The Elusive Outsider Vantage

How can we know which religion (if any) is true? Are there any objective tests we can devise to help answer the question? Do we need anything other than the standard tools and methods of inquiry that we use to assess any other sort of truth claim? John Loftus thinks such a test is possible and necessary, and he proposes that the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) is the best test available.

His central argument in the book goes something like this:

(1) the fact of vast global religious diversity.

(2) the fact of cultural, historical, and geographical dependence of religious belief.

(3) the mutually exclusive nature of many, or most, faiths.

Therefore

(4) there's a low probability that whatever your largely culturally determined faith happens to be is the correct one and

(5) a disposition of informed skepticism toward one's faith – the same sort of skepticism members of faiths typically have toward other faiths – should be adopted in order to best determine which, if any, faith is the true faith.

The actual test itself is not terribly controversial, it seems to me. Most believers who were raised in a particular religious tradition, as they grow older and are exposed to a wide world of conflicting opinions and claims, begin to question what they were taught, and go on to apply skeptical scrutiny to those beliefs and teachings to the best of their ability. Most are forced to face, to some degree, these facts and apply this test at some point, whether they realize they're doing so or not. And for those who don't, they should.

However, even this brand of natural skepticism is not enough for Loftus as he demands the skepticism be of a narrowly circumscribed, scientific bent. He does so, he claims, because science has proven a tool of unparalleled success and fecundity at establishing truths about the physical operations of the universe. But why ought we assume science is the appropriate tool for assessing a question that fundamentally is not a scientific one, namely which religion is the true religion? The tools of science can conceivably aid us in assessing specific claims of supernatural activity in the present-day, and so can, in some manner, contribute to the discussion. But it's a tool that's hardly all-sufficient for the task.

Further, he introduces a false dichotomy when he appeals to the problem of mutual-exclusivity. Namely: either you are a sectarian exclusivist (for whom the problem applies in full), or a syncrenistic liberal who alleviates the difficulty but only by defining God down to some milquetoast non-entity. But he neglects the fact that religions have ways to solve this problem without succumbing to this dichotomy. As an Orthodox Christian, for example, I believe my faith exclusively represents the fullness of the apostolic faith as bequeathed to us by Jesus Christ, but also believe that all other genuine religions possess various degrees of that truth. Roman Catholics possess a greater degree of it than Buddhists, and Buddhists more than atheists, but there is a continuum of truth. This schema – and I'm sure other religions address the problem in a similar way – obviates the problem of mutual-exclusivity and so reduces the need to adopt a stance of severe skepticism. He would no doubt object that these alternative schemes do nothing, in and of themselves, to help answer the question of which is the true faith given his preferred set of data. To which the answer, of course, is: so what? 

Another question that arises is why the facts of religious diversity, dependence, and mutual-exclusivity should be the starting point for inquiry as to which religion is true? If we accept that they ought to be, then Loftus' recommendation to adopt a mode of severe skepticism mostly (with some qualifications) follows. But in order for this to be one's starting point of inquiry, one must attempt to strip away everything else that he knows to be true in the arena of religion. If, for example, you have solid evidence that that none of the antique polytheistic gods or god-schemes are true, and you further have strong metaphysical arguments both for the existence of God and that God must be One (to take just a couple of things you could conceivably know), then you can rationally narrow the range of contenders for the one true religion considerably. This is an alternative beginning point of inquiry, in which case the probability that one of that remaining small pool of potential gods is the true God is substantially larger than it would otherwise be, and severe skepticism would not be warranted. Loftus demands we bracket out this sort of knowledge and begin with only the facts of religious diversity, dependence, and mutual-exclusivity, but why? Loftus insists that we attempt a Descartes-esque feat of discarding all our beliefs and knowledge in favor of a couple of his pet data points. But why? He doesn't make a case for this preference – for these particular facts over and against the vast array of other facts available to us – other than that they happen to better serve his agenda.

The answer to the question of "why the OTF?" he gives later in the book, and it's that "what we've been doing isn't working." By which he means people aren't becoming atheists, or aren't consolidating their view of God, or aren't all converting to the one true religion (whatever it may be) at a fast enough pace for his taste. Which, of course,  begs the question. Why would we expect to see any of these things happen if a particular faith was true? Why does their failing to happen constitute "not working"? According to what standard?

And even if we wanted to begin with Loftus' preferred set of data, is it even possible for an insider to apply the test? Late in the book Loftus reveals his hand: "Faith is not something Christians can have while seeking to examine the religion that was given to them, since that is not how they approach any of the other religions they reject." In other words, you must first become an atheist (since a Christian without faith is an oxymoron) before you can truly examine the truth of your own or other religions. You must actually become an outsider first, not merely do your best to examine the evidence as if you were one. But this is clearly absurd, for whatever epistemological ground one currently occupies, one is an insider to it. There's no escaping except to some other insider position.

Loftus has an unfortunate penchant for repetition and one of his most oft-repeated assertions is that "Possibility doesn't matter, probabilities do." After the 30th time (literally) he had declared this, or some close variation, I gave up counting. In any case, his point is that absolute certainty does not exist, and the scientific mindset only deals with probabilities. Things that are highly likely to be true and things that are highly likely to be untrue are where the most certain knowledge we can attain (about the physical world) is. Again, not terribly controversial, so I'm not sure why the incessant repetition. The cynic in me suspects some sort of insecurity, but I digress.

Loftus' blind spot, with regard to his probability point, is that, while low probability that a particular faith is true logically follows from his premises – given his arbitrarily selected set of data – this low probability applies to all opinions about the religious question, including the stance that all religions are likely to be false -- his stance. Given the diversity of opinions about religion, their cultural dependence, and mutual exclusivity (and only those facts) the likelihood that any opinion on the matter is correct is very low, including his own. He might then appeal to other facts and knowledge in order to justify his not adopting a stance of extreme skepticism toward his own view, but religious people can do the same thing. So he hasn't advanced the ball a step.

In the book he quotes Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga making a similar point: 

[T]here is no safe haven here, no way to avoid risk. In particular, you won’t reach safe haven by trying to take the same attitude towards all the historically available patterns of belief and withholding: for in so doing you adopt a particular pattern of belief and withholding, one incompatible with some adopted by others. You pays your money and you takes your choice, realizing that you, like anyone else, can be desperately wrong. But what else can you do? You don’t really have an alternative.

Precisely. It's this critique and some closely related objections that Loftus spends most of the second half of the book attempting to ameliorate the effects of, but without any success. In response to Plantinga, without so much as a hint of self-awareness, he avers that "Plantinga fails to understand the huge difference between assenting to a belief and doubting it or denying it. There is no epistemic parity at all between accepting a belief and doubting (or rejecting) it. Doubting (or rejecting) a belief is easy. We all do it all the time. The hard part is to set forth a positive case on behalf of any one particular truth out of the choices available." But Plantinga is obviously making the point that rejecting one belief – especially the particular species of belief that belief in God is – logically entails holding another belief (if not a whole array of other beliefs). In this case, rejecting belief in any religion entails the belief that all religions are very likely false. There exists no neutral epistemological vantage to occupy.

