/07/grace-as-aesthetic-concept.html">Grace as an Aesthetic Concept</a>” in Toronto, Fall 2018. <br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">
Julia de Boer is a PhD student at ICS and assistant to Dr. Smick in Orvieto, studying philosophical aesthetics and linguistics. Orvieto had a special place in her heart, even before she went on the ART in Orvieto course the first time, and she continues to fall deeper in love with this city on every sequential visit. Photos by Julia de Boer.</div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-80024262630759339902018-07-27T09:00:00.000-04:002018-07-27T09:00:03.138-04:00An ART in Orvieto Missive: Week 2 Part 1, Visit to the San Brizio Chapel<div style="text-align: right;">
by Julia de Boer</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Week 2 of the ART in Orvieto program has been very travel-heavy, visiting Assisi and Florence in addition to an educational jaunt to the San Brizio chapel inside of Orvieto’s Duomo di Santa Maria Assunta, so this report comes to you in two parts. Read the report on week 1 in Orvieto <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2018/07/an-art-in-orvieto-missive-week-1.html">here</a>.</i><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-nPkIDddJLBBiSzpjpxOGngDakGKRuo_pk_KMSEhO9AdrT9OUGcqgtSsHkODcTYim5Sl2Os0EjCybkulo3yUYvtPK8S8uhIeYabMHkjifKCBbRVJ9PFCgVk64R8yw9ZIP4hZKLRSdK_hY/s1600/Entrance+to+chapel%252C+looking+outward.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-nPkIDddJLBBiSzpjpxOGngDakGKRuo_pk_KMSEhO9AdrT9OUGcqgtSsHkODcTYim5Sl2Os0EjCybkulo3yUYvtPK8S8uhIeYabMHkjifKCBbRVJ9PFCgVk64R8yw9ZIP4hZKLRSdK_hY/s400/Entrance+to+chapel%252C+looking+outward.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Entrance to chapel, looking outward.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
A visit to this 15th century chapel illustrates the usefulness of taking in medieval sites while philosophizing about religious art in the 21st century. Dr. Rebekah Smick, progenitor of the <a href="http://www.icscanada.edu/art_in_orvieto">ART in Orvieto</a> program, has been teaching about the philosophical historiography surrounding the concepts of "image," "symbol," and "metaphor," how the current discourse around artistic activity in our current time is shaped by the thought of previous generations of philosophers.<br />
<br />
Her course serves to illustrate that current philosophical work on aesthetics did not emerge from a vacuum, but that it instead is the legacy of thinkers within and beyond the Christian and western canons. Do you want to understand why religious imagery is not valued in the institutional "art world" today? You will need to spend some time in the literature of philosophical and theological aesthetics to learn that story.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8ipSz5haPB9S1wzWb-TmrFooHx_Sd75XjXClrSUjvVcqg4GqlM9GD76OjJoSunH3qtheSKCe-f5QaQpCcaIIE27jxec0zFf37-1w6b-U-7ru8o_yg8eI1_HvO592LCT28VSR-81_4eex/s1600/Dr.+Skillen+encouraging+visual+literacy+among+the+students.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt8ipSz5haPB9S1wzWb-TmrFooHx_Sd75XjXClrSUjvVcqg4GqlM9GD76OjJoSunH3qtheSKCe-f5QaQpCcaIIE27jxec0zFf37-1w6b-U-7ru8o_yg8eI1_HvO592LCT28VSR-81_4eex/s400/Dr.+Skillen+encouraging+visual+literacy+among+the+students.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Skillen encouraging visual literacy among students.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Of course, philosophical literature has context and praxis, and that is where another professor, Dr. John Skillen, comes to our aid. Dr. Skillen, Gordon College professor and long-time Orvietano, helps program participants to understand the connections between the theoretical literature Dr. Smick teaches and medieval art that surrounds us. His special passion is making it understood that the physical context of religious art from the medieval period matters, that a fresco cannot be understood if divorced from a recognition of the purpose of the room into which it was painted, the time of the liturgical calendar which it is connected to, or from a conception of the affect on people who viewed it when it was first created. He teased us with the question as we entered the chapel: when does this art become theology? Philosophically, what can we say of the difference, since religious art immediately begs a question about what theological commitments are being expressed?<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Due to his twenty plus years of living in Orvieto, the beauty and proximity of the San Brizio chapel has been of special interest to Dr. Skillen. Our students, upon entering the chapel, were asked to consider their own church upbringing, if they had one. Was their relationship narratival and episodic (as a Catholic child would be taught to recognize the event and significance of an Annunciation or a Nativity), or was it like the more historically recent example of Protestantism and a scriptural literacy which may lean heavily on memorization of chapter and verse by their number? To know what the art performed in that space, one would have to consider the visual literacy that was present in 15th century lay people, to recognize which part of the liturgical year was being suggested by the paintings on the chapel walls, and what related imagery would be instantly recalled by ‘reading’ its symbolism.<br />
<br />
He likened it to being familiar with sitcoms: even if you have not seen a specific sitcom before, you recognize the importance of the sofa placed centrally within the frame, and can guess that one of the doors leading off screen might be a kitchen. Depending on the era, you may expect a frazzled 50’s housewife to pop out in apron and pearls from said kitchen door, or recognize certain motifs or types of behaviour every time the kid-next door or tangentially-related-friend-of-the-family comes barging in from stage left. 15th century lay people would know what was being suggested by the postures of figures, the use of colour, the selection of certain biblical episodes over others. They had a visual literacy that extended beyond the content of the paintings itself, and was dependent on the context of the larger church building, even to the wider city and its history. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFaI499tUTH5xGk1GduTusA2mpydwWZxNJKZPbLNnnHsnVlnLhT7o7sTsonU-ioU5O_t3yUUWZKEjYt64bEPjk65fbGzi-P-T8I73oSKGcJ1iTbQZWPPP5xa92HemeuYinoS81smw2VDi-/s1600/Our+students+examing+the+panel+depicting+false+preachers+in+the+end+times.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFaI499tUTH5xGk1GduTusA2mpydwWZxNJKZPbLNnnHsnVlnLhT7o7sTsonU-ioU5O_t3yUUWZKEjYt64bEPjk65fbGzi-P-T8I73oSKGcJ1iTbQZWPPP5xa92HemeuYinoS81smw2VDi-/s400/Our+students+examing+the+panel+depicting+false+preachers+in+the+end+times.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our students examining a panel depicting<br />false preachers in the end times.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Part of learning to "read the room" is knowing where to start with the painting cycle once you are inside the chapel, to scan the images and know what occurs first chronologically. The imagery of the San Brizio chapel is thematically centered on the "end times," so the narrative progresses through the judgment over the wicked, the good, and the tragically lukewarm. The signs of the end times are biblically derived: false preachers come among the people, nursing mothers sense danger, and eventually, the resurrected gain their new bodies, skeletons suddenly enfleshed and crawling from their graves to ascend and be seated with the enthroned Christ. As in Dante’s description, the fence-sitters who never made a choice are sent following a white flag, back and forth, back and forth for eternity ("a chasing after the wind" was the imagery that came to my mind here, recalling Ecclesiastes). Above the images of these judgments are the angels and the elect, those known to be seated near Jesus in heaven. Most nearly seated are Mary and John the Baptist. There are apostles, doctors of the church, patriarchs, and saintly choruses, ordered according to the lyrics of the <i>Te Deum</i> prayer, so that musical literary, that other bastion of liturgical life, is wrapped up in the experience. The middle and top sections of the room get "read" first, then the lower panels, showing Dante and Virgil among others, and images of Dante’s <i>Purgatorio</i>, instantly recognizable to even the minimally educated of the 15th century. <br />
<br />
When does this art become theology? Dr. Skillen suggested that the key to understanding the distinction in the San Brizio chapel between narrative painting and performed theological contemplation came in recognizing the liturgical function of the space, when it was used for Eucharist. A congregant would see the sacraments being served and view the stories of the last judgments and ask oneself, "Have I decided? Am I headed up to Christ, as are those figures? How should I live?" The space is designed to move one upward to such a conclusion, the gaze moving literally and metaphorically toward the Saviour as you spend time examining the panels. Artistically speaking, all the panels have the east-facing window as their imagined source of light, as if all the figures are being illumined by the light in real time. And, since it is the only set of windows in the chapel, you too are being lit from the same angle and may begin to posture yourself in relation to those nearly life-size figures, seeing yourself among their number. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgevndTsHNy4tCW-Czj0rtRL9zY6BQWF9VMgiuN0FW5ZS7bkZw2ljwMKnyUpHwTiZiwAKnkJnqaX9_KcSXnCZXo9vVmEunJKZgwwlzGJryJIG-Oi_4UrXtKTsSD_eMefjscO3G6RS-Jf3JQ/s1600/Christ+enthroned%252C+around+which+the+elect+will+gather.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgevndTsHNy4tCW-Czj0rtRL9zY6BQWF9VMgiuN0FW5ZS7bkZw2ljwMKnyUpHwTiZiwAKnkJnqaX9_KcSXnCZXo9vVmEunJKZgwwlzGJryJIG-Oi_4UrXtKTsSD_eMefjscO3G6RS-Jf3JQ/s400/Christ+enthroned%252C+around+which+the+elect+will+gather.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christ enthroned, around which the elect will gather.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Such experiences, like this one provided by Dr. Skillen’s tour of the San Brizio chapel, are intended to lead you toward a more full understanding of the philosophical material taught during the course. It places authors of the middle ages in context, because we see the same art they saw and have chance to react to it ourselves. Additionally, it helps to understand what came after. Perhaps one will read philosophers like Adorno differently after learning about the often bizarre and tragic lives of the artists who worked on this and other chapels, the dizzying interaction between private money and church politics in medieval Florence, or the impact of Fascism on the architecture of Rome. In the true nature of an ICS course, which aims to be gently critical, thorough, and optimistic in equal measure, the ART in Orvieto program helps to tie disparate disciplines and streams of thought together under the banner of patient philosophical consideration. What intellectual souvenirs will you take home from Italy?<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi16Z7-KTp-G3mu5i9JSwqOB4qWllwRbTrKMRz4wqInWwZCEIMdKUDai45etNAOCDc85VxsWXRbY87eFi5-_xdw8mN8NsoXs1CkbIR2zHJVswqAffTWiq1RgGf3o5vNISIQWTOJXOIgHlYh/s1600/The+philosophers+and+theologians+who+are+with+Christ+after+the+resurrection.+Recognize+any_.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi16Z7-KTp-G3mu5i9JSwqOB4qWllwRbTrKMRz4wqInWwZCEIMdKUDai45etNAOCDc85VxsWXRbY87eFi5-_xdw8mN8NsoXs1CkbIR2zHJVswqAffTWiq1RgGf3o5vNISIQWTOJXOIgHlYh/s400/The+philosophers+and+theologians+who+are+with+Christ+after+the+resurrection.+Recognize+any_.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The philosophers and theologians who are with<br />Christ after the resurrection. Recognize any?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Learn more about the ART in Orvieto program <a href="http://www.icscanada.edu/art_in_orvieto">here</a>.<br />
<br />
Find more about Dr. John Skillen’s work on the importance of appreciating art in context through his book, <i><a href="http://www.hendrickson.com/html/product/707597.trade.html">Putting Art (Back) In Its Place.</a></i><br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">
Julia de Boer is a PhD student at ICS and assistant to Dr. Smick in Orvieto, studying philosophical aesthetics and linguistics. Orvieto had a special place in her heart, even before she went on the ART in Orvieto course the first time, and she continues to fall deeper in love with this city on every sequential visit. Photos by Julia de Boer.</div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-57394902185227847702018-07-23T16:26:00.004-04:002018-07-23T16:27:08.193-04:00An ART in Orvieto Missive: Week 1<div style="text-align: right;">by Julia de Boer</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGJGpmVKa8Ggzp-E-OuPCjMpOCHPGor6UOzjavkiqxV3p4XyKxHeR7KuYc8QAh7iAwc-z3zLVxWhvp7MAbydme9NOpEQvus2EF_p04SBJVabHtgX-PULRtsuKYIm2oeb_rs6ywVFFHc2uF/s1600/IMG_5088.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGJGpmVKa8Ggzp-E-OuPCjMpOCHPGor6UOzjavkiqxV3p4XyKxHeR7KuYc8QAh7iAwc-z3zLVxWhvp7MAbydme9NOpEQvus2EF_p04SBJVabHtgX-PULRtsuKYIm2oeb_rs6ywVFFHc2uF/s400/IMG_5088.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. Rebekah Smick explains the sources of inspiration for the painting <br />
done by Gordon College students for their classroom.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
What is religious art in the secular era? How should Christian artists interact with ‘High Art’ and its institutions (and what about making money)? How have theologies of the image from the wider Christian tradition shaped the creative experience of Christian artists today? How can a life, led aesthetically or artistically, witness our faith?<br />
<br />
The Institute for Christian Studies’ <i><a href="http://www.icscanada.edu/art_in_orvieto">ART in Orvieto</a></i> program seeks to provide space to ponder these and other questions. When reflecting on her own art history training, Dr. Rebekah Smick considered how different it would have been with the inclusion of some historiography to frame the discussion, to help understand why the course of art critique and theory developed in such a manner, and how it framed modern discourse. This was the impetus for her creation of the <i>ART in Orvieto</i> program; to provide scholars and practicing artists the opportunity to learn about the history of the image within the Classical and Christian traditions and their legacy to art theory and criticism today. <br />
<br />
Some of the people who attend are philosophers and theologians by training, others school teachers, fine artists, and the intellectually or spiritually curious. The program is multi-purposed, juxtaposing the academic seminar with studio time for those who are practicing artists, and sending everyone to see influential and overlooked works <i>in situ</i> in Rome, Florence, and Assisi. Students leave understanding the cultural and social contexts which changed and were changed by the philosophies and theologies of art throughout the last 2500 years.<br />
<br />
