Tim Stafford's Blog, page 27
January 24, 2014
January 23, 2014
The Catholic Writer
First Things published this essay by Dana Gioia on Catholic writing. He’s rather depressed about the state of things, which makes for an interesting perspective to an evangelical. At least Catholics can refer to a strong tradition; we evangelicals who love literature would gladly trade all we have for one Flannery O’Connor.
It’s a thoughtful and articulate essay (rather long, but worth the time). Here are a few quotes:
“What absorbs the Catholic intellectual media is politics, conducted mostly in secular terms—a dreary battle of right versus left for the soul of the American Church. If the soul of Roman Catholicism is to be found in partisan politics, then it’s probably time to shutter up the chapel. If the universal Church isn’t capacious enough to contain a breadth of political opinion, then the faith has shriveled into something unrecognizably paltry. If Catholic Christianity does not offer a vision of existence that transcends the election cycle, if our redemption is social and our resurrection economic, then it’s time to render everything up to Caesar.”
“The great and present danger to American literature is the growing homogeneity of our writers, especially the younger generation. Often raised in several places in no specific cultural or religious community, educated with no deep connection to a particular region, history, or tradition, and now employed mostly in academia, the American writer is becoming as standardized as the American car—functional, streamlined, and increasingly interchangeable.”
“An adolescence in Los Angeles is not much different from one in Boston or Chicago when so many thousands of hours are spent identically in the same virtual worlds. Is it any wonder that so much new writing lacks any tangible sense of place, identifiable accent, or living connection to the past? Nourished more by global electronic entertainment than active individual reading, even the language lacks resonance and personality. However stylish and efficient, writing with no past probably has no future.”
“The loss of the aesthetic sensibility in the Church has weakened its ability to make its call heard in the world. Dante and Hopkins, Mozart and Palestrina, Michelangelo and El Greco, Bramante and Gaudi, have brought more souls to God than all the preachers of Texas.”
“Until recently, a great strength of Catholicism had been its glorious physicality, its ability to convey its truths as incarnate. The faith was not merely explained in its doctrine but reflected in sacred art, music, architecture, and the poetry of liturgy….’Bells and incense!’ scoffs the Puritan, but God gave people ears and noses.”
“Vatican II’s legitimate impulse to make the Church and its liturgy more modern and accessible was implemented mostly by clergy with no training in the arts. These eager, well-intentioned reformers not only lacked artistic judgment; they also lacked a respectful understanding of art itself, sacred or secular. They saw words, music, images, and architecture as functional entities whose role was mostly intellectual and rational. The problem is that art is not primarily conceptual or rational. Art is holistic and incarnate—simultaneously addressing the intellect, emotions, imagination, physical senses, and memory without dividing them. Two songs may make identical statements in conceptual terms, but one of them pierces your soul with its beauty while the other bores you into catalepsy. In art, good intentions matter not at all. Both the impact and the meaning of art are embodied in the execution. Beauty is either incarnate, or it remains an intangible abstraction.”
“The history of the Church and the history of art repeatedly demonstrate that a few people of sufficient passion, courage, and creativity can transform an age. If we learn nothing else from the lives of the saints, we should know the power their works and examples had to change an age. St. Francis of Assisi had a greater impact on European society than any ruler of the Holy Roman Empire.”
The Adam Quest on Radio
I’ve been doing a few radio interviews re: The Adam Quest. Here’s one, the Debbie Chavez show, that I think went okay.
Tomorrow, an op-ed I wrote is supposed to go up on the Huffington Post. Knowing that you eagerly await my latest thoughts, I’ll let you know the link.