Numerous times throughout the book Loftus accuses believers (usually falsely) of special pleading on behalf of their religion. But in response to these sorts of critiques he special pleads on behalf of atheism or skepticism constantly. When speaking about the cultural dependence of religious belief he cites statistical global maps of religion that show high concentrations of religions by geographic area (as if this could alarm or surprise any informed believer). When responding to the objection that atheism is similarly geographically situated – heavily in places like Sweden and Denmark for example – Loftus gets to the special pleading. He does so by citing wide agreement between scientists on scientific matters, regardless of where they're from. But this would be akin to a Roman Catholic citing broad agreement on many central matters of faith, regardless of where the Catholic lives. It doesn't actually address the critique but moves the goal posts, and equivocates between atheism and science. The mechanical philosophy of the Enlightenment is not a neutral, necessary outcome of science and reason, rather it's just as much a culturally and historically contingent source of belief as being born into a Christian home in the 21st century. And, if you live in much of modern Europe, it's at least as big a culturally determining factor of your beliefs about religion as Christianity is.

Loftus responds to one of his interlocutors on a similar point by declaring that "If he thinks for one moment that, as an outsider, I must take an outsider stance to an informed skepticism based in science and reason, then he needs to show why the science I base my argument on is faulty." Must Loftus first exhaustively demonstrate why each believer's particular faith, or epistemology, is faulty before suggesting they submit to the OTF? Not according to him. He claims the facts of diversity, dependence, and mutual-exclusivity makes this incumbent on any rational believer, irrespective of whatever defenses they may have for their particular faith. Yet these same facts do not make the same thing incumbent on him: one must first knock down his position, then demand he take a stance of skepticism towards it, while the believer must avail himself of no defense before adopting the same stance. Again, he’s special pleading.

Another critical problem with this text is the explicit faith-reason false dichotomy that runs throughout, and comes to a head in the final section. He conceives of faith and reason as diametrically opposed and competing epistemologies. This is fine when preaching to the choir of atheists who share this understanding of ‘faith’, and while remaining incurious about what faith actually is in its essence. But since the stated purpose of the book is to propose a test for believers to apply to their religion and determine whether it's likely true, it would be of more significance if he examined what ‘faith’ has been considered to be throughout history, and across cultures, or at least what current believers – his main audience – understand it to be, and what its relationship to reason is. If he did so, he would see that he's attacking a straw man.

He would further have to acknowledge that, on this proper understanding of faith, it isn't optional. Every act of reason always-already entails an act of faith. When some of his interlocutors (mostly Christians who tenaciously comment on his blog, apparently) point out that there are many things we do not know by way of scientific or rational inquiry, such as that there is a material world, that we aren't currently in a virtual reality, that our senses are reliable etc. rather we must accept these things on faith, he replies:

Christians retort that I have faith in reason, in skepticism, in science, in my senses, and in the evidence, but what can they possibly mean? Could trusting them be conceivably wrong at times? Yes, of course. We even know this. But there simply is no alternative but to trust them.

Well, yes. Quite. That's precisely the point. Faith isn't optional.

He further objects to these sorts of objections by, once again, reiterating that we must go on probability, and the probability is extremely unlikely that, for example, the material world doesn't exist. But what tests can be devised to assess the probability that we do not currently reside in a virtual reality? Or that you didn't pop into existence 5 minutes ago with all of your memories intact? By the very nature of these sorts of problems, the probabilities can't even be assessed at all and so appealing to probability is a nonsensical move. He's right, of course, that we can do nothing but proceed as if our senses can be trusted and as if the material world exists. But to claim that this doesn't constitute a faith commitment requires justification, and he gives none.

Loftus attempts to make hay out of the fact that believers will use science and reason when objecting to the truth claims of other religions, but not their own. Yet he doesn’t demonstrate that science and reason contradict the claims of the Christian faith (his admitted chief target), so we’re left to take his word for it that they do. If these inputs don’t unequivocally disprove the Christian faith or make it very unlikely to be true (and they don’t), then there’s no reason to suspect that believers aren’t critically availing themselves of the tools of science and reason in examining the question of religion. Begging the question, Loftus assumes an answer to the very matter of contention without any justification.

It all gets a bit tedious after a while – the hectoring tone, the argument-by-assertion, the repetition, the special pleading and question-begging, the myopia. And quickly. Despite the book's massive flaws, the central contention – that it's a profitable endeavor to subject our culturally inherited beliefs and biases to critical scrutiny, availing ourselves of the tools of science and reason – is certainly true, and not particularly controversial. The OTF itself can be salvaged from the wreckage of the book if you broaden it to include all manner of beliefs, rather than only explicitly religious ones, and extricate the author's unsubstantiated foregone conclusions which permeate the text. But really, what's the point? In a culture as modern, pluralistic, and secular as our own, this amounts to preaching to the choir. Even if the sermon did happen to echo beyond the pulpit, reaching the apostate faithful out on the street corners and miraculously leading to some of their conversions, they still won't have become outsiders. They'll have done the only thing that's possible: traded one insider vantage for another.

Adaptation & Blue Like Jazz

Blue Like Jazz provides a compelling case study on the process of book-to-film adaptation, as it reveals how the conversion between mediums can result, not only in losing something in translation, but in positively inverting the meaning of a text. In the book Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller unequivocally depicts the quasi-autobiographical character Don's experiences at a secular university -- having been raised Baptist -- as a process of maturation, of being exposed to a wider world of intellectual openness and breadth, of fruitful experiences with new types of people who influence him for the better, of growing in wisdom, of coming to view his religious roots as narrow-minded and hypocritical. Because we are privy to Don's inner monologue in the book, this understanding of his journey is forcefully impressed on the reader and unmistakable. One may have suspicions (as I did) that what's really going on -- as it does for so many new college students -- is the character is succumbing to the seduction of sinful worldliness, and nothing more. The text of the book is ambiguous enough to allow that this is perhaps some minor aspect of what is occuring, but it also makes abundantly clear that ultimately what is transpiring in Don's life is good.

The translation to film is fascinating because, without Don's inner monologue constantly available, it not only becomes possible to read Don's journey as a straightforward discarding of one's faith in favor of seductive worldliness, but it positively screams to be read in this fashion. There aren't any narrative clues that anything else is happening at all, save perhaps the final 'redemptive' moments that themselves contain decidedly mixed sentiments. The film could practically be used as a Scared Straight propaganda video, showing Christian parents the soul-corrupting dangers of secular University life in modern America. While the book emphatically rejects this narrative and depicts his journey as a process of enrichening, enlightening spiritual and personal growth.

The character of Penney in the film supplies the only counter to Don's descent into effective unbelief. Her faith fuels her political activism and world-saving pretensions, without her having to always, you know, talk about Jesus and be all religiousy. Don clearly admires Penney and sees her brand of faith as more genuine and mature, but if she were an unbelieving, secular do-gooder it's hard to see what -- if anything -- would be lost about his admiration. She says she read the Bible in an ancient literature class and fell in love with Jesus, exactly as if he were some inspiring literary character and nothing more.

The final moments do acknowledge Don's grief at his having been ashamed of Christ, but this is consistent with interpreting his college experience as utterly negative and corrupting up to that point. Again, the precise opposite of what the book portrays.

This disconnect between book and film makes me curious whether this was an intentional move. It probably makes the film more pallettable for a young evagelical audience (the only crowd they could even hope to be appealing to), but it seems to radically compromise on the message of the book to such a degree that one wouldn't think Miller would be OK with it. Yet he wrote the script and was intimately involved with making the film. The only other possibility is that it was unintentional, in which case I would hypothesize it's attributable to an over-familiarity with the source material to the point where the filmmakers assume the audience has (much) more information than they've actually been given. Either way, it's a potent testament to the precarious nature of film adaptation.

Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire

With a presidential election looming and the most substantive policy debate (to the extent that there is one) being on the topic of jobs and the economy, turning to this text seemed appropriate. In addition, a reader had recommended William T. Cavanaugh to me in the comment section of my review of Introducing Radical Orthodoxy, so I was eager to read some of his work.