All of this takes place in a repurposed, Servite convent atop the tufa rock plateau that is the city of Orvieto. Gordon College, a Christian college in Boston, Massachusetts, have a satellite campus in which they run semester-long experiences for fine artists from their school during the main academic school years, and host programs like our <i><a href="http://www.icscanada.edu/art_in_orvieto/workshops">Art, Religion, and Theology</a></i> course in the summer months. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUsImi4VMl1PH9xsSVGtBPNssovk8CgKKoiHMcfsYI-tWU09Sd_3m4_0GPvL2l5KMca5IXEdgceiyEdp_Kn6CXWaBVmAcfpwUtiif3zzhXvNHBocTmrVQkU-iOlhR9wDmCcXaSDMntImUa/s1600/IMG_5114.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUsImi4VMl1PH9xsSVGtBPNssovk8CgKKoiHMcfsYI-tWU09Sd_3m4_0GPvL2l5KMca5IXEdgceiyEdp_Kn6CXWaBVmAcfpwUtiif3zzhXvNHBocTmrVQkU-iOlhR9wDmCcXaSDMntImUa/s400/IMG_5114.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The worn patinas of a convent door, once home to a monastic order,<br />
now home to Gordon College.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
We are midway through the first week of our 2018 program. Most of the participants are beginning to overcome their jet-lag and all our artists are set-up and enthusiastically setting forth upon their projects in the studio. Maria, the fantastic cook who works for Gordon College here in Orvieto, provides steaming platters of al-dente pasta, seasonal vegetables, and roast meats at our lunch and dinner meals. <br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The convent is spacious and cool, at least it was once all the visitors learned how to open and close their windows and shutters with the movements of the hot Italian sun. It is perhaps too early to tell what insights will be developed over our three weeks about the questions we set before us at the beginning, or what sort of creative work may emerge, but energy and excitement are tangible.<br />
<br />
One would not wish to suggest that Italy is the only place on God’s green earth where these conversations could take place. With a pastoral and corrective lecture, Dr. Thomas McIntyre reminded us that the spread of the Christian gospel went in all directions, not just to Italy, and that Rome is not the singular viaduct through which redemptive water flowed. <br />
<br />
What one may say, however, is that Italy’s compact size, dense history, and general charm make it a wonderful place to try answering those questions, if one has the chance. Many historically significant works of art may be visited, the texts of people theologizing about those works may be consulted, and the spiritual fervour of the monastics and artists whose lives formed the context of our investigations may be indulged and appreciated. <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho1sxity0ruwc8nceWJZmOyrXMSwV4wYW3Am0UJJY9P1igt8UKeFMyTbV8dcbnwlAeOTA-hhFuBo2IjvgtuG85oRyhD8E88pAfQCWy3rgVWgtLY6FhQtNJyjbWMUSHqB2BhyphenhyphenpZYWWPai3q/s1600/IMG_5109.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho1sxity0ruwc8nceWJZmOyrXMSwV4wYW3Am0UJJY9P1igt8UKeFMyTbV8dcbnwlAeOTA-hhFuBo2IjvgtuG85oRyhD8E88pAfQCWy3rgVWgtLY6FhQtNJyjbWMUSHqB2BhyphenhyphenpZYWWPai3q/s400/IMG_5109.jpg" width="266" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Succulents from a window box near<br />
the <i>ART in Orvieto</i> lodgings.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
On a very practical note, the hot Italian summer is the polar opposite of our cold, Canadian winter. The light here is indeed yellow, a soft, safe light or a scorching beam, depending on the time of day. Orvieto has a magnificent duomo and bustling little piazzas, the whole of the city surrounded by the deep, breathtaking scenery of the river valley which runs the length of central Italy and inspiring if one is a landscape painter. If one’s tastes are more to the abstract, it takes but a few minutes to pause and reflect on the colour and shape around; rich yellows and browns, verdant green, and more orange and pink than are commonly found in North American cityscapes. There is just so much detail and delight to be found, in every square inch, that Italy makes it very easy to be moved to consider our crucial questions. <br />
<br />
The possibility for having religious art in a postmodern world suddenly seems possible, not because the vectors of Italian life are so dissimilar to our own in Toronto or elsewhere that our philosophical ponderings seem moot, as if Italy is a land out of time, but because the dissimilarity of experience cuts through the noise of our thoughts to suggest that it <i>is </i>possible, that alternatives <i>must </i>be possible.<br />
<br />
The rust and patina of a door hinge can be an experience of transcendence, not to mention the soaring cliff faces or the fruit trees. So does the realization that you have been standing on land which has continuously homed people, from at least the Etruscans onwards, for three millenia. The evidence of Etruscan temples along those soaring cliff faces also indicates that for much of that history, religious activity here has recognized the transcendency of this landscape. <br />
<br />
If this is so obvious here, is it just as obvious in Toronto, in our own cities of origin and the wilderness that surrounds them? Perhaps we will arrive home, not only with new works of art, but with renewed spiritual energy and fresh, keen, perception for the traces of transcendence in our regular lives.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6rCCfSfou9VeYWqu2pu4s1RU1FRHBb3UyUeaMvCYKnMzUW9iBPCTz6CEJQGk6x_aGtQyuttCQe9pgu7D0QVbnNxF-f9llWOjbqnTs9zChmIxUhWxQTdzGVaOLcYwWJPs9CIL1Zf1XqQcG/s1600/IMG_5172.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6rCCfSfou9VeYWqu2pu4s1RU1FRHBb3UyUeaMvCYKnMzUW9iBPCTz6CEJQGk6x_aGtQyuttCQe9pgu7D0QVbnNxF-f9llWOjbqnTs9zChmIxUhWxQTdzGVaOLcYwWJPs9CIL1Zf1XqQcG/s400/IMG_5172.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A detail of the apse mosaic in St. Pudenziana, Rome, visited by students.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><br />
<br />
</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">Julia de Boer is a PhD student at ICS and assistant to Dr. Smick in Orvieto, studying philosophical aesthetics and linguistics. Orvieto had a special place in her heart, even before she went on the ART in Orvieto course the first time, and she continues to fall deeper in love with this city on every sequential visit. Photos by Julia de Boer.</div>Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-39047286610943577382018-06-20T09:00:00.000-04:002018-06-20T09:00:04.108-04:00On Unlearning “Western” Philosophy<div style="text-align: right;">
by Joshua Harris</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">This post is part of the series "<a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2018/04/human-rights-human-wrongs-ground-motive.html">Human Rights and Human Wrongs</a>," an attempt to create a space for authentic dialogue about justice and injustice.</span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRZECRyaHVUEfclsfxvWkGGgjZLsfsigggU02HPbT_eI1-G7cIebsLM6ZZjb7EHpqh_46Lll8g3Afqm_Ll84gy-UDb6kAwAXgXqE1LgdqPhK1Dqqxz0Y-JOGV_uDcVZc3G-5tcmMqBYn0q/s1600/Avicenna-miniatur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="599" data-original-width="384" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRZECRyaHVUEfclsfxvWkGGgjZLsfsigggU02HPbT_eI1-G7cIebsLM6ZZjb7EHpqh_46Lll8g3Afqm_Ll84gy-UDb6kAwAXgXqE1LgdqPhK1Dqqxz0Y-JOGV_uDcVZc3G-5tcmMqBYn0q/s320/Avicenna-miniatur.jpg" width="205" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ibn Sina</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="text-align: justify;">Recently ICS hosted Matt Bernico for a great conversation about curricula and pedagogy in Christian higher education, made available </span><a href="https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-5rb2r-913773" style="text-align: justify;">here</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> and </span><a href="https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-kvx7m-9138bd" style="text-align: justify;">here</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> via ICS podcast </span><i style="text-align: justify;">Critical Faith</i><span style="text-align: justify;">. Typical ICS vibrancy and dynamism aside, I was a grateful listener on account of a headspace I’ve acquired over the course of my last year as an adjunct professor in Providence College’s “</span><a href="https://western-civilization.providence.edu/how-dwc-works/" style="text-align: justify;">Development of Western Civilization</a><span style="text-align: justify;">” program. Without going into the exhausting details, suffice it to say that this program is, well, controversial.</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
The following intervention might seem like a “response” to Matt’s talk. It is not. For all I know, he may agree (or disagree) with everything I say. Yet it is certainly <i>occasioned </i>by the concerns he raises—concerns about curricula in Christian higher education, especially insofar as they are dominated by texts written by white, Western authors. Any serious decolonial project, says Matt following several contemporary decolonial theorists, must involve a systemic “unlearning” of what Ramón Grosfoguel provocatively calls this status quo of “Euro-North American ethnic studies,” which happens to masquerade as universal standards of knowledge in the interest of justifying or at least furthering existing systems of Western power and exploitation. <br />
<br />
It is this process of unlearning that I want to explore here with respect to philosophical canons specifically, albeit (perhaps) with a slightly different orienting question: namely, “What <i>is </i>the “Western” philosophy that we are called to unlearn, in the first place?” It seems to me that the answer to this logically prior question matters a great deal for anyone interested in a more epistemically just university. <br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><b>Arabic or Islamic Philosophy? The Case of the Falsafa Tradition</b><br />
<br />
It is not particularly enlightening to point out that racial and ethnic lines are “blurry.” There are obviously people, traditions, and ideas whose respective originative identities resist ready categorization. So (I hope) when I ask the question of whether Ibn Sina is Western, the insight behind the question is not ultimately reducible to a cheap attitude of racial anti-realism (i.e., “See, race doesn’t really matter in philosophy!”). Clearly race and ethnicity do matter—in “real life” and in the practice of philosophy. <a href="http://perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0054">One must demand only as much precision as the subject matter allows</a>, as another ambiguously white philosopher is famous for pointing out. Yet there is such a thing as systematic ambiguity, and to indulge ourselves in such terms is to run important risks. <br />
<br />
I am nowhere near an expert on the impressive diversity of philosophical traditions of falsafa in the “classical” period of the medieval Islamic intellectual culture. Nevertheless, in one of the more intellectually stimulating turns of my dissertation research, it became clear to me that I had to study the work of the (great) Ibn Sina of 10th and 11th century Persia at some level of detail if I was going to complete my project on Thomas Aquinas. It was during this time that I was made aware of a question that is annoyingly familiar to any scholar who is even vaguely familiar with the period: exactly what “kind” of philosophy lives in the works of figures such as Al-Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, Al-Ghazali, etc.?[1]<br />
<br />
Sometimes anthologizers label the period as “Arabic” philosophy—even <a href="http://academic.mu.edu/taylorr/Aquinas_and_the_Arabs/Aquinas_%26_the_Arabs.html">tagging the aforementioned figures as “Arabs.”</a> This is sensible, since the major philosophers in the Near East did write almost exclusively in the Arabic language. Yet, of course, it is well-known that most were not ethnically Arabs—that is, to the (limited) extent that their ethnic identities are even discernible for us today. <br />
<br />
Others prefer “Islamic” philosophy. At least this <i>differentia </i>marks off a more discernible identity. It is also somewhat faithful to the majority of relevant practitioners, since virtually all major epicentres of <i>falsafa </i>did operate under imperial Islamic power. Still, there are problems here, since it is impossible to understand the period adequately without the many contributions of Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians. <br />
<br />
<b>Great Books</b><br />
<br />
In any case, we get the point: this crucial period in the history of philosophy is a nightmare to classify. But permit me one more anthologizer question: are the works of these <i>falasifa </i>“Western”? If institutional standards in North America are any indication, then probably not. On the philosophy job site <a href="https://philjobs.org/">philjobs</a>, for example, advertisements for positions specializing in the <i>falsafa </i>tradition are usually classified as a branch of “Non-Western” philosophy. This is understandable, since, for example, many of the major texts written by the abovementioned figures have only recently been translated into English, thereby indicating (both as symptom and cause, perhaps) their neglect in undergraduate courses in the West. They certainly do not make the cut for Mortimer Adler’s influential <i>Great Books of the Western World</i> series, which scandalously moves from selected works of Augustine (Vol. 18) to Aquinas (Vol. 19). And precisely this sort of conclusion is evident in the common trope that the works of Greek philosophers such as Aristotle were “lost” somewhere between (roughly) the 6th to the 12th centuries. <br />
<br />
In another sense, however, the texts are about as “Western” as Aristotle himself—not only in terms of direct influence, but even in terms of the very letter of the texts themselves. To cite an admittedly non-representative, egregious (though very convenient, for my current point) example, Ibn Rushd penned more than thirty commentaries on various works of Aristotle, including ‘short’, ‘middle’, and ‘long’ commentaries on single works. In a well-known passage of his autobiography, Ibn Sina reports that he read Aristotle’s Metaphysics “forty times” without understanding it. In fact, before he was “The Philosopher” (<i>philosophus</i>) in the Latin medieval tradition, Aristotle was “The First Teacher” (<i>al-muʿallim al-awwal</i>). <br />
<br />
Again, fuzzy borders. Yet—as Lucy Allais has pointed out recently—when it comes to the majority of the “Great Books” we hold dear in Western canons of philosophy, the relentless ambiguity of the <i>falasifa </i>is not some one-off, quirky exception. On the contrary, if anything, the radically “mixed” heritage of ideas and people in this tradition seems to be the <i>rule</i> in the history of what is normally called “Western” philosophy. Indeed, the place of Plato and Aristotle in the history of philosophy <i>as they understood themselves</i> is just as crucially “Asian” and “African” as it is “Western.” In other words, a formally identical blog post could have been written about ancient Greek philosophy. This is not because Plato and Aristotle somehow anticipated some sort of 21st century multiculturalism as a legitimate ideology (quite the opposite, of course), but because there was simply no such thing as being “Western” in the way that we tend to think of the matter today—that is, in terms of the identities borne by the agents of modern European colonial expansion. <br />