January 18, 2014
Comments on Frances Ha
My friend Dean asked his daughters to comment on Frances Ha and the questions I raised. Here’s what they say:
Jill: It’s fairly accurate (the movie not the post). Our generation (particularly in my experience) is somewhat adrift and pretty unapologetic about it for a few reasons, such as lack of opportunities in areas of interest (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4IjTUxZORE) which only gets worse when consciousness is involved. Particularly being educated in a liberal arts environment (such as Vassar) it’s not unusual to not want to be a part of the world that you know is making life more difficult for everyone; this can look like apathy but is really more like hopelessness, which isn’t happy or anything but just is a symptom of the world. Francis Ha is not a movie about being happy, it is about trying to get unstuck, as a part of the society that is stuck trying not to be stuck. If a million buzzfeed articles about “20 somethings” and how many shares they get are to be believed, this problem is widespread. This makes everything seem grim, but it isn’t really. We are a generation that has very little reason to have faith in society but we have nothing else to base our lives on (except ourselves, which we do). This is intensified in a place like New York, where money is always tight particularly if you are not working for a large firm (which for the aforementioned lack of faith in society/government/business/etc. you don’t want to). It’s really nothing new it’s just our turn to try and fail not to mess it up and sometimes that looks like Francis Ha. As I said when we saw it, I know those parties (though the ones I’ve attended are a little wilder, because college) and I know those apartments. It is accurate to New York and Brooklyn at this time. Francis is supposed to be extra immature because she hadn’t given up on her dream yet. She is a caricature, but a fairly accurate one, of someone trying to figure her life out and though she is in the form of a millennial, her story isn’t new and isn’t anything startling. No offense to Mr. Stafford, but I might mark his objections as, at least in part, based in his age (not the film).
That sounds like a fair response, and I confess to my age.
Here’s Paige: I’m a 20-something (21 if we want to get specific) and I liked Francis Ha. For those who haven’t watched it, I’ll try to avoid spoilers, but make no promises. I’m still in college so I haven’t had to figure out post college life yet, and I’d like to think I have my plans figured out a little more than the film’s characters, but I don’t think it can be dismissed so easily. Although you’re right that most of the character’s relationships are shallow, they’re not left there. Francis and her friends are attempting to find some sort of depth, and after multiple romantic relationships don’t work out or almost work out (or even are left maybe working out), Francis finally finds a friendship that fulfills the kind of connection she has been looking for. She finds out that she has to give up one dream that she isn’t as good at as she would like to be, but instead finds something that she actually might be gifted at. Although no one would really argue the film has a linear plot, Francis’s problems and awkward attempts to figure herself out build to da point where she is able to start grow up. I wouldn’t argue that most of the relationships in the film aren’t awkward or immature, but that makes it even more important when Francis is able to grow out of it and start to find the beginnings of an adult life, to learn how to see herself a little more seriously, to look at her past mistakes as the past. So, yeah, it’s about shallow relationships, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it ends there.
Paige is right that “Frances Ha” ends with some hints of Frances’ redemption. The message seems to be: you might get lucky and see it all work out okay. Which is not the worst message in film today.
So what bothered me about “Frances Ha?” I think it was the absence of anybody who has a clue or genuinely cares about anybody else. I hope no society is quite that bleak.
Nevertheless, Paige and Jill’s answers made me ponder what kind of movies summed up my generation’s youth. “The Graduate” and “Easy Rider” were the shocking emblems of my time, which I (and a lot of other people) viscerally identified with. So…. aimless sex, apathy, spontaneous relationships, drugs, violence and paranoia… maybe it’s just tough being young.
I recommend Frances Ha as a great conversation starter. I’d say, watch it with your young adults.
January 16, 2014
Lost At Sea
I didn’t really enjoy watching the movie “Frances Ha,” but I’ve thought a lot about it since. A blurb I read said it was a movie about being young in New York, but that’s not accurate. It’s a movie about being young and lost at sea. Frances is a moderately attractive, somewhat awkward 20-something who wants to be a professional dancer. Like most if not all of the young people who populate her life, she’s depending on her parents for money and (sometimes) for emotional support while at the same time wanting to keep them far away. The plot, if you can call it a plot, steers its way through random events–quirky, embarrassing, clueless and above all awkward. Frances wants friends very much, but she doesn’t know how negotiate friendship. Everybody in her world is on the make, open to anything at any moment yet at the same time unwilling to commit themselves to wanting anything. It brings back memory of junior high school, only these people don’t have braces and their voices aren’t changing.
I don’t know how accurate “Frances Ha” is in its depiction of young, affluent, urban society. I hope not at all. The movie isn’t negative, and it’s not making a point as far as I can see. I’m not sure whether others would see its depiction as horrifying, which I more or less do. To me, it is life at sea–not just for Frances, but as much or more for all her “friends.” They appear to be rooted in nothing, trying to make a life in a fishbowl, like a solitary beta puffing itself up for the mirror image of itself. They talk about sex but would be embarrassed to admit to passion. They say they love each other but they would be unable to say what they want from each other. They have career ambitions–art, publishing, dance, money–and are terrifically competitive but they deny that they really care about success or failure. It’s a shadow world.