If one of the main characteristics of those authors and thinkers who fall within the stream of Radical Orthodoxy is re-thinking traditionally 'secular' realms of thought and practice according to explicitly Christian premises, language, and categories, then this text is a quintessential example of that sort of disposition and method. In considering the field of economics, Cavanaugh lays out parameters for Christians to approach a just economic life that doesn't aim to overthrow or oppose the reigning global capitalist order -- something he thinks is not actually possible anyway -- but which seeks to seize on its legitimacy and respond to it in a transformative way.

Cavanaugh is often perspicacious in his musings on the nature of capitalism and consumerism. He rightly recognizes that the capitalist definition of economic freedom is defined purely negatively: it is the lack of illegitimate coercion or force in the economic realm. While the Christian definition of freedom is ends-dependent; true freedom is understood with reference to the telos of human nature. Freedom isn't the arbitrary, unmolested exercise of will, as it is defined in capitalism, but freedom is found in choosing rightly. Because Cavanaugh doesn't think progressivism offers a real alternative to capitalism, he only really engages with capitalism and one of its most staunch defenders: Milton Friedman. This is the only spot where Cavanaugh stumbles a bit. At times he correctly recognizes that the Christian understanding of freedom, as positively defined, isn't necessarily at odds with the capitalist understanding -- as defined by Friedman -- but is rather a more specific and demanding sort of freedom that can exist underneath and within the capitalist order (though it's obviously destined to transplant it in the eschaton). But then he will turn around and act as if there is some inherent conflict, when there really isn't. That aside, his observations as to the distinct types of freedom are important and thoughtful.

Another example of penetrating insight is Cavanaugh's recognition that the consumerism of our culture is not marked by attachment to things, but by detachment to them. We don't buy things to satisfy particular desires and then rest content in those things, rather we buy things and once we acquire them, start to shop for something else. It is shopping, not the actual buying, that drives us. We desire to desire to desire, and of course the desires of our heart are never more than momentarily satiated by obtaining material possessions.

Cavanaugh goes on to say that detachment from material possessions is an aspect of the Christian life as well, though consumerism is a perversion of it. The Christian model for what a redeemed, healthy mode of consumption ought to be is found in the Eucharist. We consume and in so doing are consumed by God; we consume the bread so that we might become bread for others. And Cavanaugh gives concrete examples of what this might look like, as lived out in the realm of economics; different sorts of business models, nontraditional charitable activities, etc.

In the section on the 'global and the local', Cavanaugh evaluates the process known as 'globalization', in the context of the ancient philosophical problem of 'the one and the many'. Turning to the doctrine of the Incarnation, Cavanaugh convincingly argues that it is only in Christ that this problem can be solved, as Christ is the 'concrete universal'. Drawing heavily on the thought of Hans Ur von Balthasar, Cavanaugh believes that the Church's catholicity is the living out of this reality of the nature of Christ. The church is catholic -- whole and complete -- in each particular, local church, with Christ as its head. So in the Incarnation, in Christ, the particular, the concrete is redeemed and taken up into the life of the Trinity. The Many need not dissolve into the One, and the One need not disperse out into the Many, but Christ's work infuses the particular with the infinite, without the infinite ceasing to be infinite. And this reality for God is the reality for the Church, which becomes a model for how the Church can engage and affect the economic realities it inhabits, specifically in a time of 'globalization'.

As I've said, Cavanaugh makes these connections -- which I'm somewhat glossing over -- explicit in tangible examples. It isn't all abstraction, and when it is, it's abstraction about concrete, physical realities. One of the examples of an outworking of his premises are supporting certain sorts of local farms, where the relationship between production and consumption is at least a more intimate one, where a communal relationship among parties can develop, rather than the way globalized capitalism tends to set production off in some far corner of the world where workers can be exploited. Another example are business models which themselves incorporate an ethic of gift by having employee ownership, or a certain percent of profits going directly to charitable causes in the community. None of this undermines capitalism and can take place within it, but it also frees those engaged in these mini-markets from some of the more harsh, inescapable realities of the pure self-interest of the global market.

Though Milton Friedman might note that, in decreasing the market for extremely cheap labor in foreign countries, for example, you take away some of the poor-paying jobs those people are glad to have, perhaps making their poor quality of life even worse. There are always trade-offs, and the solutions Cavanaugh offers often have hidden costs. But, to be fair, his examples are not intended to be an exhaustive explication of everything that would need to happen to bring economic justice to the world.

The book is written in a highly readable fashion at a popular level. Cavanaugh seamlessly transitions from appropriating the Trinitarian theology of Balthasar and contrasting Augustine with Milton Friedman, to contemporary implications and pop-culture illustrations and references. The result is an illuminating investigation of what it means -- and what it should mean -- to be a Christian 'consumer' in the modern world of economics.

The Dark Knight Rises - Review

The culmination of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy has arisen in the form of The Dark Knight Rises. Given the critical and popular acclaim heaped upon The Dark Knight -- much (though not all) of it deserved -- expectations for the final chapter in the trilogy were at a fever pitch. The film largely rises to the occasion, with a few significant qualifiers that keep it from being an absolute masterpiece.

Following the dynamic and indelible performance by Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight, and considering the general dark intrigue that surrounds villains as objects of speculation and hype, all eyes are on Bane this time around. An exiled member of the League of Shadows (the group led by Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins), Bane -- a hulking wrecking-ball of a mercenary hellbent on chaos and destruction, as portrayed by Tom Hardy -- leads an underground uprising composed of Gotham's outcast and malcontent. Though the facial apparatus somewhat obstructs Hardy's ability to emote, his physical presence is dominating and fierce, and the effect produced by his ominous voice as projected through the mask is chilling -- though I'm not sure I prefer this final version of the voice over the more garbled early incarnation. Bane delivers as a cool, compelling villain, except for an event late in the film which I will come to anon.

In the wake of Harvey Dent's death as a martyr (in the eyes of the public), Gotham passed the Dent Act and cracked down on crime (one result of which is the aforementioned criminals that join Bane's uprising), and enjoyed a period of prosperity. Bruce Wayne -- sensing that Batman was no longer needed in the capacity he once was, and physically and spiritually downtrodden himself -- has gone into seclusion in the Wayne mansion and has become a bit of a recluse. But the rise of Bane represents a new need of Gotham's. 

That's the very general set-up for the film, but there's a lot more going on here. The film introduces many new characters quickly, while catching us up with old ones. The opening is a bit disorienting and demanding of the audience, but Nolan juggles the various characters and story threads deftly. I understand the desire to see a more circumscribed story, that focuses more intently on Batman and Bane for instance, though I think this is ultimately more satisfying than that approach would have been.

Especially in Batman Begins, but also in The Dark Knight to some degree, one of the few drawbacks was Nolan's choreographing and editing of action sequences. The Dark Knight had some spectacular action set pieces, but I still felt this was Nolan's achilles heel. Here he has actually improved somewhat in that regard. The set pieces are just as spectacular as in The Dark Knight and they flow more naturally and intelligibly. Fueled by Hans Zimmer's familiar and tremendous score the film is exhilarating to behold, especially in IMAX.

Nolan could easily have set his thematic and narrative inclinations on autopilot and still delivered a satisfying conclusion, but he never takes the easy path. Instead he weaves a dense tapestry of story, drawing on the well of character development in the earlier films to produce a complex and emotional climax to the series. This is part of the reason the plethora of characters doesn't feel overwhelming -- we already know Bruce, we know Alfred, we know Commissioner Gordon, and Nolan trusts the audience to engage with them on a level that connects with the previous films, rather than having to act as if this is a standalone film.