<br />
<b>Whose “Western” Philosophy?</b><br />
<br />
Finally, to sum up what I hope has been a somewhat intelligible set of ramblings, I want to suggest that we need to be careful with the term “Western.” As Allais remarks (I think cogently), “accepting [even the ancient Greek] tradition as somehow essentially Western would involve wrongly accepting the West’s claiming for itself an ancient Mediterranean tradition which was not obvious[ly] Western.”[2] To the extent that the term is tied up with the abovementioned colonial projects—even and especially for those interested in de-colonizing our curricula—there is a real danger of ceding precious semantic ground to dubious stories about the past and their bad faith narrators.[3]<br />
<br />
These books really are great. And the fact that they have been and continue to be used by intellectual, cultural, and political members of elite classes to legitimize violent practices and institutional arrangements does not change this. Indeed, this is probably more common than not, given that things like personal safety and free time are often both (a) necessary conditions for serious study; and (b) afforded at the cost of others’ labour and/or suffering. But we should be clear that there is no shortage of examples of brilliant, faithful people who have taken their inspiration from the same materials. <br />
<br />
<br />
[1] For a brief, accessible introduction to the peculiarities of this question, see Jon McGinnis and David C. Reisman (eds. and trans.), <i>Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources </i>(Hackett, 2007), xiv.<br />
<br />
[2] Lucy Allais, “Problematising Western philosophy as one part of Africanising the curriculum,” <i>South African Journal of Philosophy</i> 35.4 (2016): 542.<br />
<br />
[3] On this point, see Peter Park, <i>Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy: Racism in the Formation of the Philosophical Canon 1790-1830</i> (SUNY Press, 2013). <br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">
Joshua Harris is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, and will begin as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the King's University in Edmonton this fall. Joshua's research interests include questions in metaphysics, medieval philosophy, and philosophy of religion.</div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-65748944918197056212018-04-20T09:00:00.001-04:002018-04-20T11:06:12.717-04:00Christian Reflections on Locke Street Anarchism<div style="text-align: right;">
by Kiegan Irish<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">This post is part of the series "<a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2018/04/human-rights-human-wrongs-ground-motive.html">Human Rights and Human Wrongs</a>," an attempt to create a space for authentic dialogue about justice and injustice.</span></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
<a href="https://twitter.com/HamiltonPolice?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@HamiltonPolice</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CHCHTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CHCHTV</a> Who are the Ungovernables? Terrorized businesses and patrons tonight on Locke St. Frightening! <a href="https://t.co/RCIQ82gbBL">pic.twitter.com/RCIQ82gbBL</a></div>
— carmeeeo (@OliverioCarmela) <a href="https://twitter.com/OliverioCarmela/status/970138259614511104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 4, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.<br />
--Martin Luther King Jr.</span></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
On Saturday, March 3rd, in Hamilton, Ontario, a group of anarchists marched on Locke Street and destroyed many of the storefronts that lined it, a direct action that has been widely condemned. Police linked the attack to an anarchist book fair that took place the same weekend. An outpouring of support for the Locke Street businesses followed.<br />
<br />
Those responsible for the damaged storefronts were hoping to elicit a reaction and expose the fault lines in the community that liberal discourses of urbanization work to smooth over. I did not participate in the actions on Locke, nor do I know anyone who did. At first, I felt simply shocked by the action. But having observed the response from many people and communities, including fellow Christians I love and respect, I wondered if there might be another kind of Christian response. While it takes some inference and understanding of the perspectives and goals of the anarchist community to make sense of their praxis, shouldn’t Christians be precisely those people who can understand the perspectives of people who are, historically, against the violence of the state and who have so often attracted prominent Christians like Dorothy Day and Jacques Ellul?<br />
<br />
The way the church has been mobilized in this case—as a tool to morally legitimate the violence that elicited “ungovernable” actions—shows the dearth of thoughtful analysis that too often afflicts the church’s engagement with its world. As someone who is interested in following Jesus and understanding what his life might mean for the world, I found their response inadequate. For those who are interested in seeing genuine engagement and mutual exchange between Christian communities and leftist politics, or simply between Christian communities and those who are marginalized in our world, this is distressing.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<b>The Process of Gentrification and the Deep Violence of Capitalist Society</b><br />
<br />
The problem with the nonviolence that Christians espouse in this case is that it leaves the violence of the oppressor completely unexamined while opposing the violence of the oppressed. Anti-colonial theorist Frantz Fanon argues that violence is not a neutral space where all actors are equal. There is an older, slower, and greater violence that demonstrably privileges private property above the well-being of one’s neighbours. What many call economic development, and the promise of progress that it implies, masks the deep violence of dispossession. When we talk about economic development in our cities, it is worthwhile to remember who drives these forces and who suffers and is displaced as a result.<br />
<br />
In Hamilton specifically, the process of gentrification—the process whereby one group is displaced by another considered more desirable—has been ongoing for decades. In an interesting document published anonymously by the <a href="https://thehamiltoninstitute.noblogs.org/post/2015/07/02/now-that-its-undeniable-gentrification-in-hamilton-2015/">Hamilton Institute</a>, gentrification is discussed in the following terms:<br />
<blockquote>
Urbanism seeks to reproduce social hierarchies in the physical urban space, without conflict. When urbanists talk about improving lives, they are usually talking about projects designed to mask the contradictions of capitalism and of urban space: if we are to be an uprooted and flexible workforce, at least let there be affordable public transit so the commutes we are forced to make aren’t too much of a burden; if we are going to work minimum wage jobs, let there at least be housing we can afford; if we are going to live in crowded, oppressive conditions, at least let there be public art, good services, and native tree species slowly dying in roadside planters. However, as we get bedbugs from our library books and are hit by cars in the bike lane, we remember that these gestures are actually shit. They are meant to ease the discomfort caused by the purpose of urban space – to provide a density of physical and human resources to maximize value for capitalists. And once an area becomes a comfortable one in which to be exploited, you can bet someone is going to pay more for it than you can.</blockquote>
If the purpose of urban economic development is understood as generating a workforce to maximize profit, and the improvement of commercial infrastructure serves the purpose of creating more comfortable living conditions for that developing workforce, then those who are marginalized as ineffective workers will inevitably be displaced in favour of those who fit the mould of the effective worker. Displacing people—steadily increasing the cost of living to drive them out, eventually evicting and even incarcerating them—and shifting economic fortunes are part of a process involving innumerable acts of violence borne over the course of years. And more direct violence, like police action and incarceration, is also an indispensable component of this process.<br />
<br />
If we can recognize the massive scale of the violence that takes place through capitalist expropriation, we can much more easily contextualize the sporadic and symptomatic violence of property destruction. If you push bodies far enough, if you physically and socially repress human beings to such a degree, they will convulse. They will respond by lashing out, unleashing the kinetic energy that had been building like pressure inside them from the claustrophobic violence of expropriation.<br />
<br />
In his 1967 speech “The Other America,” Martin Luther King Jr. made a similar point. For the American context, but with broad relevance, he said that “[c]ertain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear?” He goes on to say that “As long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again.”<br />
<br />
Gentrification and urban development are not purely top-down processes. They depend on individual subjects participating in a larger vision or plan in myriad ways. These include establishing businesses, developing a vested interest in the “safety” and “cleanliness” of communities, and relying on police to enforce these ideals. Participation in the project of policing is participation in a violent strategy. We have simply monopolized violence in the hands of the police and legitimized it through law. But we all participate in the project of policing. Philosopher Michel Foucault says that with the invention of the police, state power becomes coextensive with society itself—it occupies the same space as the entirety of society. We live in a profoundly violent society, and if we are interested in discussing non-violence, it is important to first recognize the far reach of violence in our society.<br />
<br />
The Hamilton Institute explanation does an excellent job of articulating the history of gentrification in Hamilton and identifying the kinds of ideas about urban development that perpetuate it. When Hamilton was vacated by the industries around which it was first established, this created opportunities for property speculators to buy up large swathes of land at extremely low prices. Many people in poverty were located in Hamilton, and social services in Toronto made an effort to concentrate people who depended on social service in the area. An arts community developed, renting space at low prices or for free. But as their scene grew and gallery businesses were established, they worked with police to “clean up” the area. As the poor and marginalized began to be displaced, this created opportunities for more conventional capitalists who steadily replaced the artists. According to the Hamilton Institute, <br />
<blockquote>
Coffee shops, restaurants, and bars took advantage of the customer base created by the artists; however, unlike the art business owners, these capitalists could actually compete in the market. So as the grants slowly dried up and rents and property taxes in many instances doubled, the artists began to be pushed out in turn. Now, as the area becomes cooler and more expensive, offices for consultants, architects, tech start-ups, social entrepreneurs, and other small ‘creative class’ businesses replace the arts studio spaces… The influx of capital and physical improvements carried out by small-scale developers in the core sent a message to the big property speculators that it was time to act.</blockquote>
With the violence of our society established, and with the ongoing violent reality that is rendered invisible by the language of economic development, I think we can do away with the notion that the “violence” on Locke Street was “senseless.” But if we are interested in offering a loving response, and we do want to talk about non-violence, how should we respond to what took place?<br />
<br />
<b>A Plea to Abandon Reactionary Politics</b><br />
<br />
The response that I have observed from Christians and Christian organizations to the events on Locke Street has been deeply reactionary--by this term I refer to politics that wish to impose the status quo without taking seriously the grievances expressed in revolutionary politics. They have lacked a sense of historical context and lacked a serious analysis of violence. In calling for nonviolence, Christian reactions to the events have actually deepened and reinforced the violence of gentrification. As observed above, gentrification is not a top-down process, and it depends on these kinds of spontaneous (and genuine) reactions in order to reinforce its grip on communities. For example, by giving information to the police, one might then subject poor and marginalized people to the horrors of incarceration. It is difficult to overstate how violent the police and the court systems are. Christians who care about nonviolence should also oppose subjecting anyone to the violence of these systems.<br />
<br />
The Hamilton Institute document discusses the way that the logic of charity reinforces gentrification and plays an essential role in giving moral justification to the process of urban economic development. Even the language we use of “affordable housing” and “inclusive zoning” implies that these are temporary and partial measures in the context of the overriding imperative to profit financially. We are to include the poor, and make sure things are affordable. This betrays the provisional nature of these measures and a lack of regard for the integral autonomy of communities.<br />
<br />
Churches have been holding benefits for the businesses that were damaged on Locke Street and encouraging their members to go and spend their money at these institutions. These actions reveal clear political intent. Churches have taken the side of urban economic development. They have adopted a reactionary stance toward the violence of gentrification and its police enforcement rather than tackle the deep, complicated, and pervasive material problems that make and keep people poor. To see churches, institutions under the direction of the example and teachings of Jesus, so easily align themselves with the political agenda of the most powerful in our society, and give this top-heavy vision of society their blessing, is disheartening.<br />
<br />
<b>Who is the Person Named Jesus?</b><br />
<br />
I heard a number of people talking about what they heard in church the Sunday after the events on Locke street, and how they thought it related to the incident. The trend I perceived was one where Scripture was used to reinforce the narrative of overcoming conflict unproblematically. Love your neighbour—the deep irony here being that the history of neighbourhoods and the displacement of people who had previously lived as neighbours is precisely the issue.<br />
<br />
