Collectivity and Its Discontents

Last night, between saying our final farewells to those “go world” visa commercials, my wife and I sat in our hotel room and watched the closing ceremony from Beijing. Instead of watching the opening ceremonies, we had watched Batman: Dark Knight in the theater, and it seemed like everyone else, from students to colleagues to NBC broadcasters were gushing about how great it was.

The Olympics have been a joy to watch this year. Phelps & company produced enough drama and made me excited about non-league sports in a way I probably won’t be again, at least until I am schlepping my own kids to swim practice and track meets.

Before the Olympics began, David Brooks gave me some food for thought. Or, to write it better, he focused a swarming group of thoughts that I already had by putting words to them (writers I like tend to do this for me). Brooks writes that China is showcasing an alternative to the more individualistic American Dream. The great nation is presenting a vision for a people based on collectivity and harmony.

The closing ceremony, as well as the highlights of the opening ceremony that I managed to see, argued Brooks’ point for him. This astounding show proclaimed a unity to form that the best marching bands could only dream of. Thousands of drummers drummed at once with purpose and power. The dancers moved in grace, the colors were red, gold, beautiful and Chinese. There was no one star, even when China’s most celebrated gymnast flew to the top of the stadium to light the torch, he, dressed in red and gold, was one of many, among drummers and dancers. It was something different than the surprise appearance by Mohammed Ali in Atlanta twelve years ago. Parkinson’s or not, he stood out from us as “the greatest,” and we wanted to be like him, to talk his talk and put our fists where our mouths are. China, in contrast, beckoned, if not demanded us to admire the collective dance of a great, ancient people. Everyone drums, dances, knows their place, and the whole is more beautiful than any of us.

Community is in our lifeblood. We need each other for survival. It is deeply spiritual as well. One of the reasons I am a Christian is that Jesus offers a ministry of reconciliation, based on love of God and of each other. He beckons us to lay our own lives down, as he did, in so doing loving our creator with all we have and loving each other as we love ourselves.

These primal and spiritual urges add appeal to the narrative of collectivity and community. Indeed, ever since I moved to Washington, I have attended a church that is more liturgical than what I am used to, simply because liturgy celebrates community in ways many modern evangelical churches do not. Prayer is beautiful, but it is lovely when we say the same prayer, together, acknowledging that we all need God’s will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven. What could be more pleasing than being one people?

Of course, China is a massive and present-day illustration to the historical difficulty of community. What happens when someone does not wish to confirm to the norms of the community? The collective identity ends with this non-conformist. What if a Chinese person wishes to worship in a church that doesn’t parrot the state sponsored religion? What if he thinks the Chinese claim to the land of his religious heritage was unrightfully made?

I know people who have boycotted watching the Olympics in memory of such non-conformists. Collective identity loses its beauty to those who no longer desire to be part of it, worse so for those who find partaking of it impossible. Ironically, when societies attempt to smother these non-conformists, they either lose the collectivity, or make the society dangerous, brutal and un-livable (see North Korea).

There is much to criticize about American individualism. We do need each other, and we wannabe-cowboys would do well to learn it. However, community cannot be forced. Often, it must be endured; it must be allowed to change us to make us better so that we can truly reconcile to those around us. It takes time, patience and an often-unsavory amount of bearing with one another. A top-down enforced (violently or otherwise) collectivity, where there is only one drumbeat, is not a good alternative.

One part of the closing ceremonies stood out to me. To represent the transition of the Olympic games from Beijing to London, a double-decker bus appeared. Before western celebrities (David Beckham among them) ascending from the bus’ roof, out of the doors sprung a group of dancers, evidently representing London residents. They were different colors, skin colors and clothes colors. Even though there was chorography, they did not move in a way to celebrate mass collectivity. Rather, they crept, jumped, ran and crawled in ways that celebrated a loosened sort of freedom that was noticeably lacking from the remainder of the show. And that I found very appealing.

Melancholy, Reviews and Religious Adherents

The professor who lives in my neighborhood has moved on, leaving the pale pink pages of the Financial Times Arts & Weekend for scavenger readers to pillage. Of course, with the internet, one really doesn’t need to raid the front porches of neglectful neighbors who forgot to forward their publications. However, August has been unseasonably mild, and in such good weather, the only way to read the newspaper is the old-fashioned way, which is what my wife did last weekend in the Bartholdi flower garden as I took a refreshing, Olympics-inspired run on the National Mall.

Sunshine and good cheer aside, I have always had a bent towards melancholy, lurking behind my eyes like a heather-gray wraith, keeping more colorful emotions from exposure. Thus, this FT article caught my attention when I returned, huffing and puffing under the open blue.