There is a powerful resonance in the image of the forces of evil -- in the guise of 'liberators' opposing the establishment, looking to institute 'justice' -- being charged by an army of cops looking to take back their city, given the clashes between Occupy and the police in the last year. Many conservative commentators have gone so far as to read the film primarily as political allegory, though I think that's a bridge too far. Clearly Nolan comes out on the side of order over chaos, and of regular people working within established institutions over world-burners and revolutionaries, while also attacking the propagandistic rhetoric of certain segments of the left and thus the film presents a nominally conservative worldview, but I don't think this theme dominates the proceedings.

Despite all the narrative brilliance, there are a couple missteps and one almost proves disastrous. The next three paragraphs will contain spoilers, so do not read ahead if you haven't yet seen the film.

One misstep is the common (but always silly) narrative device where, instead of killing the Hero when he has a chance, the Villain puts him in some sort of trap or device from which it turns out to be possible to escape. This was actually common in the Batman television show with Adam West, and perhaps in the comics as well (I never read much DC and so I can't be sure), so this could be a nod to the Batman tradition. Also, in Nolan's defense, if you ever want to imagine a scenario where the Hero is in the clutches of the Villain -- an interesting event -- it's difficult to avoid something along these lines. Still, given the grimy quasi-realist aesthetic of Nolan's Bat-iverse, you would think he would avoid this tact.

The other more serious problem is the late revelation concerning Miranda Tate. Transferring Bane's ostensible back-story to some rich, unassuming, female criminal mastermind at the last minute pulls the rug out from under the audience, to be sure, but it also turns Bane into a subordinate villain and demystifies the mythos being built around him. This wouldn't be so bad except it violates the coolness of Bane and makes the real villain just some random chick. Perhaps that's sexist of me, but I never claimed to be above petty sexism in my comic book inclinations.

At the last moment Bane becomes Darth Vader (mask and all) to Tate's Emperor (only minus the redemptive turn). I'm sure on a repeat viewing it will be interesting to watch Tate's (and Bane's, for that matter) actions and words in a new light, but it still feels a little cheap and less gratifying than if Bane had in fact been the child born into a dark hell who rose. I want that to be him. I don't want him demoted to the level of devoted and somewhat creepy henchman. That said, as much as that alters the film, and as much as I'd rather it be otherwise, the movie still succeeds. And perhaps on repeat viewings the feeling of being duped will subside.

Despite these missteps, The Dark Knight Rises still manages to soar -- literally, as The Bat, Batman's aerial vehicle, plays a big role in key sequences and in fighting the war against Bane's army. With The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan not only outpaces all the comic-book competition but also maintains his near-monopoly on challenging, intelligent, adult, blockbuster, 'event-film' entertainment.

Introducing Radical Orthodoxy

After having read a book, some essays, and watched some lectures by John Milbank, the project of Radical Orthodoxy piqued my interest. Many aspects of Milbank's thought resonated with my own inclinations, but I also knew that the project of RO was bigger than Milbank (though he is the most prominent of RO's figures) and that having read only one of his books -- and one that was only half his, The Monstrosity of Christ -- the fundamentals of his thought were still somewhat obscure to me. With Milbank's manifesto Theology and Social Theory being a bit too pricey for Kindle, Introducing Radical Orthodoxy by James K.A. Smith seemed a perfect place to turn.

Smith and the RO authors themselves -- John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Graham Ward primarily -- seem to eschew the use of "school" or "movement" in describing RO, instead opting for phrases such as "ecumenical agenda" or "ecumenical program". Smith, quoting Pickstock, says that RO "is not a system, method, or formula but a 'hermeneutic disposition and style of metaphysical vision.'" So what makes up this agenda, this disposition, this vision?

Smith does a magnificent job outlining all of the contours of theory and thought that give shape to RO, so I won't try to completely distill that work here. I will touch on some of the major cornerstones of RO that most struck me.

One aspect of the movement (I'll use this term for lack of a better single word) that is most enticing and striking to me is its unapologetic "apologetics". Or rather, the manner in which it rejects apologetics -- especially "classical apologetics" -- which it sees as a fundamental compromise with modernity, as classical apologetics operates within a certain apostate framework of thought that has a foundation of secular premises. This concedes too much ground to the secular (which is itself a fragile fiction of sorts). No matter how grand or profound a defense for the faith you can build up from within this apostate framework, conceding the 'rules of the game' to anyone other than Christ is idolatry.

And that is what we do when we compromise with modernity or postmodernity (which RO, along with, for instance, David Bentley Hart, holds to be a sort of hyper-modernity), so RO instead seeks to "stop doing theory according to 'the rudiments of this world rather than according to Christ.'" This, it should be noted, is not to reject all of the 'fruits of modernity', or to be 'anti-modern', or to deny the valid aspects of the postmodern turn in philosophy, only to re-narrate everything according to Christ and reclaiming that which properly belongs to him.

This foundational idea blossoms in many ways. To name a few: it entails rejecting the Enlightenment sundering of faith from reason as illegitimate; it means denying the validity of modern politics (secular, liberal democracy), the epistemology that undergirds it (autonomous reason) and denouncing it as a product of an apostate ontology (the univocity of being, traced back to Scotus); it means opposing -- or at least rehabilitating -- many dualisms, such as that erected between nature and grace.

Once the received wisdom of modernity is shown to hinge at various points on essentially arbitrary and apostate movements of thought, the cosmos are free to be re-narrated according to the form of Christ. Though this sort of phrases the truth of things in reverse; God's creation as creation and our participation in it is prior to any apostasy, however, living in a modern or postmodern culture, one must contend with the reigning metanarrative and show that it is merely one metanarrative among possibilities and in no way necessary. Postmodernity wouldn't object to recognizing modernity and Christianity as competing metanarratives, and so RO doesn't fully reject its insights on this count.

Once the 'playing field of thought' is leveled, RO believes a robust liturgical, sacramental, and participatory narration of the cosmos according to Christ will stand apart -- not by being secured as truth by way of autonomous reason operating on first principles -- but as narrative, and one that doesn't suffer the same contradictions or antinomies as the metanarrative of modernity or postmodernity. This requires an alternative epistemology (illumination) grounded in an alternative ontology (participation), and this is partially accomplished by retrieving pre-modern sources -- Plato,Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Aquinas etc. -- and exploring the ways in which the historical development of thought fits with this vision. Simultaneously, the movement engages with postmodern thinkers -- Derrida, Deleuze, Foulcalt -- acknowledging what they get right and noting where there is a convergence of sensibility, while still reading them according to their own distinctly Christian vision. This is not to forfeit truth, but to forfeit truth as being reducible to modern epistemology or to any ontology of immanence.

The most significant point of departure from the modern and postmodern is at the most basic level of ontology. While postmoderns necessarily read the immanent as violence, and therefore inscribe violence into  being, RO's ontology is one of an original peace, as revealed in the Trinity. Because God contains difference in himself and is a harmonious One, and because creation is God's good work in which he reveals Himself, the nature of difference must not be of violence but of peace. This fundamental observation re-orders everything.

RO envisions a form of post-secular thought -- rooted in a participatory metaphysics and an epistemology of illumination -- in which it isn't just philosophy that is the 'handmaiden of theology', but that all theoretical disciplines, in a sense, are. The fact that it was ever otherwise, as a matter of history, is only a result of fallenness and of the course of the development of thought turning from its proper telos. Hence, RO seeks to create a post-secular realm where architectural theory is shaped and formed according to theology, where literature and the arts are, where economics is, where philosophy is. This is different from bringing Christian sensibilities to these disciplines and looking to 'baptize' them -- as if the disciplines were autonomous realms not belonging to Christ -- but re-thinking them at the root, according to the form of Christ, Trinity, and a participatory understanding of humanity's role in creation.