I was in church on that Sunday morning as well. We read from the second chapter of the Gospel of John, the story of Jesus cleansing the Temple. In so many ways this is an incredible story. In the homily, our minister discussed how in the other Gospels this story is told near the end, representing a final straw leading to Jesus’ execution. But in the Gospel of John, the story comes right at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. John tells a story where the Word becomes flesh into Nazareth, a backwater town of a colonized territory. Jesus is baptized, gathers his disciples, and immediately enters the heart of religious and commercial power in his society and destroys the marketplace. The minister asked us to consider what is new about John’s telling, and how it depicts Jesus, as opposed to the other Gospels?<br />
<br />
In my reading, this narrative structure sends a clear message about who Jesus is and what his mission is about. The institution of animal sacrifice remained from an older, agrarian world. By Jesus’ time, the Romans have come to Palestine, and the Greeks before them, and a formerly agrarian society has become urbanized. Animal sacrifice is no longer a sacrifice from one’s own herd as an offering to God. Rather, urban people buy animals to slaughter in the Temple, and the penitent religious people are a captive market for those who sell the animals. Merchants grow wealthy from the devotion of the people. We can recognize the growth of an urban exchange economy. Jesus overturns this lucrative and “peaceable” business. He makes a whip to drive out money-changers. He overturns their tables and spills their accumulated capital in the dirt. He makes a scene and calls on them to stop making his father’s house into a marketplace!<br />
<br />
Jesus, from a poor and subjugated village in a poor and subjugated province, enters the heart of power in his world and rages against it, disturbing and overturning the established order—an order of peaceable exchange. Jesus is disruptive, some might even describe the use of a whip and the destruction of property as violent. Jesus attacks the system of power that reigns in his world. He does not do this in a polite fashion, he disrupts the order in such a way that it leads him to the cross.<br />
<br />
The Gospel is good news to the poor. It probably didn’t look like good news from the perspective of the money-changers when they were having their property destroyed. In saying this, I don’t want to be understood to be arguing that the protestors on Locke Street on Saturday are simply equivalent to Jesus. What I want to say is that Jesus—the person to whom the church is fundamentally devoted—was an extremely disruptive figure in the context of the economic, political, and religious world in his time, and his ministry is composed of shocking transgressions and acts of political theatre. That’s who Jesus is. And by recalling this vision of Jesus’ ministry, I hope I can complicate how the church thinks about its response to something like the destruction of property by anarchists. The Gospels tell us that the Temple authorities in Jesus’ time were vehemently opposed to his actions. And in John 3:23, after Jesus has cleansed the Temple, we’re told that “many believed in his name because they saw the signs he was doing.” Jesus’ opposition to the dominant order, and especially the economic injustice on display in the Temple, is the sign that people need to take hope.<br />
<br />
<b>Can the Church Step Up?</b><br />
<br />
Having said all of this, I wish to add that I personally do not identify as an anarchist. In fact, I find it difficult to understand that night’s actions as part of a broader strategy to fight back against the forces of capital which so insidiously destroy communities—even masked behind hip bars and artisanal small businesses. But when we see actions of this sort, we need to be incredibly thoughtful in our reactions. I hope it is clear that what I have written here is not just about that Saturday night. Rather, it is about the uncanny ease with which people, especially Christians, have taken comfort in the “love of the community” against the “violence of extremists.” I think that we need to be significantly more self-critical. When actions like this take place, the first thing we say shouldn’t be, “Oh what despicable and senseless actions!” Rather, we need to ask, “Where does the pain come from that would drive someone to do this?”<br />
<br />
We clearly did not ask this question. We simply doubled down. We implicitly asserted that Locke Street was targeted at random, and that the destruction of property was incomprehensible. At the same time, I have not come across any Christian standing up to say that the revenge violence the police immediately promised was wrong—or even naming it as violence! And when The Tower, an anarchist community space in Hamilton, was vandalized by reactionary mobs, no one decried that misplaced revenge violence—against an organization who did not plan Saturday night’s events. Instead, you could see written on the boards on Locke Street that an anarchist bookstore has no place in a “cultured” society. This is frightening. Meanwhile, the words of the Spanish anarchist Buenaventura Durruti were written on the board of the shattered window of The Tower: “we are not in the least afraid of ruins, we carry a new world here, in our hearts.” To my ear the words of Durruti resonate much more closely to those of Jesus, “the kingdom of God is within you.”<br />
<br />
Jesus is someone who took sides. Jesus sided with the poor against the dominant forces of his society, and he did this through disruptive, jarring, illegal actions. People saw these signs and believed. At a time like this, the church would do well to remember this, to pay attention to what Scripture tells us about Jesus’ ministry, and its real, historical context, instead of falling back on empty platitudes about love. Jesus shows us what love looks like! Let’s not deploy Christian love to baptize and moralize the systems of expropriation that attack the lives and bodies of the very people to whom Jesus brings good news. Before offering solutions and condemnations or hosting benefits, let’s dwell with the complexity of the situation, especially with respect to the church’s calling. Let’s take this opportunity to reflect on the church’s complicity with a deep structural violence, and out of that reflection determine what it might look like to follow Christ. In wrestling with the violence of the church’s history, how can we be like Nicodemus, who recognized God in the sign of Jesus cleansing the Temple, walked away from the Pharisees and asked: “How can anyone be born after having grown old?”<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">
Kiegan Irish is a Junior Member at the Institute for Christian Studies, focusing on social and political philosophy. He is currently working on a thesis exploring Hannah Arendt’s attitude towards economics and her idea of natality. </div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-86699916759581245672018-04-19T09:00:00.000-04:002018-06-21T11:13:37.806-04:00Human Rights & Human Wrongs: A Ground Motive Series<div style="text-align: right;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNkJ7bvg3r0tRhHZv1h_HDN-6k28fhRgsyp_g-XLMn7eJH0j7zqONmgzXICDaCl5aNS1KrtepsGccaUSBAL8xrIutgvwZVW25yZuUjmoK_DIotMSbLQFwBsmOqM2CCq_guHl26KYmuB-o/s1600/humanrights3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="1600" height="124" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZNkJ7bvg3r0tRhHZv1h_HDN-6k28fhRgsyp_g-XLMn7eJH0j7zqONmgzXICDaCl5aNS1KrtepsGccaUSBAL8xrIutgvwZVW25yZuUjmoK_DIotMSbLQFwBsmOqM2CCq_guHl26KYmuB-o/s400/humanrights3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>A <i>Ground Motive </i>Series</b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br />
</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
“Human rights” occupy a strangely fraught place in political discourse today. In one sense, they bear the burden of being obvious. To deny the moral weight of human rights among those of good faith would be strange, at best, and suspicious, at worst. After all, few judgments are more immediately meaningful—and morally charged—than to say that an individual or institution is guilty of <i>violating </i>human rights. We might disagree about whether this is true or false in particular cases, of course. But we do not disagree that such a thing is possible. <br />
<br />
However, like so many other concepts integral to our fragile humanity, the precise meaning of human rights is decidedly <i>not </i>obvious. Do human rights “exist”? Are they visible, however faintly, under the ever-sharpening gaze of cutting-edge neurobiology? Are they compelling fictions, devised naively by brilliant but outdated theorists of yesteryear? Are they gifts from God? <br />
<br />
These questions are philosophical (and theological) in nature, but they are not academic—at least, not in the sense of being conveniently irrelevant to concrete scenarios of human concern. If anything, the present moment intensifies our embarrassment at such ambiguities even more palpably than previous generations. Whatever else might be the case in Trump’s United States, the Brexiters’ Britain, Zuckerberg’s social media, or Kim Jong-un’s Democratic People’s Republic, with respect to human rights, one thing is clear: things are unclear. <br />
<br />
It is in this sober, clear-eyed spirit that we kick off our new series, “Human Rights and Human Wrongs,” here on <i>Ground Motive</i>. We will feature two kinds of reflections: on the one hand, we will present pieces dealing with various theoretical approaches to human rights and their significance in today’s world; on the other, we will engage thoughtfully with concrete contemporary events, thus sparking further reflection on the practical ways in which the language of rights affects our society. The idea is to “do what we do” at ICS—engage pressing questions pertaining to our responsibility before God in a world steeped in the bondage and decay of injustice—albeit <i>publicly</i>, i.e., in a spirit of conversation open to anyone interested. <br />
<br />
In “Human Rights and Human Wrongs” we will feature the diverse, and in some cases directly opposing, views that represent the constituencies that make up ICS, its partners, and its communities of support. In light of this, we invite you to engage in this dialogue by submitting your reflections or responding to the posts in the series in the comments section. Our hope is to overcome the original discomfort proper to deep dialogue through a process of communal discernment and reflection, through which we can generate new ways of thinking about our societies, their challenges, and their futures. We look forward to your contributions and comments!<br />
<br />
Please email Héctor Acero Ferrer at haceroferrer@icscanada.edu with your submissions. <br />
<br />
In the series:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2018/06/on-unlearning-western-philosophy.html">On Unlearning "Western" Philosophy, by Joshua Harris</a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/2018/04/christian-reflections-on-locke-street_20.html">Christian Reflections on Locke Street Anarchism, by Kiegan Irish</a></div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-11950645348554384942017-11-20T19:22:00.000-05:002020-05-29T16:48:16.387-04:00Violence On All Sides<div style="text-align: right;">
by Dean Dettloff</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjToKffBV0PpwWoOW3ycDmWsK867ggn3jNaJDaoZvlPTl3T3oEhB2JWAfQC9-fk1YCDJFcxCSDeAuGP9PtGx1vEULI7EQifADGjQT7ct3q1S6uepCsOD9TrSY_sj7GquZIWEXhmO7Uzw1b9/s1600/Ferguson%252C_Day_4%252C_Photo_26.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="531" data-original-width="800" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjToKffBV0PpwWoOW3ycDmWsK867ggn3jNaJDaoZvlPTl3T3oEhB2JWAfQC9-fk1YCDJFcxCSDeAuGP9PtGx1vEULI7EQifADGjQT7ct3q1S6uepCsOD9TrSY_sj7GquZIWEXhmO7Uzw1b9/s400/Ferguson%252C_Day_4%252C_Photo_26.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ferguson, 2014</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
This September in St. Louis, police arrested well over 100 people during protests that lasted for several days. Demonstrators were responding to the acquittal of Jason Stockley, a white man who shot and killed Anthony Lamar Smith, a 24-year-old black man, as a member of the St. Louis Police Department in 2011. The killing came at the end of a chase during which Stockley was recorded by a dashcam saying he was “going to kill this motherfucker, don’t you know it,” referring to Smith. Stockley claimed to find a gun in Smith’s car; the gun was found to have no DNA evidence showing Smith had ever touched it, though it did have Stockley’s DNA.<br />
<br />
Before the verdict was released, the SLPD was already preparing for a confrontation, remembering the events of the nearby Ferguson revolt three years earlier in response to the killing of Michael Brown by white Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson. A year after that, the Justice Department found the Ferguson Police Department was glaringly racist, based on a lengthy investigation that revealed that despite Ferguson’s black community making up two thirds of the population, they made up 93% of arrests there. Unsurprisingly, many in St. Louis found Stockley’s acquittal to be one more in a series of mishandled cases involving the death of black people in Missouri at the hands of white police officers.<br />
<br />
Protests started peacefully but escalated when police agitated the crowds in the evening. Social media circulated the usual protest scenes, with <a href="https://twitter.com/FOX2now/status/908818921079291905">a video</a> of an older woman being trampled by St. Louis officers in riot gear emerging as an especially troubling and viral moment. And in response to the usual protest scenes, the usual protest reactions began to emerge, too.<br />
<br />
Archbishop of St. Louis Robert Carlson condemned the violence in a <a href="http://archstl.org/node/4405044">press release</a> saying, “While acknowledging the hurt and anger, we must not fuel the fires of hatred and division… Reject the false and empty hope that violence will solve problems. Violence only creates more violence.” The statement summarizes what has become a default position for many Americans, Catholic or otherwise: the onus is on the protesters to keep calm, and while the rage that erupts is understandable, that rage needs to be reined in. Violence begets violence, not change.<br />
<br />
The response seems reasonable enough, especially in a country that saw the political and spiritual witness of Martin Luther King Jr. It also seems reasonable coming from Archbishop Carlson, a representative of a church whose spiritual leader, Pope Francis, has been a vocal promoter of nonviolence around the world, even delivering a message on the 50th Day of Peace entitled “<a href="https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/documents/papa-francesco_20161208_messaggio-l-giornata-mondiale-pace-2017.html">Nonviolence: a Style of Politics for Peace.</a>”<br />
<br />