I like the tongue and cheek opening of the article describing dissatisfaction driving our economy. Indeed, I have been impressed as I have watched the Olympic coverage this weekend how the (mostly excellent) commercials have created a since of inspiration while subtly hinting I won’t be happy until I bought their product (proud sponsors of the Olympic games). It’s a lesson we all should have learned in all those anti-climatic Christmas morning moments, five minutes after the biggest present has been open, this surprising whisper that owning a Lego castle is not the closing chord of a symphony, resolving dissonance and achieving, finally, satisfaction. Perhaps an appreciation of what we have above what we want (what we feel we “deserve”) could do much to end credit card debt. Of course, our economy would take a huge hit.

Of the books reviewed in the article, the one I would be most interested in reading would be Julian Baggini’s Complaint, because, to my great interest, he brings up religion. “Baggini’s arch-enemy is religion,” writes FT, “all the major variants of which teach us to accept our miserable fate as God’s will. Christianity, for example, tells us to turn the other cheek.” Baggini writes “Complaint is a secular humanist act. It is a resistance against the idea… that suffering is our divinely ordained lot and that we can do no more than put up with it piously.”

I’m curious if Baggini’s sense of theology or history is as bad as the review (unintentionally) makes it out to be. Indeed, it seems that a large complaint against religion, by it’s other “arch-enemies,” is that the faithful are trying to make changes to the system and to others, not only now, but throughout history, in varying degrees of severity (and, I would argue, morality). The Christian right dares to involve itself in politics. Al Qaeda and its cohorts have not been turning the other cheek. Some of the most effective positive social change in the past century have been religiously driven (Gandhi, King, Tutu).

The famous “turn the other cheek” passage, interestingly enough, is from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, the very text which inspired King and Gandhi.  Dan preached a sermon on it a couple months ago. The Sermon on the Mount, he argues, teaches an effective, moral middle way between the weak, opiate religion Baggini and Marx criticize and the fanaticism of fundamentalists from the barking Brother Jed to the biting Osama Bin Laden.  To turn the other cheek is to neither back down, nor result to violence. It does not ignore reasons to complain. Martin Luther King understood this, and he stood up to racial inequality without resorting to violence, and he led others to do so. James understood this too, when he wrote, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” Religion, when done well, is active and peaceful.

Among Christians, there will be a sense of melancholy and dissatisfaction. We possess an awareness of how the world is fallen and how it should be.  Our complaint is against the world, the flesh and the devil. Our hope is in Christ, who gave his life to overcome them. We work to reverse the effects of the fall, in ourselves, in the world’s systems and in each other. Theology of an inactive stoicism or violent fanaticism, whether from religious teachers or from critics, is bad theology, and disregards a rich history of Christian activism.

But is he patriotic if he drinks their beer?

In college I majored in international affairs. I lived in Europe and I married a Schwaebin. As you can imagine, the perspectives foreigners have on my own country have always fascinated me. A good and well thought-out example is this editorial by Christoph Peters, a German author, in the July 17^th New York Times on Barak Obama’s impending trip to Berlin. 

Saturday Reading on Immigration, Religion, Sex and Vampires

While I am at it, I thought I would post the links to two interesting articles in today’s New York Times. First, a fascinating story about the intersection of the pastoral and the political, as illegal immigrants seek refuge in a Roman Catholic Church in Iowa.

Second, Gail Collins wrote an interesting commentary about youth, sex, gender and society after reading a high school, romance, vampire novel by a Mormon stay-at-home mom. For a better discussion of chastity and sexuality, however, I would recommend Lauren Winner's book, Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity. 

Under with Undershirts

When I spent a summer working and ministering in Yellowstone National Park, there were quite a few European students who had traveled across the pond for their American mountain adventure. Being a student myself at the time, a popular topic was the differences in atmosphere between European and American universities. I remember a French girl whose face lit up with a smile of disbelief when I explained that it was not unusual for girls in my school, to show up for class in their pajamas. “If I did that, everyone would talk about me!” she laughed in her disarming French accent.

In truth, I was not taken aback myself by the casualness of the American student. Indeed, I have found it natural and refreshing, a statement to the world that appearance, smooth faces, combed hair and pressed shirts don’t matter. However, perhaps showing my age, as well as the conservative, professional attitude of the city in which I live, I have noticed the rise of a fashion that is too casual by even my low standards. It is now cool among young men to walk around in their undershirts, without an overshirt to hide them.

I understand part of the appeal. They are very inexpensive, they breathe well (any material that thin and cheaply put together breathes well) and, for those who have it, they don’t hide the shape masculine broad shoulders and big biceps (though this is not a precursor to most of the young men who wear them).

However, these thin shirts are designed to be sweat-catchers, and nothing more. These sweat-catchers prevent, sometimes in vain, us men from fouling our offices with body odor or turning our nice work shirts a putrid shade of tan. Moreover, they are not designed for modesty. The unsightly man-nips can be seen, particularly when the classroom air-conditioning is cranking to combat the summer heat. Chest, armpit and even back hair sprout through the translucent  material like weeds through a city sidewalk. Any sign of sweat turns even the freshest white shirt into a shade of fleshy pink.

