Violence

Virginia Tech Massacre

Posted on by stephen t berg / 10 Comments

How do you grieve over Virginia Tech? It’s impossible to know. I only know about the lead weight that sat on my chest while I watched the confusion of details coming over the air waves last night. Know only the desire to shield those I love from seeing and feeling the same things. I watched for more than an hour. Enough.

vtshooting041707-bFor those of us outside the circle of parents, aunts and uncles, girlfriends and boyfriends, outside the circle of fellow students, outside the Virginia Tech community, it is proper to be struck dumb and to feel profound sadness.

It is also proper to struggle with making sense of the thing–as long as we end up short of doing so. And viewing the act as utterly senseless is a reasonable way of making sense of it. That’s as good as we can do, for now.

As one media personality put it, "There are evil people who do evil things. There’s nothing more to it than that." For now, this may be as good a response as any. Better than–as is already happening–the left blaming it on the National Rifle Association and the gun culture, and the right blaming it on the fostering of a libertine culture.

In time, there will be, must be, time enough to strive to give names to the thing. Because, while it may be true that there are evil people who do evil things, it’s not true there is nothing more to it than that.

But, for now, while we wrestle for reasons, before we offer answers, it is right for us to place our hearts, our prayers, our thoughts, upon the lives lost and upon the lives of their families and friends.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Christianity/Religion

Hail CSER!

Posted on by stephen t berg / 0 Comment

The Jesus Seminar is dead! The Jesus Project has come! Hail CSER! (Curiously, CSER, as I’ve discovered from the Jesus Dynasty blog, is being pronounced Ceasar.)

CSER, the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, has launched what they hope will be a more definitive Jesus of history/Jesus of mythology study.

Here’s an extract of a letter by Dr R. Joseph Hoffmann, the current head of CSER, explaining the "why" of the Jesus Project.

It should be stressed that the Jesus Project, contrary to some advance media speculation, is not an attempt to disprove the historical Jesus. By he same token, its goal is not to create a historically plausible figure from the bits of evidence available, but rather to assess the nature and weight of the evidence itself. Attempts in the 19th and twentieth century to discredit all elements of the gospel record were pronounced a failure, though largely by a theologically driven method of inquiry. The JP will solicit the skills of New Testament scholars, historians, and social scientists in its deliberations. It acknowledges the bias and partiality of previous efforts to address this question, but regards the question as significant and deserving of greater attention than has been given it in previous decades. The proliferation of new theories of the non-historicity of Jesus, whatever their merits, and defenses of the historical Jesus whatever their weaknesses, make this an important area of investigation in the new millennium.

jesusWhat’s fascinating to me about the inauguration of the (yet another) Jesus Project is that it is shows the impossibility of leaving the subject of Jesus and Jesus’ historicity alone. Buddha seems not to have had this problem.

From Lee Strobel’s, "Case for Christ," to Earl Doherty’s, "Jesus Puzzle," to G. A. Wells’, "The Jesus Legend," from inquiries mythical to corporeal, from early Gnosticism to postmodern Christendom, Jesus remains something to be externally discoursed and internally engaged.

Will keep you posted on the JP. Hail CSER!

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Christianity/Peace/Violence

Jefferson and Jesus Unplugged

Posted on by stephen t berg / 2 Comments

A week of technical bugs and glitches has sapped me of the little creativity I possess. I’ve been bedeviled and it’s not over.

In this muted state / man, I just can’t celebrate / only objurgate…so here goes:

TJ1Today, in pockets across the continent, people will be honouring the memory of Thomas Jefferson by celebrating his birthday.

The gentleman of Independence was a hemisphere shaper and a gardener. He was, in the strict sense, a dialectician.

As you may recall, he even has his own version of the bible (The Jefferson Bible) which was, for over two hundred years, given to new members of congress.

His bible consists of the four Gospels–sans miracles–strung together into a single narrative. In essence, it’s the life and morals of Jesus of Nazareth without any reference to angels, prophecy, genealogy, deity, or anything that smells supernatural.

061219JeffersonsBibleIt is the Testament stripped of it’s "artificial vestments," revealing the "pure principles" of Christianity.

Jefferson was sincere in his rewriting. He was after a kind of Christian system, an ultimate system to eclipse any and every Platonic or Kantian system. He says, "Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern, which have come under my observation, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus."

enlistnowsmBut even with all his cutting and pasting, his private hyper "Jesus Seminar," he couldn’t stick with the extraction’s essence.

In a well-worn quote that serves every autocrat from time immemorial, that continues to serve every President and Prime Minister, regardless of democratic intensity, that is, that serves every Bushite, and Harperite valiantly holding onto the principle of (sacrificial) redemptive violence, Jefferson says, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Now what would the essential Jesus, "Jesus Unplugged," say to this?

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Beauty/Christianity/Peace/Spirituality

Hit by the arch of a smile

Posted on by stephen t berg / 2 Comments

Bits of grainy snow. Sky of graphite. Walked home from work dodging arcs of slush bursting from Bridgestones.

Here it is, the tail end of Tuesday and it’s already tempting to put the world off until the weekend. Wrap the day in old newspaper and lay it away ’till the sun comes out.

terylssmileBut, a smile penetrated the pogonip; falling on my snow-scowl.

You embarrassed me by your shameless geez-it’s-soupy-out-here-but-what-the-hell. Were you resurrected too?

You noticed how I needed that? Of course. But then you knew all along how we all need each other. The corners of your eyes said we meld, or we miss it all. That’s what I think. And why put up with any other kind of world?

Technorati Tags: , , ,