All of RO's thought and its conclusions are arrived at and given shape by the radical truth of the incarnation, along with the attendant doctrine of the Trinity. Because of creation's initial goodness, and because of Christ's incarnation and rescue of creation from fallenness, RO is free to affirm the goodness of materiality and view human participation in the divine by way of this truth. Which means affirming the liturgical and the sacramental as the primary means of grace. In modern and postmodern thought, where the immanent is all, the immanent is ironically revealed to be in the end nothing. RO argues that it is only when the immanent is suspended from the transcendent that the immanent can be affirmed.

Another dualism that RO rejects is that between fact and value, or between the empirical and the aesthetic. Because truth isn't the 'positive ground' that modernity sought, it is free to be synthetic, and therefore the realm of the aesthetic can be affirmed as not only one avenue to truth, but it becomes the primary vehicle of illumination and knowledge. This re-affirms the significance of the arts and images (in addition to other things) as God's good tools, rather than demoting them to the realm of entertainment or false idols. This understanding of the aesthetic informs the conclusion that narrative, in all its unconquerable particularities, is the mode of revelation that contains God's truth.

While much more could be said, I'll leave that to the book itself which I highly recommend. Smith traces the shape of RO in a highly readable manner and with many felicitous expressions, while also allowing those readers who want to, to delve deeper via extensive end notes. While my primary interest was in RO itself, Smith also wishes to bring RO into dialogue with the Dutch Reformed tradition -- specifically Kuyper and Dooyeweerd -- and to locate resonances and areas where one can offer correctives to the other. For my interest in the material this was mostly superfluous, but it didn't detract from the read any. Introducing Radical Orthodoxy is an enlightening, engaging précis on a movement that is charting a course for Christian post-secular thought in a modern/postmodern culture.

Cloud Atlas Review

David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas gripped me from the table of contents. The book is comprised of 6 stories, separated by time, but with thematic and inter-personal intersections which cascade through time. The chapters are arranged palindromically (i.e. A-B-C-D-E-F-E-D-C-B-A, with each letter representing a unique story, split into two parts), and being a bit obsessed with palindromes, my interest was piqued.

The first half of the book is an ascent through time, from the 1850s, through the present, and into the future while the latter half of the book descends through the same periods. Such a structure could be indicative of an ingenious narratival device, or a cheap gimmick that doesn't bear any fruit. In a meta moment during the Letters from Zedelghem story, Robert Frobisher -- the protagonist of the second story and a musical apprentice to a famous, genius composer -- describes the magnum opus that he is composing (independent of his mentor) in a letter to his friend:

"[A] sextet for overlapping soloists": piano, clarinet, 'cello, flute, oboe, and violin, each in its own language of key, scale, and color. In the first set, each solo is interrupted by its successor; in the second, each interruption is recontinued, in order. Revolutionary or gimmicky? Shan't know until it's finishished and by then it'll be too late.

 This is clearly a metaphor for the structure of the book itself, whose individual sections are also in their own "key, scale, and color" (or voice, genre, and style). And while I wouldn't go as far as "revolutionary", it isn't gimmicky either, but rather is a device that is utilized to a stunning, effective end.

Each of the stories work well on their own as stories. The characters are well-rendered, the stories pulse ahead in lively fashion, and the prose is excellent in the varying styles. If this were a short story collection instead of a novel, it would be a tremendous collection. But the structure, the intersections through time, and the handling of the themes -- the rise and fall of civilizations (or ascent and descent generally), the nature of culture, the human condition, imprisonment and escape -- as they appear in each of the narratives, elevate it and keep it from seeming as if it is merely a series of unrelated stories with a tacked-on way of connecting them. Instead, the stories inform and enrich one another, fleshing out characters and illuminating ideas.

While all of the stories have much to recommend them, the two that occur in the future and at the apex of the book -- An Orison of Sonmi 451 and Sloosha's Crossin' An' Ev'rythin After -- were especially impactful in the way that they bring the threads of the book to fruition. The way the stories give glimpses of both a dystopian future and a post-apocalyptic distant future that follows it is an imaginative feat which isn't quite replicated by the stories set in the present and the past.

Astonishingly -- given the scope of the novel -- a film adaptation directed by the Wachowski brothers (The Matrix) is slated for release later this year. One could easily envision an invigorating, satisfying film culled from the world of the Sonmi narrative alone, but faithfully translating this entire novel seems a tall task. It will be interesting to see how much is lost in translation.

Cloud Atlas explores how the unfolding of time provides a backdrop for the story of humanity. It accounts for the variables and the universals; the feats of heroism and villainy; the rises and falls. While this can be done -- to some degree -- in a single story, the structural novelty along with Mitchell's gift for storytelling open up space for a richness and depth that is otherwise very difficult to achieve.

Ridley Scott's Alien Abortion -- On Prometheus

Note: Spoilers are contained herein.

Ridley Scott's return to sci-fi after a 30 year hiatus, specifically a return to his Alien universe; facehuggers and abdomen-bursting; the mystery of the 'space jockey' revealed; themes of intelligent design and faith; Michael Fassbender as an android. Prometheus seemed as if it was specially geared to appeal to my particular aesthetic sensibility. What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Though Scott bizarrely eschewed the use of the term 'prequel' in the promotional events leading up to the release, Prometheus is a prequel in virtually every sense except that none of the characters are the same. Not only does the action in Prometheus take place in "the same universe" (Scott's preferred descriptive idiom), but it takes place on the same planet as the original Alien and sets the stage for the events of that film, while sporting many of the Alien calling cards: the aforementioned facehuggers and chest-bursters; a decapitated android; insidious Weyland corp machinations; a strong female protagonist who outlasts her crew mates while aliens kill them all off etc. If Prometheus truly did share nothing but "a universe", the result wouldn't be quite so frustrating and disappointing.

This time around, though, the scope has shifted. The juxtaposition couldn't be more stark: Alien was an intimate, claustrophobic space horror with a narrow scope, while Prometheus seeks more epic pastures, expanding its concerns from the crew of a single ship to the concerns of all mankind. Though the film purports to address The Big Questions of humanity -- Guy Pearce's character helpfully explains that it does -- there really is only one 'Big Question' it addresses: the question of human (and/or biological) origins and 'creation'. While the origin of life is not a 'solved' problem, most approach the question either by positing Darwinian (or otherwise 'naturalistic') mechanisms which gave rise to primordial, single-cellular life which then evolved, or with God (or with some combination thereof). Scott ineptly fumbles the issue coming from both directions.

On the one hand, 'God' is vaguely present in the narrative in the form of the main character's -- Elizabeth Shaw's -- Christian faith (which we'll return to). The notion of God as creator is also addressed via proxy by suggesting that humanity is created by Engineers (one might say Intelligent Designers), who are 8-foot tall, pale aliens with dark eyes. One of the members of this race is the mysterious 'space jockey' from the original Alien. Of course, an intermediate, finite designer of life doesn't actually address the Big Question of life's origins because it only pushes the question back a step: who designed this designer? The film recognizes this at one point, but in so doing renders itself rather moot and impotent in the exploration of the Big Question.