So far I’ve failed to find any 20-somethings who have seen it. I would like to know how they perceive it. Is this their world? Do they find it attractive? How do they feel?
January 13, 2014
More N.T. Wright on Paul
Continuing my earlier post, here are more quotes from N.T. Wright’s blockbuster, Paul and the Faithfulness of God. These have to do with the Greco Roman context within which Paul preached.
Whereas the default mode of most modern westerners is some kind of Epicureanism, the default mode for many of Paul’s hearers was some kind of Stoicism. Observing the differences between the two… is therefore vital if we are to ‘hear’ Paul as many of his first hearers might have done. If, when someone says the words ‘god,’ we think at once of a distant, detached divinity–as most modern westerners, being implicitly Epicureans or at least Deists, are likely to do–we are unlikely to be able imaginatively to inhabit the world of many in Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus and elsewhere for whom the word ‘god’ might reasonably be expected to denote the divinity which indwelt, through its fiery physical presence, all things, all people, the whole cosmos. [213]
A world full of gods generated a human life full of… well, let us go on calling it ‘religion’ for the moment. Did the lightning strike to the left or the right of the path? Did you remember to offer a sacrifice to Poseidon before you got on board the ship? Hope you enjoy the meal; this splendid beef was from a sacrifice in the temple down the street, so it comes with a special blessing. How were the planets aligned on the night you were born? Don’t forget the festival tomorrow; everyone will be there, and the neighbors will notice if you don’t show up. Have you heard that Augustus has now become Pontifex Maximus? I know I was due to arrive yesterday, but some god must have had it in for me, or perhaps someone put a curse on me: the roads were all blocked. Don’t you like the new temple in the city square? Isn’t it good that they’ve reorganized the streets so you can see it from every angle! My nephew tells me he’s been initiated into this new cult from the East; he says he’s died and been reborn, though I can’t see much difference. Oh, and don’t forget; we owe a cock to Asclepius. This is not philosophy, though the philosophers regularly talk about it. Nor is it politics as such….Call it ‘religion;’ and judge not, lest we be judged.” [251]
“… The great festivals mattered, the proper performance of regular religious rituals (particularly sacrifices) mattered, and the appropriate investigation of omens and auguries mattered. To neglect those was to jeopardize the polis itself, and potentially to cast a blight on particular enterprises the polis might be conducting. ‘To refuse sacrifice was to refuse the gods.’ ‘Impiety’ like that might or might not be associated with the possibility of some kind of divine punishment in a future life, but that was a different matter; the more important charge would be that one was endangering the state by either ignoring or insulting one of the divinities involved in the civic life and in that particular project.” [275]
“Whereas for Christians, starting with Paul, ‘belief,’ and in particular belief about who ‘God’ really was, took center stage, this had never been the case for the Greeks and the Romans. For them, religio was something you did; ;even the idea of personal ‘belief’ (to us, a self-evident part of religious experience) provides a strikingly inappropriate model for understanding the religious experience of early Rome.’” [276]
“The Jews would not pray to the gods of Rome, but they would pray (to their one God) for the health and well-being of Rome; that principle had been well established as one of the ground rules for Jews in exile, as long ago as Jeremiah. Under the empire, Jews would not pray to the emperor, as everyone else had to do, but they would pray for the emperor. Why not? According to their creational monotheism, with its remarkable rule for humans as the imagebearers of the one God, this one God desired and intended that rulers should rule, and would hold them to account according to the wisdom and justice, or otherwise, with which they had exercised power. The Christians, from the start, behaved not as a new variety of pagan religion but as a new and strange variety of Judaism, though with the added puzzle (for the watching world) that while the Jews (like everybody else) offered animal sacrifices the Christians did not.” [277-8]
“Rome brought ‘peace’ to the world, at the usual price: submit or die.” [284]
“The events surrounding Augustus’s coming to power are therefore ‘good news,’ euangelia…. not merely a nice piece of information to cheer you up on a bad day, but the public, dramatic announcement that something has happened through which the world has changed for ever and much for the better.” [327]
“When we find, during Augustus’s lifetime, an inscription dedicated to him as ‘to god, son of god’, and then similar language used in turn for Tiberius during his lifetime, it is hard to suppose that the average Greek speaker, reading such an inscription, was saying to himself or herself, ‘Of course, this is a translation of the Latin divus, so it doesn’t really mean ‘son of god’ but only ‘son of the deified one.’ Even if anybody did say that to themselves, it is not clear what practical difference such a conclusion might make.” [327-8]
“When Paul speaks of the Thessalonians turning away from idols to serve a living and true god and to await the arrival of his son, it would be very strange if he had not meant to include Roma and the emperor among those false deities.” [330]
“Augustus and his family were the new, and powerful, gods to be faced in city after city. Including, of course, the ones to which Paul went, and to which he subsequently wrote.” [339]
“The overall picture of [the emperor] as a model of pietas, leading his people in traditional worship while also being himself identified, in flexible ways, as the recipient of worship, enables us to glimpse a far more integrated world than most westerners have imagined since at least the eighteenth century. ‘The emperor may have been a god, but he was also the mediator between his empire and the Other World.