Yet reasonable as it might seem, we should ask whether or not general condemnations of violence obscure more than they reveal about what happens on-the-ground in situations like the one in St. Louis. In the first place, exactly what we mean by “violence” is usually left undefined and assumed, though criticisms of protest violence often revolve around either the destruction of property or potential bodily harm. <br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">We should ask whether or not general condemnations of violence obscure more than they reveal about what happens on-the-ground in situations like the one in St. Louis.</span></span> </div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
But how would our criticism of violence shift if we took into account the pervasive, structural, and society-building violence of ideologies like white supremacy? Is violence only on the scene when a body meets another body or object in physical space? Or can we call a society itself violent if it habitually treats some bodies as threats simply for being bodies in physical space at all? <br />
<br />
When we expand these questions, condemnations of violence during protests or riots start to appear lopsided. Compared with the daily violence of white supremacy, where nearly <i>every </i>ticket, traffic stop, citation, jaywalking offense, and arrest involves a black citizen in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, throwing a non-lethal bottle at a police officer in riot gear seems quite reasonable, maybe even painfully restrained. That Archbishop Carlson did not see the need to immediately condemn, for example, the racist conditions that caused the outburst following Stockley’s acquittal, nor the excessive use of force on the part of the SLPD who chanted “Whose streets? Our streets!” as they went on an arresting spree, suggests a certain uniquely problematic kind of violence on the part of those fed up with the daily violence they encounter and, generally, put up with.<br />
<br />
All this might seem a little too sociological, too Marxist, too leftist--and, in the interest of full disclosure, those are indeed my points of departure. I confess to not being so convinced that “nonviolence” is, after all, the only style of politics for a just and peaceful future. But these points are also found in none other than Pope Francis himself (also one of my points of departure), in his first Apostolic Exhortation, <i><a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html">Evangelii Gaudium</a></i>, which provides a more complicated perspective on violence within a nonviolent framework: <br />
<br />
“The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence,” writes Pope Francis, “yet without equal opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and eventually explode. When a society – whether local, national or global – is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programmes or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility.” <br />
<br />
Note the careful phrasing. Francis says the poor are <i>accused </i>of violence, a suggestive move that helps us to be suspicious of attempts to derisively write off outbursts of rage as irresponsible or immature, where “violence” is a polemical term that covers up broader social questions. On the contrary, Francis suggests it is unsurprising and even to be expected that “forms of aggression and conflict” will “explode” in a system that rests on exacerbating social contradictions. A solution will not come, Francis says, from more policing or law enforcement--and that means we should not be so quick to assume the police are good or trustworthy diffusers of violence after all, leaving the only guilty party to be the one that feels it is fighting for its very survival. If nothing else, we might pause to consider why privileged groups consider the violence of citizens to be incomprehensible while the daily violent repression of those citizens often receives little to no comment.<br />
<br />
Francis’s words are prefigured by Martin Luther King Jr., whom he often cites. In his 1968 speech “<a href="http://www.crmvet.org/docs/otheram.htm">The Other America</a>,” delivered just a month before he was killed, King addressed the growing black power movement and a rolling series of riots saying, “I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.” King goes on to say, “Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention,” the same conclusion Pope Francis comes to in <i>Evangelii Gaudium</i>.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">What are a few broken windows compared to the disproportionate murder and incarceration of black people?</span></span> </div>
<br />
Considering violence in this way helps us to understand protests and riots as responses to injustice, that is, systemic violence, rather than the sheer release of arbitrary energies. A particular judgment of the violence on the part of protesters (violence that often emerges in further response to a militarized police presence) becomes less important than judging the comparably much larger system of violence where protests are needed. Chastising protesters while safely inside and off the streets risks not just misunderstanding the problem, but doubly marginalizing those who have been shoved to the fringes. What are a few broken windows compared to the disproportionate murder and incarceration of black people?<br />
<br />
What Francis and King, both committed to nonviolence, are trying to do is enlarge our frame of reference. Injustice and violence are found primarily at the root of society, not in the discrete moments of seeming “unrest” in a society that some have the privilege of seeing as mostly placid in their daily lives. The risk of knee-jerk condemnations of violence is to sound like those God indicts in Jeremiah 6: “They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”<br />
<br />
It is this kind of violence that leads political philosopher Richard Gilman-Opalsky, who teaches nextdoor to Missouri in Illinois, to <a href="https://repeaterbooks.com/665-2/">suggest</a>, “In light of this everyday violence, which is of course not the only form of violence, revolt is patient, revolt is kind. Revolt may even appear too moderate, too restrained, and too peaceable.”<br />
<br />
Pushing the insights of Francis and King a little further, Gilman-Opalsky goes on to say, in a passage that dovetails with <i>Evangelii Gaudium</i>, “Those who condemn the revolts actually love them because they get to condemn a ‘violence’ that justifies the violence they defend, the violence they love. Critics of revolt do not, therefore, fear the violence, but rather the transformative potentialities of revolt, its abolitionist (and creative) content. Their wager and hope is that nothing they love will be abolished, that the present state of things will be defended against every revolt.”<br />
<br />
That might sound like a cynical take, but consider what Gilman-Opalsky is saying. The violence he refers to is the social, material, and political exclusion of people of color that white people benefit from each day. In condemning violence in the streets, critics of riots and protests often sidestep the hard work of understanding why people need to be in the streets in the first place, which in turn prevents them from working to dismantle the conditions that create that need.<br />
<br />
Riots are ruptures in our daily goings-on, which means for some a rupture in a privileged life and for others a rupture in a violent routine. Riots are not childish tantrums but symptoms of a deeply sinful system, containing hopes and dreams for upending a social order that is evidently based upon oppressive structures. For those of us, like me, who are not subject to profiling and racist targeting, the violence we love is the violence that preserves our ability to ignore the conditions that make our lives possible.<br />
<br />
This is the violence Francis indicts throughout his papacy, for example in <i>Laudato Si’</i>, where inequality lies at the heart of our ecological catastrophe, or even <i>Amoris Laetitia</i>, where material causes of poverty make significant burdens for family life, a point that has been well overlooked in favor of passages on divorcees. That so many American Catholics appear to have missed this central theme in Francis’s writings and nevertheless praise his commitment to nonviolence is a dangerous combination that makes for a detached “holier-than-thou” attitude, one that poses little threat to white supremacy. Needless to say, non-Catholics are likewise prone to ignore the complex social themes at the heart of so many Christian voices for justice.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">Riots do not develop out of thin air, nor are they dispelled by hot air about the virtues of nonviolence.</span></span> </div>
<br />
The response to the Stockley acquittal in St. Louis will not be the last of such responses. As Francis says in <i>Evangelii Gaudium</i>, with a curt retort to those who have put their faith in the deliverance of liberal capitalism, “We are far from the so-called ‘end of history’, since the conditions for a sustainable and peaceful development have not yet been adequately articulated and realized.” Christians need to find a way to address these events that understands and works to eliminate the material conditions that undergird them. Riots do not develop out of thin air, nor are they dispelled by hot air about the virtues of nonviolence.<br />
<br />
If those committed to nonviolence truly want to condemn violence “on all sides,” perhaps they would be wise to follow the lead of Francis and King and begin with the side that happily accommodates and perpetuates violence each day. It is no accident that Francis's thoughts on violence come in the context of <i>Evangelii Gaudium</i>, an exhortation about evangelization. Without a moral voice that understands the long and harried history of structural sins in the United States, Christians will inevitably continue to bulwark America’s own banality of evil, foreclosing its ability to speak a word of peace in a society of violence. Given that Francis’s exhortation seems to have gone largely unnoticed, I close with a passage worth quoting at length, following Francis’s observation that law enforcement and political programs will not quell the need for riots:<br />
<br />
“This is not the case simply because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the system, but because the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root. Just as goodness tends to spread, the toleration of evil, which is injustice, tends to expand its baneful influence and quietly to undermine any political and social system, no matter how solid it may appear. If every action has its consequences, an evil embedded in the structures of a society has a constant potential for disintegration and death. It is evil crystallized in unjust social structures, which cannot be the basis of hope for a better future.”<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">
Dean Dettloff is a Junior Member in the PhD program at the Institute for Christian Studies, where he researches media theory and religion. He is also the co-host, with Matt Bernico, of <a href="https://soundcloud.com/themagnificast">The Magnificast</a>, a podcast about Christianity and leftist politics.<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image: "Ferguson, Day 4, Photo 26," used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ferguson,_Day_4,_Photo_26.png">wikipedia</a> user Loavesofbread.</span></div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-75211997698129150942017-06-19T12:43:00.000-04:002017-06-19T12:43:39.823-04:00Judgment, Religion, and Modernity in The Keepers<div style="text-align: right;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>This post is part of our "<a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/search/label/1.popular.mythology">popular mythology</a>" series, investigating the intersections of religion and popular culture.</i> <br />
<i><br /></i></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
By: Kiegan Irish</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipZnjNOjSLOGy5wWPryF9uvHNvsChyh398rKKAYbXPYHRKoZJzgbA0OAWKbWc0U6MJOmUENE2wG4h_NXPYD0eWyJT_MB5Smg55rGHjdd3VOBDqYnpbnT9YkgvVw-MbwWnJXtV4l0hGC2dz/s1600/The+Keepers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="711" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipZnjNOjSLOGy5wWPryF9uvHNvsChyh398rKKAYbXPYHRKoZJzgbA0OAWKbWc0U6MJOmUENE2wG4h_NXPYD0eWyJT_MB5Smg55rGHjdd3VOBDqYnpbnT9YkgvVw-MbwWnJXtV4l0hGC2dz/s320/The+Keepers.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
Recently I found myself thoroughly wrapped up with a new documentary series called <i>The Keepers</i>. The series is interesting for a number of reasons. It seems to be a continuation of the trend in 'true crime' documentaries that has had such widespread appeal lately. <i>The Keepers</i> is extremely well shot, edited, and researched, especially given the quality of some of the offerings in this genre. It is also profoundly disturbing. It deals explicitly with sexual violence, and some of the interviews where the cases are described in detail are difficult to watch. That being said, I think that the series raises some important issues about the relations between guilt and judgment as well as religion and modernity, and handles them in a unique and thoughtful fashion.<br />
<br />
The story of the series revolves around two women who had been students at a Catholic girl's school in Baltimore in the late 1960s. During their time at the school, a young and beloved nun was brutally murdered. The police investigation carried out at the time came up with nothing and the case was eventually abandoned. Years later, in their retirement, the case still haunts the two women and other students of the school and members of the community. They band together and attempt to seek all the information they can, regarding the murder. During their investigation, they uncover connections to a sinister conspiracy.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">The real story then, we're told, is not the murder itself, but the cover up. The murder of the nun called Sister Kathy in '69 was committed precisely because she had threatened to report the abuse.</span></span> </div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
The Catholic school, called Archbishop Keough, was the site of extensive sexual abuse of the girls attending, specifically by a priest named Joseph Maskell. But he did not act alone; the show reveals connections to the police and other authority figures, including their complicity and participation in the abuses committed. The real story then, we're told, is not the murder itself, but the cover up. The murder of the nun called Sister Kathy in '69 was committed precisely because she had threatened to report the abuse.<br />
<br />
One former student at the school saw the body of the nun after she was murdered. She comes to be known as Jane Doe after her role in a court case in the early 90s. Jane Doe had a whole series of repressed traumatic memories resurface at that time, and litigation was launched against the Archdiocese of Baltimore in an attempt to punish Maskell for his crimes. A huge number of former abuse victims came forward and reported their experiences with Maskell to police. The case was nonetheless unsuccessful, leading those most prominently involved to lose hope.<br />
<br />
