The Pregnancy of Conversion

by Caleb Ratzlaff

Recently on Ground Motive, I discussed the decentred nature of identity, attributing the decenteredness to the fact that decision-making-selves are different from, yet dependant on determinate actions. In a similar spirit, this post focuses on the liminal moment of decision and the tension that provides its (non)foundation.

Since reading St. Augustine's Confessions in undergrad, I’ve struggled to understand conversion. What happens in the moment of repentance, for example? How is any decision made at all, for that matter?

Although most activities involve little decision making—my fingers flow quite unintentionally across the keyboard—decisions do at the very least seem to occur. We observe them most clearly when our routine is rudely interrupted, when for example, a slow moving elderly women impedes one’s commute. Moments of confrontation call us to account for our otherwise habitual actions, requiring a decision—do we stop to help carry her luggage or jump to the other side of the stairs?

Jacques Derrida argues that every decision must pass through a crucible of the undecidable. By this he means that although a responsible decision should be a well-considered one, action never waits for reflection. At the moment of confrontation, when the elderly woman queues ahead of us, the question “what should I do?” is already a response and an action taken. The immediacy of action leaves no time to reflect. One is responsible even before she wants to be. As a result, decisions always occur in a moment of ignorance, in non-decision. No amount of time or reflective resources would solve this dilemma—the problem is inherent in the phenomenon itself. As Derrida citing Kierkegaard writes, “The instant of decision is a madness.”₁

Justice after a History of Violence? What to do when the Body of Christ Wages War with Itself

If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be—a Christian.

― Mark Twain, Notebook

Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.

― Pope John Paul II

By Allyson Carr

Recently, we shared the interim results of the Justice and Faith research project with a group of “stakeholders”—people who are part of the Christian Reformed Church community and know it well, people who will be able to take the research results and use them in the work they do. For the first half of the meeting, the research team painstakingly went over the data we had collected and the analysis we had done. We showed the four definitions of justice that the data appeared to uncover, explained the various ways that people thought about the relation of justice and faith, and went over in some detail what had been identified as barriers and enablers to doing justice, with a few recommendations for potential next steps. Then we opened the floor to questions.

The very first question put to us wasn’t about our careful data collection, nor was it directly related to any of our recommendations for next steps. Instead the speaker basically said, “this is great, but what do people think about all the violence the church itself has done? All of the harm we have caused from positions of power? Has anyone addressed the question of how we can talk about justice at all given our history of complicity in injustice?”

I admit to being momentarily struck dumb.

You see, I have been vexed by similar questions, yet I have learned that even to ask them is to invite one of two opposed, yet equally antagonistic, responses: a defensive response that says that the contemporary Church cannot be held accountable either for the sins of a remote past or for the overzealous actions of a few people today, or a more critical response that says an institution that has been instrumental in the torture and oppression of so many people for so many years is incapable of doing justice. Both of these positions are, I believe, non-starters, and neither takes into account a good deal of history and present-day action. And yet both raise objections that are worth considering in order to address the question our stakeholder raised.

The Decentered Self

by Caleb Ratzlaff

Ethan Vanderleek, a fellow junior member at ICS, contributes to the upcoming edition of Perspective an excellent article titled, “Some Truths about Christian Prayer.” Quoting Merold Westphal, Ethan writes, “Prayer is the posture of a decentered self.” I confess to knowing very little about prayer, for this reason I’ll focus my discussion on the second half of this quote—the nature of a decentered self.

Allegory of Repentance,
Cornelis van Haarlem, 1616

To illustrate what one might mean by a “decentered self,” let’s follow Derrida by examining the nature of a confession: “I confess.” When an unrepentant criminal confesses, for example, identity changes, the “I” becomes a repentant “I.” But there is a problem here. Given these two separate identities, how are we to decide which one actually makes the confession? Is it the repentant or unrepentant “I?”

A closer look at the moment the unrepentant self repents reveals something very strange. An unrepentant criminal by definition does not confess. Who then authorizes or initiates the confession? If there has been no confession, then the repentant criminal does not exist, at least not as such, and therefore cannot initiate the confession. So the confessing “I” is neither the unrepentant criminal nor the repentant criminal. Derrida claims that a fabulous gap resides in this liminal moment of responsibility in which both identities are inexplicably present and absent. Whenever we assume responsibility, whenever we act, make a decision, or confess, we enter into this space, our past and future selves are simultaneously present and absent.

Talking Good About Breaking Bad: Reflections on Death, Sin, and Walter White’s Uneasy Redemption

This post is part of our "popular mythology" series, investigating the intersections of religion and popular culture.

By Shane Cudney

I did it for me.  I liked it.  I was good at it.  And I was really … alive.    – Walter White

It’s not much of a stretch, if at all, to suggest that Breaking Bad can be fruitfully seen as a meditation on death, sin, and the possibility of redemption.  In fact, Vince Gilligan, the series creator, has talked quite explicitly about this and connected theological themes in his many interviews since the finale.  But keep in mind this is not your father’s theology.  It’s more like an evacuated, burnt out shell of a theology commandeered for dark and obscure purposes.

Love and Justice: Opposites or Otherwise?

By Dean Dettloff

Paul Ricoeur

In an essay simply entitled “Love and Justice,” Paul Ricoeur attempts to articulate how these two concepts relate. To sort this out, Ricoeur turns to the method of dialectics, by which he means “on the one hand, the acknowledgment of the initial disproportionality between our two terms and, on the other hand, the search for practical mediations between them—mediations, let us quickly say, that are always fragile and provisory” (315). In other words, Ricoeur notes that love and justice are not the same thing, and are even located at opposite ends of a spectrum, yet there are ways of seeing how and when they intertwine and cooperate. When these two intersect, they always do so temporarily, for they are still fundamentally different. It’s an impressive attempt to deal with two central ideas in Western thought. Is dialectics, however, the best relationship we can come up with?

 

Let’s begin by rehearsing what Ricoeur has to say about love. Love, he contends, has three main aspects: praise, commandment, and feeling. These three aspects constitute a “discourse” of love, a web and way of thinking and being. Illustrating these aspects leads Ricoeur to consider their appearance in various biblical texts, especially the Psalms and Paul’s hymn to love in 1 Corinthians 13. In all these aspects, love is based on a particular relationship—one praises this or that, one commands someone or is commanded, one feels something about something. Love takes place in intimate spaces.