On the other hand, the only appearance evolution makes is when one crew member scientist of Prometheus responds to Shaw's claim that the Engineers created human life with "Well, if you want to just throw out 3 centuries of Darwinism", which is also confused. In the opening scene of Prometheus we see one of the Engineers depositing the building blocks of life on early Earth. We can assume, from there, life then evolved. If this were the case, not a stitch of Darwinian evolution would need to be dispensed with, yet this objection comes from a scientist -- the biologist even, if memory serves. I suppose, within the world of the film, Darwinian evolution really might be bunk and the mechanisms which appeared unguided and natural were actually encoded by the Engineers, but even if this were so Darwinian theory wouldn't necessarily be wrong. The Engineers may just harness their knowledge of natural, Darwinian mechanisms to bring about a desired result. In any case, at that juncture there's no reason any intelligent scientist would think that Shaw's theory debunks Darwinism whole cloth, even if it's true.

Speaking of Shaw's theory, it provides the most cringe-inducing moment of the film. Shaw and her research partner (and husband? boyfriend? I don't recall), discover a pictogram that appears on cave drawings, inside temples, on rocks from every ancient human civilization, many of which share no common lineage or have any dealings with each other. The drawings all show the same image: humans crowded around a taller human-like figure who is pointing to a constellation of cosmic bodies. The configuration of the bodies is identical, and it happens to match some solar system which has a sun similar to ours. All of which is plenty reason to suspect the presence of an extraterrestrial intelligence, one that it appears may have communicated with our race in some mysterious way, which makes investigating the matter an obviously logical step. No problem so far. However, does this evidence suggest that we were created by the the extraterrestrial intelligence, even if it exists? No, it doesn't, yet Shaw believes that we were created by them. Can she prove this? No, but again, at this point it may not be a matter of empiricism. Fair enough. But surely she must have indicators, some line of reasoning, some sign-posts which point toward her conclusion. When one of the scientists asks her for evidence in this vein she replies "I choose to believe it is so." Oy vey.

It wouldn't even be that bad if she postulated some shaky, inconclusive argument with tenuous rational and evidential support, and then when pushed to defend it she finally resorted to her "I choose to believe it is so" line, but she couldn't even manage that, and so it comes off as if she pulled the theory directly from her hindquarters. In her position there's nothing epistemically unjustified in holding such a belief, but since she offers literally no support -- not even of the speculative, theoretical variety -- why bring it up to a team of scientists? It's a functionally irrelevant belief for the mission.

This brings us back to the theme of 'faith' in the film. Shaw wears a cross around her neck; there is one scene where a memory of hers as a child is scanned where her dad uses the "it's what I choose to believe" line; Shaw has faith in the existence of the Engineers (presumably in the same manner that she merely "chooses to believe" in God, without any real reason). Unsurprisingly, Christian 'faith' is given pretty short shrift and depicted as the impoverished, unspecific, insignificant, unreliable 'mechanism' many (falsely) assume that it is. Ironically, the film portrays faith this way, but it doesn't seem to think it's doing so derisively. After all, Shaw saves the day, is the last survivor of the crew, and her hypothesis turned out to be correct . It would appear her 'faith' -- her belief in belief -- was vindicated. And yet her faith, to the extent it is on display, is a pretty anemic, lifeless thing that isn't really worthy of praise.

And all of this, as annoying as it is, still might be overlooked if the rest of the film were good; if the characters and dialogue were compelling; if the narrative, even despite its metaphysical and scientific blunders and absurdities, was interesting; if the terror from the original Alien struck again in a new chord; if the mysteries were revealed in ways that enriched the franchise. But the film woefully misses all marks.

The worst of all of these sins is the pathetic character work. The character actions and interactions are often unbelievably absurd and nonsensical. Contrasted with the spirited, believable, and dynamic crew of the Nostromo, the crew of the Prometheus is colorful only because all of its members are exaggerated and false cliches. And the ones who aren't are indistinguishable in their dullness.

While I normally wouldn't delve into such detail, I feel a responsibility to catalog at least some of the worst offenses in this area. Some of the ones involving Shaw's character have already been covered, but what about the rest of the crew?

One of the earlier character notes is one of the more subtle offenses, but when the half-bald, half mohawk scientist decides he wants to go back to the ship rather than investigate a scene further, Shaw asks him why, and he responds by bizarrely getting in her face and screaming at her. I get that the character is supposed to be a douchebag, but this isn't what a douchebag would do in this situation. A true douchebag would ignore the question, or perhaps dismiss it with some quip. And perhaps if she pressed the issue further, accosting him, then he might explode, but this guy skipped straight to explode and it really made no psychological sense whatsoever. This is one of the more subtle character missteps in the film, but it set the tone early on for what would become a comedy of errors.

Perhaps the most significant of these is when Shaw's research partner / lover (played by the obnoxious Logan Marshall-Green), after arriving at LV223 (the planet they're investigating, and perhaps a reference to Leviticus 22:3) and discovering only Engineer corpses, resorts immediately to despondent, heavy boozing. He wanted to converse with them, you see. And since he didn't get to, time to drink. Sure, his partner is out there still in the process of collecting evidence and perhaps solving the riddle of the true origins of the human race, but yawn, yada, yada, I wanted to talk to them, damn it! Not to mention it isn't even clear that they are all dead, he's just assuming they are. In fact, as the planet is explored more thoroughly one of them is later found alive and cryogenically frozen.

Not much should need to be said about the buffoon scientist who, when coming upon an hissing alien snake-like creature, decides that it should be playfully approached as if it were a cuddly kitten.
 

Late in the film, Shaw returns to the Prometheus as the Engineer's spacecraft is preparing for take-off and informs the crew that the ship is headed to Earth to destroy humanity. It's not entirely clear how she arrived at that conclusion -- the Engineer was certainly hostile to them, but it's not obvious that he wishes to destroy the human race -- but she relays this information to the Prometheus. The Prometheus isn't a war vessel, and so the captain and two of the crew members almost immediately realize that, based on Shaw's breathless pronouncement, a kamikaze mission is in order and they happily march to their deaths. The captain had hitherto not been an exceedingly selfless or caring character, so this again rings completely false in myriad ways.

Sure, characters can be emotional, irrational and inconsistent just like people, but these characters were so in profoundly inhuman (and cliche) ways. And when you take into consideration that these are all scientists, it's even more suspect.

Michael Fassbender gives the only sympathetic performance as David, this mission's android. Which should tell you something, since he's diabolically wreaking chaos and havoc and seems to have a distinct distaste for these humans aboard the ship -- as we all do, by the end of the film.

The one thing the film does somewhat have going for it is in its mysteries, symbolism, and unanswered questions it leaves much up for debate and discussion, and so the film can serve as a good conversation piece -- if you can get past everything else. But when this thin veneer of false intrigue is draped on the skeletal frame of a film that is fundamentally, offensively unsound, it doesn't -- it can't -- enrich the film but rather serves only to distract from the lack of coherence and substance.

I could go on. And I didn't even touch on the absurd abortion sequence.

The quality of Prometheus being what it was (abysmal) and with Bladerunner 2 now in the works, one has to wonder if Scott is cashing in on his legacy. Or, perhaps, using his legacy as leverage to make more interesting films; The Counselor -- Scott's next project -- boasts a magnificent cast and a script by Cormac McCarthy. Whatever the case, as a matter of artistic integrity, Scott had no business sullying the Alien franchise with this endeavor. Go ahead and make a non-Alien sci-fi film about human origins, and maybe with the expectations, burdens, and restraints of the franchise lifted, your creative genius might just shine through. After all, much of Scott's genius was always in the creation of new worlds, and since the world of Alien already exists, his creative matrix may have just never been engaged. It's a plausible explanation anyway, and he might want to latch onto it. Otherwise one is forced to conclude he's a has-been hack in the late-George-Lucas phase of his career. One may conclude that anyway.

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CORRECTION:  I said the film takes place on the same planet as the first Alien, but it's a  different planet in the same system of planets.