Undershirts also give an aura of mediocrity. It is by far the most un-creative of clothes, surpassing even tighty-whities. The white blandness simply lacks personality. Most rebellious fashion statements – tattoos, piercings, heavy-metal T-shirts – gave the wearer a sense of color and character. An undershirt that is not under anything seems to drain the wearer of all of these things. This does not mean our white-clad young friends are as colorless in their minds as they are in their clothes. However, our clothes, even the most mundane and casual, are a great way to express the quirky parts of our personalities that we don’t always get to put into words.

This is particularly troubling given the wide and cheap availability of T-shirts. Indeed, we are living in a golden age of cheap cotton garments. There are hundreds of competing websites where aspiring casual fashionistas can submit and sell their design or joke. The best ones usually end up in Justin's collection. Moreover, every event, sports-team, university and politician will have a cool T-shirt just for you. On Thursday night, I saw the Capitol Hill athletes of the DC soft-ball leagues. They were having their post-game drinks at the Southeast Capitol bars. The shirts were creative and had cool colors and pictures.  My favorites were a team called “big in Japan” and had an ancient, Asian-looking fish on the front. As I write this, I am wearing one of my favorite T-shirts: a kelly-green shirt from my Katrina-recovery days. Good work, good color, good memories, not to mention, much more exciting than any of my barely-threaded sweat-catchers that I wear under my button-downs.  

Forgiveness and Reconciliation in the Washington Post

This past April, I had the privilege of seeing Laura Waters Hinson’s excellent film, As We Forgive, on forgiveness and reconciliation in Rwanda. See the film, buy the film and tell your friends. This past Saturday’s Washington Post wrote about Laura – not just the film, but about how the lesson of forgiveness and reconciliation met her on a very personal level. Read all about here. As We Forgive should inspire all of us to a Christ-like forgiveness. His ministry was of reconciliation to God and to each other. It's beautiful to read how it started with the filmmaker herself.  

Jesus in Colorado Springs

While I was working in New Orleans, some of my colleagues were listening to a Mo Leverett live CD. Between spiritually laced folks songs, Mo argued that New Orleans was the kind of place where Jesus would hang out. I wish I remembered precisely what he said, but the gist was that Jesus was attracted to the “sinners” and the marginalized. Because of this, New Orleans is more of a place for Jesus than Colorado Springs, the "Vatican of the evangelical movement". I have been inclined to agree with him. 

The Civilians provided me (along with a few friends) some good food for thought, however. I had never heard of the Civilians before, but I love their concept of theater. They develop "original projects based on creative investigation of actual experience." As anyone who has darkened the sleek glass doors of a mega-church could attest to, they did this very well in This Beautiful City.

This Beautiful City explores the evangelical political movement in Colorado Springs, as well as those whom they rub up against, and those who feel left in the margins. If I understand it correctly, the characters in the play are Colorado Springs residents they met, interviewed, dined with and went to church with. It included Air Force cadets, church members, political activists, ministers, a transvestite and fallen pastors. One of the fallen pastors was none other than Ted Haggard. His scandal of homosexual prostitution and meth addiction broke during their visit, which, of course, gave a very public dose of reality to an already interesting backdrop.

The six of us who visited the play were all Christians, and I noticed we laughed more than many of those around us. They were knowing laughs. The stage was set up like a mega-church with two screens on either side of it - during one of the sequences, words to the songs appeared on them.  We laughed knowingly as songs, inspiring words, calls to stand and technological savvy attempted to create a space for spiritual experience. There was a Pentecostal church called RHOP whose members saw visions of demons in every corner and prophesied whatever seemed to come to their mind. They reminded me of some of the Pentecostals who were in New Orleans after Katrina, such as the preacher who excitedly promised that every one of the dilapidated houses would have a big screen TV. It is a strange disconnect - yet these were the people who were the first to risk life and health to recover the city. 

There were a few things that were foreign to me. Politics from the pulpit is something I rarely experience. Seeing this play, one would think that is the only thing that New Life Church preached (I wouldn't know). 

Yet, behind the politics, behind the very human stories of those who felt abandoned and judged by the church, behind the nervous apologetics of inarticulate evangelicals, there were some dim lights of Gospel. One of the most compelling characters was a mother and New Life Church member. She loved her father deeply, in spite of his homosexuality and his abandonment, in spite of protests from other family members. The Gospel of Christ seemed to encompass her, because of and in spite of the church community. The Gospel and church community helped her and her family overcome drug addiction, to work and provide for her children. As she did with her father, she was out to love those whom others rejected. She wanted to create a group in New Life about loving homosexuals, but only two people came. My biggest criticism of the play is that they did not explore this character further. Her scenes are all before the Haggard scandal broke; I was hoping to see her reaction. 

"This Beautiful City" showed that even in a city with so many churches and Christians per capita, there were still "sinners" left in the margins. I wonder if Mo Leverett was wrong. Jesus came and loved those in the margins. He healed diseases, forgave sins and changed lives. He was no stranger to religious authorities, often rebuking them and warning of hypocrisy. Judging by the play, he might feel right at home in Colorado Springs. But not necessarily in the parts one might expect.