In the present day, the filmmakers and independent researchers attempt to gather together all the information about what took place at Keough, and to confront the authorities who worked to cover up the abuse and the related murder. The interviews we’re shown reveal a sprawling network of involvement in the abuse, deeply intertwined institutions in the state and the Archdiocese, and a long history of lack of accountability in cases of abuse.<br />
<br />
All of these disturbing investigations open a window onto the infrastructure of our world, which is at once crucially important and easily misunderstood. In her own journalistic investigation, eventually published as <i>Eichmann</i> <i>in Jerusalem</i>, philosopher Hannah Arendt was struck by the unwillingness of those around her to cast judgments on particular people for particular acts. She points out the comfort modern people feel with condemning vast swathes of the population, or entire histories of ideas—the broader the better. She fights against the notion that Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi official whose job was gathering and deporting Jews to concentration camps, was a monster, a representative of the evil Nazi party. Coining instead the oft-quoted phrase “the banality of evil,” she attempted to showcase that the Nazis were nothing other than particular individuals, in a particular society, carrying out horrific acts with greater and lesser degrees of involvement. She claims people are too quick to blame all of humanity in its brokenness, or all of Christianity, for the horrors of Nazism, as though those ideas were capable of murder. Instead, Arendt recommends deliberate and thoughtful judgment, dealing with particularity.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">If we can get past this initial judgment condemning religion or Catholicism in a sweeping fashion, <i>The Keepers</i> reveals a much richer portrait of modernity and religion.</span></span> </div>
<br />
The story of <i>The Keepers</i>, with its explicit descriptions of sexual violence and institutional horror, elicits a strong affective response on the part of the viewer. This disgust and outrage is completely legitimate in the face of such unrepentant evil. However the question of how this affective response is deployed needs to be posed here. This is Arendt's challenge, to make thoughtful judgments and avoid sweeping condemnations that miss the particularity and banality of the evil perpetrated. Watching this show, it is easy to say that Catholicism itself, or Christianity writ large, are to blame for the evils carried out in the 1960s in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. But I think that this judgment fails to be thoughtful in the sense Arendt calls for, and instead comes up with a sweeping verdict of collective guilt that leaves the particular untouched. Not every Catholic carried out horrific abuse on those girls, or made the choice to move Maskell to another parish rather than take punitive action. However there is a particularly religious register to the abuse and the circumstances that allowed for it, so what exactly should our judgment be in this case?<br />
<br />
If we can get past this initial judgment condemning religion or Catholicism in a sweeping fashion, <i>The Keepers</i> reveals a much richer portrait of modernity and religion. In the way the story is told, the school itself takes on a character all its own, submerged in an even larger institutional network. There are shots of the loudspeakers in classrooms by which the victims would be called down to the priest's office to be abused. There is an explanation of the floor plan, revealing that the design of the building put the priest's office far from the other administrative services, and that it had its own exit. The role of the priest in the context of these schools is also examined, with interviews describing the priests as god-like figures who elicited fear, and kept strict discipline. This architectural and social organization, which has proved through the numerous scandals and cover-ups to be a breeding ground for abuse, is the product of a complex history. It is not enough to blame Catholicism (although the agents of the Archdiocese are revealed to be complicit in some unconscionable ways—the show does a good job of bringing this out, with one interviewee describing how she had come to understand that the Archdiocese is not a spiritual community but rather a business), as the whole disciplinary infrastructure of 20th century Baltimore is the more immediate site of this abuse. Yes this involved Catholicism in an undeniable way, but it is more than its Catholic trappings.<br />
<br />
Michel Foucault discusses the architecture of disciplinary power, and the way in which subjects—citizens—are produced by institutions, which is a key issue here. Catholicism did not create this architecture, although it has wedded itself to it. Foucault outlines that in the context of the modern state, the concern for governing the lives of every single individual in its daily actions is essential to the state increasing its overall power. Knowledge must be procured from every single subject in order to provide the basis for the optimal operation of power. In order to procure this knowledge, the state must institute a widespread obligation to confess. People must confess the truth about themselves in order to be governed. The procedure of confession is something that the modern state adopts from Christian tradition, although in this adoption, Foucault claims our societies have become truly demonic, as they've abandoned the old goal of confession (the salvation of the soul) for the goal of pure control.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: large;">The infrastructure of our society is what is really in question in <i>The Keepers</i>; and that is truly modern, though it is religious as well. Religion and modern state rationality require their demonic marriage in order to produce the kinds of horrors that took place at Keough.</span></span> </div>
<br />
Maskell was not only a priest, he was also trained as a psychiatrist and his role at Keough was that of counsellor. He took students for gynaecological examinations, conducted psychological experiments and research, generating a huge body of literature--confessions procured from the subjects under his domain, the truths the state requires. Maskell was furthermore a police chaplain with deep ties to the police force. He was placed at the top of a disciplinary structure which was neither strictly religious nor wholly secular, but that was entirely demonic. This position should never have existed; Maskell was the conduit for far too much power. The show brings this out effectively, with former students observing succinctly, “Maskell wielded a lot of power.” And this is precisely why the police and the Archdiocese (and the district attorney and other state operatives, etc.) covered up the abuse and the murder. If judgment had been cast on Maskell in a legitimate and official capacity, it would have opened up too many others who held similar roles in a variety of disciplinary institutions to scrutiny. The legitimacy of those institutions--the source of so much power over so many people at the expenditure of so little energy--would be called very publicly into question.<br />
<br />
And here, finally, is the point about religion and modernity. The clerical sex scandal (in general and in this particular case), too easily appears as a relic of the past. And it is my contention that the judgment that Catholicism or Christianity writ large are guilty for that horrific anachronism plays into a certain secularist narrative that claims that as the public power of the church recedes, it will take these sorts of horrors with it. That judgment and its narrative ignore the fact that these scandals are the product of modern institutions; they require the whole disciplinary infrastructure of the power of the psychological confessor, the access to and supreme power over young people, the surveillance networks and loudspeakers, and the legitimacy of the demand that one tells the truth about themselves to someone with total power over them. All of these elements are particularly modern, and characterize the techniques of governance in our societies and institutions. If we blame Catholicism for the reality of the abuse, we leave all those elements untouched that established the possibility of the abuse whatsoever. The infrastructure of our society is what is really in question in <i>The Keepers</i>; and that is truly modern, though it is religious as well. Religion and modern state rationality require their demonic marriage in order to produce the kinds of horrors that took place at Keough. And it is in service of that marriage—embodied in our schools, asylums, and prisons—to judge Catholicism in the abstract as guilty for the abuse that results.<br />
<br />
To return to the question of judgment and guilt, it is obvious that in the case of the abuse at Keough in the 1960s, and the attending murder, the priest Maskell and his associates are guilty. They perpetrated horrific crimes, and the victims deserve justice, which the city of Baltimore and the Archdiocese colluded to deny them. That being said, the fertile ground out of which these crimes grew was not Catholicism in a general sense, but was instead the particularly demonic marriage of religion and state rationality that underwrites the architecture of power in 1960s Baltimore. It is that architecture—not Maskell himself—that the cover-up worked to defend. And while the explicit disciplinary institutions of that time are falling out of fashion today, that is not the end of the kind of power that positioned the victims within reach of their abuser in the first place.<br />
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">
Kiegan Irish is a Junior Member at the Institute for Christian Studies, currently in the second year of his Master’s studies. He is working on a thesis exploring the theme of natality in the work of Hannah Arendt.</div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-8799460233016337952017-03-22T18:09:00.000-04:002017-03-22T18:09:29.980-04:00If you do not forgive… III<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
by Henk Hart<br />
<b><br />
</b> <br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="text-align: justify;"><b>ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ 20:21-23<br />
</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Original text John 20:21-23 Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)</i></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
21 εἶπεν οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς πάλιν· Εἰρήνη ὑμῖν· καθὼς ἀπέσταλκέν με ὁ πατήρ, κἀγὼ πέμπω ὑμᾶς. 22 καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν ἐνεφύσησεν καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Λάβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον· 23 ἄν τινων ἀφῆτε τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἀφέωνται αὐτοῖς·<br />
<span style="color: red;">ἄν τινων κρατῆτε κεκράτηνται</span>.</blockquote>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;"><i>Reading the text once again</i></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
The 10 references to the same gospel I surveyed last week suggest that 20:23b from that very gospel may not offer support for church discipline. In a 2012 report of the West Coast Presbyterian Pastors Conference, Eugene Peterson, translator of <i>The Message</i>, said about this difficulty that “this verse always bothered him.” So he translated it in <i>The Message</i> as: “If you don’t forgive sins, what are you going to do with them?” In material for the Lectionary Mat Skinner wrote: “Failure to bear witness, Jesus warns, will result in the opposite: a world … left unable to grasp the knowledge of God. .... Jesus is not … granting the church a unique spiritual authority. He is simply reporting that a church that does not bear witness to Christ … leaves itself unable to play a role in delivering people from all that keeps them from experiencing the fullness that Jesus offers.” <br />
<br />
The problem can perhaps be addressed by reading the text differently. Peterson leans that way in responding to 20:23b by exclaiming: And then what! He seems to imply that leaving people unforgiven creates an intolerable situation. So does Skinner. If they are right, we can take 23b to mean: and so forgive, never leave people unforgiven. Had 23a read: "When people are hungry, feed them," 23b would have been immediately clear: "if you don’t feed them, they remain hungry.” So: when you forgive sins they will be forgiven, lest people will continue as they are. Never fail to forgive. John’s great commission is: Forgive.<br />
<br />
John 20:23b now urges us always to forgive, following the tenor of the gospel, in line with Paul's canon of the new creation (end of Galatians 6). John’s interpretation of Pentecost is the inbreathing of a new Adam who, as in Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3, following Jesus in love, is filled with all the fulness of God. I read these kinds of texts as giving us a new interpretation of humanity made in God’s image. The fulness of God’s self-revelation in Exodus 34:6-7a now no longer needs to be completed with vs 7b. In Jesus the fulness of God’s love covers all iniquity. As in John 3:17-18a "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned….”<br />
<br />
<i>Forging a new tradition</i><br />
<br />
But John 3:18b says: "whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son….” And vs 36: "whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them.” How can I maintain my different reading in the face of these clear condemnations? I respond that these condemnations are not part of the church’s mission. They are not God's intent in Jesus. The church is not called to condemn, but to be a means of grace. The gospel simply asserts the meaning of living outside the life-giving forces of love. All the more reason to read 20:23b as I propose.<br />
<br />
Our world cries out for love and the gospel focuses on love as the core of the church. To practise love, we must overcome a centuries old tradition about reading a text. That’s been done before, also in connection with sin. We seem constitutionally inclined to respond to transgression, trespass, disobedience in just one way: punishment. So the post-resurrection church believes it must practice discipline to remain true and reads John as commanding this.<br />
<br />
A reading of Scripture about our nature can be based on a mistake. In Reformed theology Augustine’s teaching of original sin was once very influential. Today we know his doctrine represented his misreading of Romans 5:12. Is it possible that we also misread John 20:23b? Are we free to work at a new tradition?<br />
<br />
<i>Restitution for abused victims</i><br />
<br />
It is difficult to abandon an established tradition without the strengths of a new one. Breaking new ground often misses the mark again and again. Failure can tempt a return to Egypt. Entering a phase of the Reformation without church discipline will meet with resistance. But if the church is to become the special institution where love has no barriers, these hurdles must be taken.<br />
<br />
What will a church do when acceptance of abusers seems to leave the abused without healing? Abused people, especially by clergy in a position of power in the church, rightfully look for restitution. Can they trust the church to restore them if the perpetrator is not punished? These questions easily arise from thinking in terms of a punitive model. But an institution devoted to extend God’s love to all is called to bring healing to those broken by the transgressions of others as well as to those others. <br />