The Avengers and Freedom

With the record-breaking opening weekend box office, and all the surrounding chatter and hype, I don't have much to say about The Avengers that hasn't been said already by others. In brief I will say that I think it is right near the pinnacle of the genre, alongside The Dark Knight, and that it succeeds quite well as the summer blockbuster entertainment that it aims to be. Although I also think it falters on some levels (I mostly concur with the 'cons' listed here on The Playlist), on the level of superhero spectacle, and sharp, witty character dialogue and interaction, it is at the peak of the genre. Although, aside from Nolan's Batman universe, it's not a genre I find particularly substantive or edifying, offering mostly transient pleasures, and so you should take the praise somewhat lightly.

With that out of the way, I will confine my comments to a couple narrow observations on small aspects of the film, and offer (perhaps) a somewhat unique focus so as not to trod well-worn areas of comment.

I found Loki -- Thor's brother, the central villain -- to be a a somewhat lackluster heel, but his philosophy did interest me somewhat. Loki says he wants to free humanity from freedom; that the rat race of modern life is degrading and dehumanizing; that humanity, at its core, craves subjugation. All this, according to him, is the reason we should accept his rule over us. Well, as totalitarian and demented as this thinking is, he is onto something.

Though Loki's conception of the solution to the problem is perverse, human beings were created with an orientation toward an ultimate end. Contra the modern model of freedom that focuses on unrestrained voluntarism, true freedom is the freedom to have our will transformed into God's will that we would be conformed to Christ's image. The modern, secular model of freedom has no real 'content' of its own, it is just the absence of coercive or oppressive forces operating on the will. While true human freedom has a purpose and a goal. As David Bentley Hart says, "We are free not because we can choose, but only when we have chosen well." Choosing to do other than what God desires for our lives is, in fact, enslaving. So Loki's seemingly demented ravings actually have a significant kernel of truth in them (the devil's lies always do). 

One other thing I wanted to briefly comment on is when, in response to someone saying that Thor and Loki are "practically gods", Captain America retorts "there's only one God, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure He doesn't dress like that." It's a good line, and it's refreshing to hear in the context of a major blockbuster, as God becomes more and more taboo in our culture. However, even this line can only believably come from the 'old-fashioned' guy who has been frozen in ice for 70 years. Thor, being from the pagan pantheon of gods, would never say such a thing; Tony Stark's worldly solipsism would never permit him to make such an utterance; Hulk.. well, Hulk smash. You get the idea. On one hand it can be seen as a tip of the hat to the Creator of the universe, but on the other hand it could have been cynically placed in the mouth of a hopelessly benighted, 'old-fashioned' guy who literally is from another time, as he's the only one who would ever think such a primitive thought. Let's be charitable and assume it was the former.

The Last Missionary - Review

Given that Stephen the Levite had two of the dopest, most compelling and convicting contributions to Lampmode's recent The Church compilation -- the tracks Membership and Church Discipline -- it's appropriate that his long-awaited sophomore LP is heavily centered on that same subject. In fact, the title of the album, The Last Missionary, is a reference to the church, and the doctrine of the Church is expounded on throughout the majority of the album.

Over a luscious and lustrous beat, the album opens with The First Missionary, which is a reference to the Triune God's missional character as expressed in Genesis in the act of creation itself, but especially in God's presence in the Garden, dwelling with the first humans and delivering the 'protoevangelium'. This track seems to have had a foreshadowing in DJ Official's fantastic posse cut Not My Own, which features a verse by Stephen that covers similar ground.[1] Stephen delivers some stunning rhymes packed with rich theological content and structural beauty, carefully crafting his syllables with alliterative affects.

There are two scriptural analogies which primarily define the doctrine of the Church: the Church as the Body of Christ and the Church as bride, Christ as bridegroom (or Christ as the eschatological Adam and the Church as the eschatological Eve). While Stephen utilizes both in various ways throughout the album, on the track Voltron his verse brings the two together. Voltron is, obviously, a venerable cultural touchstone for hip-hop which symbolizes separate, distinct individuals coming together to act cooperatively toward one common mission or purpose, with the analogy to the Body of Christ being obvious. But as I said, Stephen really effectively brings the two analogies together in his verse: "[Adam] even cleaved to Eve, she's his own now / And he is hers, Jesus and the Church be the pronouns (Engaged) / Committed to mission till the big day / The bridegroom will arrive soon, until then wait (Harvest) / Workin' like the first in the garden / The last Eve, sowin' that seed, she is all of us".

On another posse cut, Wrote It This Way featuring Lampmode label-mates Timothy Brindle and Hazakim, the emcees explore the ways that the Body can (and must be) diverse, while not being divided. Brindle delivers a typically stellar verse which celebrates the multiethnic nature of his own family unit as a microcosm for the truth that God sent His Son for all people, of every tongue, tribe, and nation. Stephen's verse might be even better and he sets it off with a flourish: "Christ's blood has identified us / Doesn't uniform us, but it unifies us / We can be diverse but still not be divided / We would be deformed if everyone was like us". He goes on to excoriate the notion that 'unity' means arbitrary conformity to some cultural identity, rather than unity in Christ as the distinct, diverse people that He created us to be.    

The theme of Christ as bridegroom and the Church as bride is explored further on tracks such as S.O.S. and Beauty and The Beast. The former track does so implicitly as Stephen writes a song that is about his literal love and appreciation for his actual wife, but in the context of the album the track gains added depth, given what the institution of marriage is meant to teach us about the Church. The latter track explores the theme in a more explicit manner, telling the story of Christ and the Church in an extended metaphor.

The titular, final track of the album reflects the opener, and an analogy is thereby drawn between God's missional character and that of the Church, the last missionary. Stephen releases a torrent of sensational rhymes over a slamming beat while bringing the themes of the album to fruition in spectacular fashion.  

Throughout the album the aesthetic and artistic qualities are absolutely top notch. On the rapping side of things, Stephen's lyricism is incredible as he packs intense doses of luminous content into his bars while marshaling intricate rhyme schemes and a breathless, masterful flow. Just listen to the way he absolutely dismantles a track like Reign & Rebellion -- phenomenal.

The beats are excellent for the most part, and range from old school, stripped down tracks like Enter:missionary and Fight Club to more complex, robust tracks which dominate the album. The delicious cherry on top of all this is the fact that the album is almost entirely devoid of any R&B or otherwise sing-y choruses, and often features insanely ill turntablism instead, such as on Rehoboam and Dividing Lies. If you're fond of the brand of raw, 'East Coast', grimy, boom-bap that has always been my muse, then this should suit your tastes ideally as well.

While I enjoyed Stephen the Levite's first album To Die is Gain, I felt it was a little rough around the edges and the production was somewhat lacking. Here he steps into the forefront of currently working hip-hop artists -- holy or secular -- with a well-polished, intelligent, challenging and edifying record that keeps your head nodding incessantly, both to the beat and in agreement. Not only that, but he has gone the extra mile and successfully crafted a true album, with a unified theme and message, and one that is vitally important for the world today: the Church is Christ's physical representation on Earth and the means for extending God's Grace to the world and establishing his kingdom, so it's incumbent upon us to repeat the act of Grace shown at the cross, and be salt and light to a world in need of redemption. Or, to quote Stephen one final time: "If you’re a Christian then you’re a member of / His physical witnesses sent to finish His mission up / Paul would call us His body with many limbs and functions / workin’ and servin’ till He returns in the endin’ but / Give it up! / until His Kingdom comes and the mission's done / we volitionally and sacrificially give Him us / (Get ‘em bruh) This is something we struggle with and it's tough / but much is required from us because we’ve been given much".

