Classy Karin Klassen: the Calgary Herald allows any idiot to write editorials

Re: Those beets? I don't buy 'em- literally, Karin Klassen, Calgary Herald September 31 2009

Klassen has conflated Slow Food, local food, farmer's markets and the 100 Mile Diet, and somehow confused all these with ten-dollar pineapples and disappointingly small beets. Ordinarily I would recommend picking up any number of books on these topics (Raj Patel, Michael Pollan, Barbara Kingsolver, among others). However, Klassen, who describes her family as a miniature corporation, would seem to be a devoted capitalist and a rapacious consumer. I would presume that she has neither the time nor money for such things as reading books or writing informed editorials.

Fortunately, Klassen need not even open a book to be informed on the subject. She can easily view the documentary films The Future of Food, or more recently, Food, Inc to aid her editorial-writing. Perhaps by viewing these she might reflect more on what goes into her mouth- as well as what comes out of it.

Letter to the Calgary Herald, July 7th 2009

How low can the Herald go? While the editorial pages continue to act as the mouthpiece of the Tarsands Business Party, the front page stories have degenerated into gorillas handling knives, full-page close-ups of Michael Jackson's face, and several reports about The Bachelorette. In an age of war and environmental destruction, are these really our most pressing concerns? Shame.

Letter to the Christian Century on Star Trek

Dear Christian Century,

Steve Vineberg's review of the latest Star Trek movie was bland at best and theologically disappointing at worse.

First of all, I've never seen a more generic review in my life. Not only was it called a "riveting adventure," the actor who plays Spock was lauded as giving a "complex portrayal of Spock. My question is, why should I read the Christian Century to learn anything about the latest Star Trek film when I can just check out my local newspaper or check a multitude of websites and learn the same thing?

Yet, the problem goes much deeper than that. Perhaps the real issue here is that a magazine that goes by the title Christian Century shys away from the interplay between faith and culture that would make an review both interesting and meaningful to readers. The film is not reviewed from the lens of the gospel or gospel values, but is intsead reviewed as yet another notch in Hollywood's belt of so-called action films.

I admit, I enjoyed Star Trek as pure entertainment. As a long time fan, I laughed at all the inside jokes, the death of the red-shirt, the rehashing of classic catch-phrases. I even enjoyed the bombs. Yet, once I took a step back and viewed it through the gospel, I can honestly say that Star Trek fails as a film with an acceptable moral message.

Yet another Star Trek film features a tattoo'd other appearing out of nowhere to seek vengeance on the very person who tried to help. The benevolence of the Federation was balked at by an irrational "other" who puts his personal grudges and unreasonable demands in front of the gift that the nation, carrying the banner of freedom has offered them. There is no reasoning with this Nosferatu-esque "Nero" character. The only way to stop him from using his "red-matter," or to use another out-dated term "weapon of mass destruction" is to destroy him. Enter the myth of redemptive violence, and Kirk and Spock (in all of his complexity) defeat the irrational terrorist who strikes by time travel. When captured, the terrorist claims he would rather die than be captured and Spock, speaking from the personal pain this defeated creature has inflicted by destroying his home planet makes an exception to logic and gives into the murder of Nero anyway. Cue laughter and applause from the crowd. The elder Spock then reassures the younger Spock to "do what feels right" rather than, to put it plainly, is right. Does this sound like the discipline of forgiveness? How about turning one's cheek? How about leaving judgement to almighty God and trial to proper authorities, rather than the efficient violence of the intergalactic military?

I'm sure some would suggest I "lighten up" and just enjoy the movie. I certainly did, on one level--what Vineberg himself calls "ideal summertime entertainment." Yet, when the standard-bearer for Progressive Christianity has "lightened up" enough that it does not take its mission seriously and would rather publish a review for its own sake, perhaps it is simply another sign that we are no longer very discerning, nor are we willing to apply the gospel in our everyday lives, leaving it to flat hymns and a few coombayas on Sunday instead.

Please, either pull up your theological socks and offer us something to think about instead of just another Hollywood product to consume in the pages (electronic or otherwise) of your magazine.

Shalom,
Ryan
Calgary AB Canada

Happy Belated Canada Day

"Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s minds & then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead." - Arundhati Roy

So good you've got to give it away

Shane Claiborne delivers an amazing sermon at Duke Divinity Chapel on Mark 1:14-20:

14After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

16A Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17"Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." 18At once they left their nets and followed him.

19When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. 20Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.

"Everything's just so good that you've got to give it away." Leave the mortgages, the t-ball, the data entry, the stock options and join the movement.

Sad Jesus

(H/T Jeff Sharlet)

Why permaculture is awesome

(Trying) to read Bill Mollison's textbook/tome/bible on permaculture.

The Word that redefines our identities

"The functional character of contemporary religious convictions is perhaps nowhere better revealed than in the upsurge of religious conservatism. While appearing to be a resurgence of 'traditional' religious conviction, some of these movements in fact give evidence of the loss of religious substance in our culture and in ourselves. Christianity is defended not so much because it is true, but because it reinforces the 'American way of life.' Such movements are thus unable to contemplate that there might be irresolvable tensions between being Christian and being 'a good American.'"
-Stanley Hauerwas, the Peaceable Kingdom.

Thinking back to the previous post on Brueggemann, the conservative or status quo character of contemporary religious faith currently exists inside the margins of contemporary consumer capitalism, or technological therapeutic consumer militarism. Religious faith is either viewed as a) conservative, hearkening back to individualized "traditional values" that never truly existed or b) benign, concerned with fighting personal anxieties and humanizing the imperial social order. When Jesus says, "follow me" to crucifixion at Calvary, neither of these interpretations seem to make much sense.

In Hauerwas' assessment, Christians, either "conservative" or "liberal," can not simply "fit in." We can't fit in the same way contemporary conservative evangelicals do, since we can't simply buy into a brutal socio-economic system that is anti-thetical to gospel ethics. We call this Empire. We also can't buy into the way of the liberal mainline church, since we know that simply lobbying the powers that be to make policy changes isn't true transformation and that it leaves the powers intact. We're complicit in the imperial farce called "progress" and we're called to conversion. Unfortunately, both visions of Christianity leave things more or less intact, with a minor tweak here and there--a gay marriage ban here, welfare programs there.

What we need to recognize is that if the values and practices of our church don't seem strange to the outside world, and that our values don't seem at odds with or threatening to the powers or Caesar, we might as well just join the Kiwanis club and schedule ourselves for some therapy. If the Word doesn't "explode" and "break things open," revealing a life of worth, purpose, abundance and liberation, we might as well stay home on Sunday and watch football instead. After all, we can't be good, patriotic, hard working, tax paying North Americans and followers of Jesus at the same time.

"If you ask one of the crucial theological questions--why was Jesus killed?--the answer isn't 'because God wants us to love one another.' Why in the hell would anyone kill Jesus for that? That's stupid. It's not even interesting.

Why did he get killed? Because he challenged the powers that be. The church is a political institution calling people to be an alternative to the world. That's what the cross is about."