<br />
We have learned from the “truth and reconciliation” (t&r) process that restorative involvement of both sides of a bloody collision of norms and practices holds out promise for healing and reconciliation, serious shortcomings notwithstanding.* That process was adopted by secular states. It could therefore recommend itself even more to churches for development as a faith oriented process that moves beyond punishment. Punishment can indeed give a victim some satisfaction, but it does not restore. The strategies of t&r were forged in the crucible of seeking restoration after cruel political conflicts. Their path often resulted in truly moving results. <br />
<br />
T&R looks for 'restorative justice’ rather than adversarial and retributive justice. It aims to heal by uncovering what really happened, finding truth and exposing lies, and making room for mourning, forgiveness and healing. Following this way churches can forego punishment and at the same time do justice to both abuser and abused. This provides a more Christlike way to read John 20:23b and a way to deal with transgression that incarnates love.<br />
<br />
*Desmond Tutu’s Assessment: Despite these challenges and limitations, the TRC was internationally regarded as successful and showed the importance of public participation in such processes, including the initial decision-making process leading up to the establishment of a truth commission. The hearings of the TRC attracted global attention, as it was the first commission to hold public hearings in which both victims and perpetrators were heard. While amnesties are generally considered inconsistent with international law, the South African TRC provided some basis for considering conditional amnesties as a useful compromise, particularly if they help to secure perpetrator confessions.The South African TRC represented a major departure from the approach taken at the Nürnberg trials. It was hailed as an innovative model for building peace and justice and for holding accountable those guilty of human rights violations. At the same time, it laid the foundation for building reconciliation among all South Africans. Many other countries dealing with postconflict issues have instituted similar methodologies for such commissions, although not always with the same mandate. The South African TRC has provided the world with another tool in the struggle against impunity and the search for justice and peace.</div>
<br />
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: center;">
This piece is part of the Ground Motive project <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/from-henks-archives.html">From Henk's Archives</a>.</div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-62615075434606772612017-03-15T13:02:00.000-04:002017-03-22T18:09:40.994-04:00If you do not forgive… II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: right;">by Henk Hart<br />
<b><br />
</b> <br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><b>ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ 20:21-23<br />
</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Original text John 20:21-23 Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)</i></div><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><blockquote class="tr_bq">21 εἶπεν οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς πάλιν· Εἰρήνη ὑμῖν· καθὼς ἀπέσταλκέν με ὁ πατήρ, κἀγὼ πέμπω ὑμᾶς. 22 καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν ἐνεφύσησεν καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Λάβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον· 23 ἄν τινων ἀφῆτε τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἀφέωνται αὐτοῖς·<br />
<span style="color: red;">ἄν τινων κρατῆτε κεκράτηνται</span>.</blockquote></div><br />
</div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Problems with the current reading of John 20:23b</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">When the disciples are commissioned Jesus tells them that if they do not forgive someone’s sins, these sins are not forgiven. (John 20:23b) In this context a disturbing question arises: are we reading this right? Forgiving is one of the meanings of the new life. Paul ends Galatians 6, in which he tells us to bear one another’s burden if someone has sinned, by saying “what counts is the new creation. Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule.” How could that include leaving people in their sins?<br />
<br />
If indeed the last chapters of John are intended to explain what resurrection means, is there no immediate tension in reading 20:23b both as evidence of the resurrection and also as a mandate not to forgive someone’s sins?<br />
<br />
I do not believe, given the context of the entire Gospel, such a reading is necessary and I hope to show that the problem is not one of poor translation. It is possible to simply read 23b as it stands and find it emphasizing new life. But first: is John's gospel consistent with retaining someone's transgressions as part of the meaning of resurrection?<br />
<br />
Ten grounds for considering a different reading<br />
<br />
*In the Prologue to his gospel John refers to the Word Incarnate as full of grace and truth (vs 17). He links us to Exodus 34:6-7a, the astounding self-revelation of God as forgiving and full of mercy, without a link to vs 7b. In the Old Testament this usually means that the reference intentionally does not include God’s resolve to punish iniquity (7b). In John, only the forgiving and merciful God becomes incarnate.<br />
<br />
*John points to Jesus (vs 29) as the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world. He refers to God’s inclusive, cosmic love. Calvin’s exuberant reading of 20:23a as an unconditional pardon raises no expectation of limits on God's cosmic love. Nothing here points to reading this same Jesus as later commanding us to retain the sins of some.<br />
<br />
*The miracle at the wedding in Cana (John 3) focuses Jesus’ mission on the restoration of joy as the basis for the disciples’ trust. So one would not expect John later to undermine this trust by involving the disciples in declaring some sin unforgivable.<br />
<br />
*John 3:16 characterizes Jesus's mission as, again, an expression of God's love for the cosmos. Had Nicodemus been present at the commissioning in John 20, would he not have been surprised hearing vs 23b as a limit on God’s love?<br />
<br />
*In John 8:3-11, Jesus tells a woman caught in adultery that he does not condemn her. He also does not assure that her sins are forgiven. Instead he tells her no longer to live in sin. And while he does, he is writing in the sand with his finger, just as the 10 commandments were written with God’s finger. But this time he may have written his new commandment: enter the life of love.<br />
<br />
*The new commandment is made explicit in John 13:34, 15:12, 17 without any hint of leaving room for intentionally not forgiving sins. Jesus’s followers are to love one another as Jesus loved them. And Jesus loved them as God loved Jesus.<br />
<br />
*In John 's post resurrection stories I read resurrection to mean darkness is overcome by love. He does not say the empty grave tells us Jesus is risen (John 20:4-10). Instead he tells stories that begin in darkness and give way to new life, to love, to forgiveness, all telling us that in Jesus a new creation starts.<br />
<br />
*The first evidence of resurrection is the restoration of Eve in the commissioning of Mary to “go and tell” the disciples (John 20:17). She, a woman, is the first to be commissioned as messenger of good news. The Word that was in the beginning and brought us grace and truth incarnate has begun the work of resurrection, of making all things new. Leaving people in their sins does not fit in this commission<br />
<br />
*The commissioning of the disciples (John 20:20-23) follows a clear path to new life. First the disciples are told to continue Jesus’ very mission: as the Father has sent me. Jesus then breathed on them to give them the Spirit. The Greek text leaves little doubt that this breathing was like God’s breathing life into Adam. Then they are commanded to forgive and reminded that without forgiveness people remain in their sins. I will say more about how I read forgiving in this third step of the commissioning. In this sequence resurrection can hardly include leaving people in their sins.<br />
<br />
*In John 21:15ff the commissioning of Peter takes the place of forgiving him. I will retell this dramatic story in my own words to bring out the subtleties that translations do not reveal. Peter is asked three times whether he loves Jesus and three times he responds by saying Jesus knows. There is never a straight: Yes, I do. The first time Jesus asked: Do you fully love me more than the others? Peter responds: You know we are true friends. The second time Jesus leaves off the more than the others. Peter do you fully love me? Peter: You know we are true friends. The third time, which upsets Peter, Jesus comes down to his level: Are we really friends? Peter: You know everything, you know we truly are friends. Each of the three times Jesus commissions Peter to look after Jesus’ followers and then explains how this will lead to a hard life. Did Peter “get it,” we might ask? Was he renewed? At the end of the conversation Peter sees his close friend John and asks Jesus: And what about him? Jesus gently rebukes him: That’s for me to know. Peter’s renewal is really a sad story. But Jesus does not say he doesn’t forgive Peter. Nor does he discipline him.<br />
<br />
Peter's story, more than anything else, make clear to me that in Jesus, full of grace and truth, we know only the God of mercy and forgiveness in Exodus 34:6-7a. God as known in Exodus 34:7b, who does not overlook iniquity, is nowhere in sight. So what is John saying in 20:23b? I will go there next week.</div><br />
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: center;">This piece is part of the Ground Motive project <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/from-henks-archives.html">From Henk's Archives</a>.</div>Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-74842241651119862572017-03-09T13:33:00.001-05:002017-03-22T18:10:00.308-04:00If you do not forgive… I<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
by Henk Hart<br />
<b><br />
</b> <br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="text-align: justify;"><b>ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ 20:21-23<br />
</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Original text John 20:21-23 Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)</i></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
21 εἶπεν οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς πάλιν· Εἰρήνη ὑμῖν· καθὼς ἀπέσταλκέν με ὁ πατήρ, κἀγὼ πέμπω ὑμᾶς. 22 καὶ τοῦτο εἰπὼν ἐνεφύσησεν καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Λάβετε πνεῦμα ἅγιον· 23 ἄν τινων ἀφῆτε τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἀφέωνται αὐτοῖς·<br />
<span style="color: red;">ἄν τινων κρατῆτε κεκράτηνται</span>.</blockquote>
</div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Introduction</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In most of my weekly blogs since October last year, love has been a persistent theme: God’s love, our love, love as the fabric of creation, love whose redemptive force is irresistible. That theme led me to plead for removing discipline as a mark of the true church, replacing it with love as a way of celebrating 500 years of Reformation. I tried to make this concrete in terms of a church that would eliminate condemnation from its witness. I intended this elimination to apply specifically to the organized church, because it is unworkable for the rest of society, for example for the secular state. Most cultures respond to transgression with punishment. Recently newspapers reported that US chiefs of police are not convinced of the wisdom of relying "only on jail and prison,” which they see as "simply ineffective….” Laudable as that sentiment may be, it is unrelated to dealing with transgressors in love.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So in a context of long having to live with brokenness and discipline, my plea concerned a re-formation of the church as a sanctuary, as a place where without exception all live by grace alone, as a place that wipes away all darkness and allows even worst offenders to breathe freely, as a New Testament version of the Old Testament’s City of Refuge, as a place where no one is ever refused communion.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Some of my readers felt uneasy about this. They were concerned that, for example, victims of abuse by church leaders might never find healing for their wounds if the perpetrators would not face the consequences of their destructive behaviour. In this blog and others to follow I hope to address this legitimate and important concern. But I do not intend to diminish my plea for boundless love for all, also for perpetrators of abuse. However, in my view such love needs a path to genuine healing for victims and a call for perpetrators to participate in that healing. I hope that the process known as "truth and reconciliation" can help us forge a path for the church to walk that will allow abuser and abused to experience a fulness of redemption.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I rely on Bible texts in making this plea. So what follows is a matter of reading sacred texts. Therefore the issue of reliable and responsible reading is very much in play. The more so when my reading—both in terms of what it claims a text says and of how we must respond to it—for the most part deviates from how the church has for centuries read and responded to a specific text. The most significant basis for the maintenance of discipline I take to be John 20:23b. It will, I hope, also become a basis for relentless forgiving. To that end I will offer and defend a different reading.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>The church and John 20:21-23</i></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Commentaries on John's story of Jesus appearing to the disciples the first evening after the resurrection seem to agree that this is John's version of Matthew's Great Commission and of Pentecost early in Acts. So John 20:21-23 packs two monumental Gospel events into very few words. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
John Calvin’s commentary provides a powerful interpretation of vs. 23, which in the NIV reads: ”If you forgive anyone's sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” The first part, Calvin says (my emphases), is nothing less than “<i>the sum of the Gospel….</i>” We learn here about God’s “<i>unconditional pardon of sins…</i>,” accomplished by “<i>not imputing….</i>” them. Salvation is “<i>the forgiveness of sins through free grace.</i>” </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