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[1] As a somewhat nitpick-y theological aside: Both Phanatik on Not My Own and Stephen on The First Missionary speak of God in mutable terms i.e. pre-creation 'conferencing' within the Godhead and 'coming to decisions' about how to create, or how to solve some problem etc. Given the limitations of language and of the rap format, I don't have a huge problem with the artistic license invoked here, but it is technically incorrect; because of God's immutability any talk of Him 'coming to decisions' is an anthropomorphism. This is not to deny the existence of divine counsel or community within the Godhead, only to affirm God's immutability.

Moneyball, Math and Poker

Since I haven't followed baseball closely since I was a teenager, I was oblivious to what the subject matter of Moneyball would be, other than the fact it was based on the true story of the general manager of the Oakland A's during a particular recent season. Having this fresh, untainted perspective made the film that much more enjoyable for me, I imagine, because I felt like I had actually learned something coming out of the theater.

The narrative depicts a kind of revolution in the way that baseball management and scouting are done within the organization of the A's. In 2001, coming off a successful season, the general manager Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt), is forced to operate within a very limited budget and compete against teams like the Yankees who were spending three times as much and taking some of the A's star players in free agency, like Jason Giambi. Necessity is, in fact, the mother of invention, it turns out.

In looking to revamp his team on a limited budget, Billy goes to work seeking to make some deals with other teams, but without much leverage to work with. When a trade with a team goes sour because of the input of one of the team's statistical analysts in the room -- Peter, played by Jonah Hill -- Beane realizes that Peter is something of a genius that thinks outside of the box of typical management strategies (as Billy is looking to do), and recruits him to be his assistant. Using a highly math-based, statistical-analysis method of scouting and recruitment, Peter thinks he can help Billy rebuild a winning team on the cheap by finding players that are undervalued by traditional metrics.

Though their system is initially mocked as egg-headed, stuffy, and ineffective, there are underlying non-mathematical realizations about what wins game and what is valued in players, versus what should be valued in them, which are qualitative as well as quantitative. For example, Billy's system values walks and On-Base Percentage higher than most traditional systems, and cares much less about fielding in general (especially at the position of first base). This could be right or wrong, but it isn't merely a statistical data point; it's a view of what really produces runs and wins, and what is less important than most people think. Peter also uses statistics to analyze things like pitch distributions and, through Billy, advises players on the appropriate adjustments to make to their game. Younger "math-based" players in poker are often similarly unfairly criticized by the old guard, with the older players often seemingly oblivious to the fact that statistical analysis is a description of actions taken in the real world which reflect important realities, such as betting patterns.

Billy's staff is resistant to the change given their experience and knowledge of the game, but Billy is convinced of the soundness of Peter's insights, which are based on the work of Bill James. One exchange between Billy and his head scout plays out exactly as the dynamic between an old-school, live, intuitive poker player and a young, online, "math-guy" poker player (which is itself similar to the dynamic that took place when the stock market was similarly revolutionized, or so I'm told).

Billy and Peter's method is derided in the media when the team opens the season in poor fashion. But their vision for the team is being hampered by the team's Manager, Art Howe (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who isn't playing the team the way that Billy wants him to. Once Billy pulls some strings, by trading certain players, Art is forced to go with the program, at which point the A's go on a phenomenal winning streak.

Realistically it's of course possible that the winning streak had more to do with some other variables than Billy and Peter's system, but within the narrative of the film their system is vindicated, just as the "math guys" and "quants" in the stock market and poker worlds were vindicated and changed the way the respective "games" were played. It isn't a perfect analogy, of course. There actually is a personal, intangible, psychological element to live poker that isn't present in baseball, but the significant correlation was interesting to me as a poker player.

For the record, Moneyball has more to offer than this short post suggests. The screenplay by Steve Zaillian (Schindler's List, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) and Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) is superb, and the cast is fantastic. I highly recommend it, even to those of you who have no interest in math or analogies to the poker world.

'Beauty of the Infinite' - Review

I finally completed Beauty of the Infinite. As I've mentioned in other posts, it was a difficult read for me in terms of my lack of familiarity with the works of many of the philosophers and theologians -- and the epochs of thought -- which Hart's argument builds upon. Though, I imagine it's also partially due to Hart's style, most notably his unrestrained erudition and massive vocabulary (spanning multiple languages), though this could be a false perception. In any case, the read became much easier as the book progressed, though I'm not sure if the latter half of the book is "objectively" less difficult, or whether I just became accustomed to the language and style of thought by that point.

This text doesn't seem to be intended for a lay audience at all, but it was an extremely rich, rewarding and perhaps revolutionary read for me. I never really thought that Christian tradition was lacking in theological richness, or in philosophical resources, but Beauty of the Infinite took my appreciation for that tradition to new heights. Much of that richness was undoubtedly already present in tradition, and I had just never encountered it. This is evident in the sections where Hart merely summarizes the thought of various theologians -- such as Gregory of Nyssa and Athanasius -- and those mere summaries of their thought gave me a greater appreciation for the Christian intellectual tradition.

On top of this mini-revelation are Hart's own theological and philosophical contributions which -- again from my vantage as a member of the laity -- are thorough, brilliant and enlightening. Hart's discourses on the analogia entis (the 'analogy of being'), Trinitarian dogmatics and the aesthetics of Christian truth particularly opened my mind just what it is that fundamentally differentiates Christian thought from other forms of thought, and the radical possibilities that open up as a result.

Specifically, the notion of the supremacy of surfaces and rhetoric (over and against 'essences' and 'dialectic') in Christian thought was something I had never fully grasped and which this text clarified for me. That the 'form' of Christ -- in all his particularity and beauty -- is fundamentally everything that Christianity has to offer. And how contrasting this style of thought to both the reductionist tendencies of modernity, as well as the nihilistic totalizing of postmodernity, reveals how Christian thought can accept that it is a kind of rhetoric, only one without peer.

This elevation of rhetoric -- the rhetoric of the Father as incarnate in Christ -- leads directly into the idea that Being is an expression of the Trinitarian God, as opposed to it being a 'univocal' expression. I had never fully considered the consequences of this. For if Creation is a truthful expression of its Creator then that Creation should express certain characteristics in its very fabric, and a 'univocal' expression of being would be very different from a Trinitarian expression. The Trinity possesses an internal dynamism, a life, an intrinsic grace, and when this conception of God is analogized to Creation, Creation should take on a certain form which also contains an irreducible dynamism.

So many discourses on being -- virtually all of them, even some Christian ones -- according to Hart, fail to completely grasp the implications of this "theological interruption" and what it consequently makes possible. In other words, Christian thought can, in many ways, consider itself immune to the critiques of modernity and postmodernity, once the critiques are properly understood. Not that it can evade engaging those critiques, but that it can answer them in a way that other forms of thought can not. Once the project of modernity -- to dissemble and distill reality into sets of self-evident truths, by way of "disinterested rationality" -- failed, Christian thought knew that this was inevitable because Truth is contained in the surface. And that surface is a a reflection of the Trinitarian God who similarly can not be reduced to principles or 'truths' that are more essential than (and therefore less than) the totality of Himself, as expressed in the form, the surface, the particularities of Christ.

This is a very inadequate summary of some aspects of Hart's arguments, but hopefully you get the general idea. This understanding of Christian truth was a revelation for me as the implications of this understanding have actually proved to be quite extensive. For anyone with any theological or philosophical training, Beauty of the Infinite is essential reading. For any lay person with a fairly intense intellectual curiosity and dogged persistence, the text can prove extremely rich and rewarding as well.