“… the developing discourse of imperial cult in Asia constantly stressed the fact that the Roman empire, once launched, was going to continue, and to bring its great blessings to the world, for ever. ‘The discourse of imperial cults was committed to preventing the imagination from imagining the end of the world.’ No, declared Paul: God has fixed a day on which he will have the world brought to justice.
“That was, of course, an essentially Jewish view. The Jewish objection to the entire Roman view of the gods was not simply about monotheism (though that was of course the basis of the standard critique of idolatry), nor even about election (their belief that they, rather than the Romans or anybody else, were the chosen people of the one true God). It was about eschatology: about their belief that the one God had determined on a divine justice that would be done, and would be seen to be done, in a way the Roman imperial justice somehow never quite managed. Rome’s claim to have brought the world into a new age of justice and peace flew, on eagle’s wings, in the face of the ancient Jewish belief that these things would finally be brought to birth through the establishment of a new kingdom, the one spoken of in the Psalms, in Isaiah, in Daniel.” [342]
Malcolm Gladwell’s Faith
Malcolm Gladwell is one of the very best journalists writing today. I’ve followed him in The New Yorker for years. You may know his name from his books Blink, Tipping Point, Outliers, and David and Goliath.
If he made reference to faith, I never noticed. Thus I was surprised and delighted to see this piece from Relevant.
January 7, 2014
Movie Churches
I was a little disappointed by the meager responses to my post Getting Religion Right. However, my friend Dean wrote me an email that I quote with his permission. Dean knows film….
Read your post about the depiction of churches in the media. I love “The Apostle” which is the second in Duvall’s Christian trilogy. “Tender Mercies”, the first, has just a touch of church life, but it is spot on. And “Get Low”, the third, has one of the better pastors seen in a film. Now as for television, the animated series “King of the Hill” (created by Mike Judge of “Bevis and Butthead” and “Office Space”) set in Texas had a variety of really good episodes about the Hill’s church life such as when a woman pastor was assigned to their Methodist church and when there was a debate whether to have a Halloween or a Harvest Party. But the best one was when the Hills were late to church and a new family took “their” pew and so they decided to try moving from their small church to a megachurch. A sample of the Hill’s church shopping here:http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=76KGNNNX
And, of course, there is Robinson’s “Gilead”. Merry Christmas to you and all Staffords! Dean
December 30, 2013
The Cordoba Mosque
I was very struck by a visit to the mosque-cum-cathedral in Cordoba, Spain. It is vast, an ornate pillared expanse as big as ten cathedrals. Tucked in one area under the roof of this mosque is an ornate, rococo Catholic church. In the historical notes put out by this church the Islamic past is hardly mentioned. But the building itself proclaims that they lie. For five hundred years Cordoba was the center of an Islamic empire that dominated much of Spain. By some estimates Cordoba was the biggest city in western Europe. The building says that it was a powerful, large, elegant civilization.
I know this story, of course, but it is something else to see it caught in a building. Perhaps only at the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople does a building tell such a story. The Cordoba mosque-cum-cathedral is a physical object embodying a history of armies and religion that resonates in our current world environment. A church for hundreds of years before Islamic armies captured Cordoba, it became a gigantic, elegant mosque until Catholic kings conquered Cordoba again. One can see remnants of the original church, the remaining vastness of the mosque, partly restored, and the grandness of the current cathedral which has, judging by the number of seats, very few worshipers. In one building, in its history, religion and politics cannot be separated. And of course, this history is not dead; it is not even past.
Tim Stafford's Blog
- Tim Stafford's profile
- 13 followers