His interpretation of the second part is also powerful, but not very comforting. This part has been added, he says, “to terrify the despisers of this Gospel” who will hereby know “that they will not escape punishment….” Calvin adds that in this way the apostles “have been armed with vengeance against all the ungodly…."</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In this setting it is understandable that the churches of the Reformation wanted to make sure that the faithful practice of discipline would be a mark of the true church. Verse 23b has been a key element in providing a solid Scriptural foundation for how the church deals with transgression in both the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions. Still, there are wide ranging discussions about 23b, especially among preachers and pastors, who deal with this text not in abstraction, but in their practice with parishioners and councils. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The discussions are often nuanced and wide ranging and many make a connection between what Jesus says and what has been near-formulaic in the Jewish tradition, namely that leaders of the people are authorized to declare with legal force how actions may be set free from condemnation or may be subject to condemnation. Jesus used their technical language of binding and loosing, forbidding and permitting. So in the eyes of many, Jesus intends to authorize the church not to forgive some.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Nevertheless, a persistent minority questions this reading and in some cases provides a different translation. The week after next I will introduce a different way of reading this text, but first I will suggest why some interpreters wonder how likely it is that Jesus, as part of the Spirit-inspired great commission, bids the church to sometimes show no mercy.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
My reading of John 20 and 21 assumes that these chapters are devoted to illustrate what John means by resurrection. Very remarkably, the empty grave has little to say in his story. Peter and John entered it, saw that it was empty, believed what the women had said they had found, made no connection with Scripture, and went home. John's truth of resurrection becomes apparent in stories that follow, such as Mary’s commission, the commissioning of the disciples, Peter’s being forgiven and commissioned. These stories suggest to some interpreters that John 20:23 has perhaps been misunderstood. Next week I hope to show that there are good grounds in the gospel itself to join these interpreters in their second thoughts.</div>
<br />
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: center;">
This piece is part of the Ground Motive project <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/from-henks-archives.html">From Henk's Archives</a>.</div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-47400771840550822712017-03-01T10:00:00.000-05:002017-03-01T10:00:34.684-05:00Reading John 3:16 Responsibly II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
by Henk Hart<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLeei_G9xd2Uf72LTgBHVX7BWyyaPn-JA_mUthFh9UzG4k_NgrolEQV0Kz4TOJG1TaQT57kEXZXqnJrPv7BF-sC1R7izkrPtpdDL1SazDfYOAYzK6c7XRx-yQrpUUXyPagOg-ACRRMO2U-/s1600/henkbible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLeei_G9xd2Uf72LTgBHVX7BWyyaPn-JA_mUthFh9UzG4k_NgrolEQV0Kz4TOJG1TaQT57kEXZXqnJrPv7BF-sC1R7izkrPtpdDL1SazDfYOAYzK6c7XRx-yQrpUUXyPagOg-ACRRMO2U-/s320/henkbible.jpg" width="279" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greek Manuscript of the New Testament</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="text-align: justify;"><i>In this blog and the preceding I share my reading of John 3:16 in the context of John’s gospel and against the background of Psalm 121, the psalm that celebrates the Creator as Helper and thus throws light on the opening verses of John's gospel. Bible reading exposes us to a message, so I have shaped my reading as a meditation with a message. So this is in every way a subjective reading, but I hope also a responsible reading. One of many possible responsible readings.</i></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br />
</b> <b>Reading John 3:16 Responsibly II</b><br />
<br />
Though God’s love for the world is cosmic, it is not for that reason impersonal. That becomes clear when John tells us the story of Nicodemus, who came to see Jesus by night. Why not? If in Jesus God is our helper, coming and going by day and by night, why not come by night? <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’” </blockquote>
Nicodemus didn't quite know whether he was coming or going. Surely Jesus had a powerful connection to God. But his father was Joseph and he came from Nazareth. Better not make a fool of yourself. Go talk to him when no one else can see your coming or going, talk to the light in the darkness. But if God so loved the world, why come to the light at night? Well, maybe you do. It's in our night that we need light.<br />
<br />
Jesus has a conversation with Nicodemus: "‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.’“ The cosmic kingdom tied in with personal conversion. "Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?'" Do you not understand God is love? Do you not remember Moses and the serpent? Let me tell you, "... just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life." Nicodemus knew about lifting up our eyes. When looking for help, lift up your eyes to the hills. When a snake has bitten you in the desert, lift up your eyes to the Man of God who lifts high the very snake that bit you—trust what God is doing in that man and you will be healed. Trust now, says Jesus, your Helper-made-flesh and lifted up on a cross. You will be given your life as surely as the water was made into wine. A savior has come to the world, recognizable by his birth in a crib, a sign for humble shepherds (Luke 2:12). He humbled himself (Philippians 2:8) on a cross, that all who lift up their eyes may live.<br />
<br />
John explains: "For God so loved the world!" Our entry into every mystery is the love of God. God creates in love, God redeems in love. And, as John tells the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet, Jesus says there is no love greater than laying down your life in love. That's love divine all loves excelling. And as an explanation for the incarnation it is at once an invitation. If we want to be disciples, if our feet have been washed, then we are called to trust our invitation to image the God who loves the world. Will we? ... lay down our lives, wash feet, live as vessels in which Jesus changed the water of misery into wine of joy? Will we drink his cup? Do we hear the language of Lent?<br />
<br />
Our invitation to embody God's love in Christ is crucial to the presence of God's redeeming love in the world. God invites us to be the Eve of God's Adam, bride of Christ, Jesus' helper. Without a body of Christ, God's love in Christ remains invisible in our world. We are, says Paul, "ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us....” (II Corinthians 5:20). We are invited to love as God loves, to give ourselves in love as Jesus loved. In so following Jesus we, like him, will be filled with God's fullness (Ephesians 3:19).<br />
<br />
When our love images God's love in Christ we will love like the Samaritan and we will love the thief on the cross. God’s redeeming love will be visible in our love. Christ, the second Adam, will have a helper, his body, his Eve, his bride.<br />
<br />
Our help is in the name... for God so loved,<br />
<br />
Our help is in the name of Adam's maker...for God so loved,<br />
<br />
Our help is in the name of the giver of Eve, ...for God so loved,<br />
<br />
Our help is in name of the Word, ...for God so loved.<br />
<br />
The Word in the flesh was alone, for we knew him not!<br />
<br />
God calls the church to help, ...for God so loved.<br />
<br />
Jesus bids us take up our cross, that we may inherit his glory, provided we suffer with him (Romans 8:17).</div>
<br />
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: center;">
This piece is part of the Ground Motive project <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/from-henks-archives.html">From Henk's Archives</a>.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Image: P. Bodmer II, Papyrus 66 (Gregory-Aland) in the public domain. Used from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Papyrus_66_(GA).jpg">wikipedia</a>.</i></span></div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5846671056195917287.post-40427874359451316012017-02-22T14:25:00.000-05:002017-02-22T14:25:35.829-05:00Reading John 3:16 Responsibly I<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
by Henk Hart<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLeei_G9xd2Uf72LTgBHVX7BWyyaPn-JA_mUthFh9UzG4k_NgrolEQV0Kz4TOJG1TaQT57kEXZXqnJrPv7BF-sC1R7izkrPtpdDL1SazDfYOAYzK6c7XRx-yQrpUUXyPagOg-ACRRMO2U-/s1600/henkbible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLeei_G9xd2Uf72LTgBHVX7BWyyaPn-JA_mUthFh9UzG4k_NgrolEQV0Kz4TOJG1TaQT57kEXZXqnJrPv7BF-sC1R7izkrPtpdDL1SazDfYOAYzK6c7XRx-yQrpUUXyPagOg-ACRRMO2U-/s320/henkbible.jpg" width="279" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greek Manuscript of the New Testament</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="text-align: justify;"><i>In this blog and the next I share my reading of John 3:16 in the context of John’s gospel and against the background of Psalm 121, the psalm that celebrates the Creator as Helper and thus throws light on the opening verses of John's gospel. Bible reading exposes us to a message, so I have shaped my reading as a meditation with a message. So this is in every way a subjective reading, but I hope also a responsible reading. One of many possible responsible readings.</i></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><br />
</b> <b>Reading John 3:16 Responsibly I</b><br />
<br />
"For God so loved the world...." John 3:16. Likely the best known verse in the Bible. Or the most ill treated verse, torn from the gospel as a naked fragment brazenly broadcast on bulky billboards. Let’s take it off the billboard and place it in the context of John's gospel and the setting of Psalm 121. Will we recognize it there?<br />
<br />
Psalm 121, with its moving language for God as helper, deliverer, rescuer, savior, has a strong relation to both Lent and historical Christian worship. For the great celebration of the exodus from slavery, Passover, Israel's primal event of deliverance, pilgrims sang songs of ascent, climbing Mount Zion while singing. Psalm 121, one of these 15 songs of ascent, celebrates the creator God as helper:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I lift up my eyes to the hills—<br />
from where will my help come?<br />
My help comes from the Lord,<br />
who made heaven and earth."</blockquote>
For ages Christian worship started with these very words: "Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.”<br />
<br />
For God so loved the world. God’s love is cosmic.<br />
<br />
During their Lenten pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Jesus and his disciples would sing these words. For God so loved the world—<br />
<br />
God, the maker of heaven and earth. God almighty.<br />
<br />
God as our helper first appears in the creation story, when God realizes that Adam is alone and needs help. The creator is savior from the very beginning, a helper for the helpless Adam, our helper.[1]<br />
<br />
For God so loved the world. <br />
<br />
It was an arch confession for Israel to sing: "Our help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth." This God protects us from all danger, whether we are coming or going, by day or by night:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The sun shall not strike you by day,<br />
nor the moon by night. ...<br />
The Lord will keep<br />
your going out and your coming in...."</blockquote>
God Almighty, maker of all that is made, so loved the world. How sensible that John begins his gospel of redeeming love with the Word of God through whom all things were made:<br />
<br />
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... All things came into being through him, ... What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”[2] John tells Good News starting with God Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, our helper. <br />
<br />
For God so loved the world.<br />
<br />
But listen: "He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him."<br />
<br />
What is this? Is John writing about the Jews? Not likely. Recognizing God's presence is not a Jewish but a human challenge. When we read this today we need to hear its echo in Romans: God is visible in all of creation, but human foolishness makes us blind. So when love for the world makes God appear in our flesh, that's a problem. Suppose Hillary Clinton became pregnant (don't laugh, remember Sarah!) and became convinced her baby would be Immanu-el, God with us? Hillary's baby? If that's a problem, why isn’t Jesus a problem? He came from Nazareth, son of carpenter Joseph and his wife Mary. Why would anyone recognize the maker of heaven and earth in a wood worker's child? Would we? Is that how God helps? Whether we're coming or going, by day or by night?<br />
<br />
John helps with a story. If we do not recognize Jesus as creator, have we not heard of the wedding in Cana? Where the wine ran out? Great need for help, a wedding without wine. God's creation is for celebration, cosmic joy. In Cana there is only water, six huge vats for washing off the world's misery, six vats for ritual cleansing. Then the Word, through whom all things were made, present in the flesh (for God so loved the world), speaks to these vats. And the party can go on: there is wine. John tells this story of glory as the miracle of miracles.[3] Now the disciples realize this Word-of-God come-in-the-flesh deserves their trust, the way you trust God, whether you're coming or going, by day or by night. The wedding goes on with wine, for God so loved the world.[4]<br />
<br />
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
<br />
[1] The Hebrew word for the helper God makes for Adam, ezer, is not used often in the Bible and when it is, it (mostly) refers to God as helper.<br />
<br />
[2] The packed and charged language John uses is open to different readings. Reading a number of translations helps to get the depth of these words. Here I have used the New Revised Standard Version.<br />
<br />
[3] The Greek has various ways of saying “first.” One of those is “arch” as in archangel or archbishop, which is the word John uses. So given Jesus as the Word of creation, I read John as saying: this was the arch sign, the sign of signs, the original sign, the sign that names all signs, the sign that says: I make all things new. God’s love made manifest in the Word incarnate is cosmic in scope, too much for a billboard.<br />
<br />
[4] Next week, on the first day of Lent, I continue this reading of John 3:16 with a look at the story of Nicodemus coming to visit Jesus at night.</div>
<br />
<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: center;">
This piece is part of the Ground Motive project <a href="http://www.groundmotive.net/p/from-henks-archives.html">From Henk's Archives</a>.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Image: P. Bodmer II, Papyrus 66 (Gregory-Aland) in the public domain. Used from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Papyrus_66_(GA).jpg">wikipedia</a>.</i></span></div>
Dean Dettloffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09562985108214085534noreply@blogger.com0