Disqus - Latest Comments for AbsltnRvltn

Re: Rachel Held Evans | The Future of Evangelicalism: A Twenty-Something’s Perspective

Jason Barr — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 13:22:01 -0000

I'm pretty sure Paul would say the same thing. He did, after all, write that bit about imitating him as he imitates the Lord. Didn't say anything about the parts where maybe he doesn't imitate the Lord.

Re: Mideast Meets Midwest: Joining the Surge Against Corrupt Elites

Jason Barr — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:15:05 -0000

It could be that the site's actually been hacked with some kind of worm or something. I had this happen to a site I ran not long ago. According to Avast there's a file in the template's /js/ subdirectory... mootools.bgiframe.js I believe... that is delivering bad code. The vast majority of http-based malware comes from legitimate sites that have been hacked, and Chris may be a victim.

Re: Richmond Cops Mistakenly Hand Over Anti-Protest Guides to Anarchist

Jason Barr — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 21:38:00 -0000

A torrent file for the Richmond documents can be found at http://onebigtorrent.org/do....

Re: Anonymous as a Tactic

Jason Barr — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 06:58:41 -0000

I rather like the description of Anonymous as an internet-based superconsciousness. "Anonymous is a group, in the sense that a flock of birds is a group. How do you know they're a group? Because they're travelling in the same direction. At any given moment, more birds could join, leave, peel off in another direction entirely." From http://www2.citypaper.com/c....

Or one could consider Anonymous a "tactic" in a similar sense to the way Food Not Bombs, Temporary Autonomous Zones, and black blocs are tactics - they're tactics as "non-branded strategies" (Richard Day, author of Gramsci is Dead's term) that also use tactics.

Re: Sabbath for All?

Jason Barr — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 22:53:42 -0000

One of the aspects I most appreciated of Wirzba's book is the insistence that Sabbath is what gives creation its purpose, and that it should shape human actions and intentions - not just as a "day of rest," but as that for which we life and which gives life to us. Practices of justice and the works of mercy absolutely must be a part of Sabbath.

Re: Bully For You

Jason Barr — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 11:12:25 -0000

And isn't it ironic that they get their tails all puffed up about the Radical Homosexuals recruiting kids when that's basically what they do to lure their unsuspecting prey into their din of inequity?

Alas, when people believe they're on the side of the angels they'll justify for themselves all kinds of things they would vilify in their opponents...

Re: Flowchart: “Are You a Terrorist”?

Jason Barr — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:27:21 -0000

Certainly! Actually, I have the group set to import your RSS feed into the group, it shows the first few lines and then links back to the article here. And your site has been very helpful for me in a number of projects. I try to promote it every chance I get. :-)

Re: Flowchart: “Are You a Terrorist”?

Jason Barr — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 14:18:45 -0000

Will,

Is it ok if I post this in the Green Scare group on my site?

Re: Reviewing “Jesus Manifesto”

Jason Barr — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:13:17 -0000

It is very difficult to speak of following Jesus without lapsing into either the pietistic mode of "knowing then doing" or the.... I'll call it overly-liberationist mode of doing, but in such a way that the knowing becomes optional or at least under-emphasized. I try to express my views on conversion and following in such a way that there can be no point at which the doing and knowing are separated - in the very moment when one begins to know Christ, one is transformed in praxis so that the way of Christ is made real in her/his life, and also the reverse: when one begins to follow the example of Jesus and strives to see the world through Jesus' lenses, in that very moment one begins to know Christ.

I have some friends who actually criticized the book for not being "pietist" enough.

I haven't yet read the book, but I think it's crucial for any work of this sort to point to concrete examples of how the way of Jesus, who is our Lord, our example, and our lens through whom the world is visible, is manifesting among people, not as an authoritative "this is how it is done" kind of thing, but as a signpost to give us aid as we try to also manifest the way of Jesus in our community and personal lives.

Re: "going green" is part of the problem

Jason Barr — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 02:50:24 -0000

Great post. "Green consumerism" is still consumerism, and its actual practice undermines the benefits people think they're promoting. It's just another "feel good" cheap fix that doesn't fix anything. I would be interested in seeing a study on the energy cost of building a hybrid car, including resource extraction, transportation at every stage, assembly of parts, assembly of the whole, and fuel use (plus estimated energy costs for maintenance) divided by the average length of time a new car is owned by the classes of people who can afford hybrids. I bet it takes longer than a new car is owned, on average, to actually add up to a net carbon benefit versus a conventional car. Also, buying a used car and getting a lower-emission exhaust system for it beats buying ANY new car, anytime.

Re: Angst-giving

Jason Barr — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:20:32 -0000

At a recent acoustic gig I played in downtown South Bend I sang all the verses to This Land Is Your Land", as well as "Jesus Christ," another brilliant Woody Guthrie tune.

This is so much better than my Thanksgiving post today, but it's worth mentioning because I quoted from and linked to a REALLY good article briefly deconstructing myths about the so-called "first Thanksgiving." One thing I did not know before reading that is apparently Squanto was executed at Massasoit's order for stirring up the English against the Wampanoag. And the "Thanksgiving" happened because the Wampanoag heard gunshots and feared the colonizers were attacking. It was more of a political summit than anything else.

Thank you for posting this. Peace be with you.

Re: sound bites of life on 2009-09-08

Jason Barr — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:46:25 -0000

Not much, just socialist indoctrination by the President and Republicans heckling him while speaking to Congress. Oh, and I think the Rapture might have happened. But apparently I missed it. I must not be patriotic enough.

Other than that, nothing major.

Re: A Stupid, Made-for-TV Controversy

Jason Barr — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 05:07:32 -0000

I wonder if any of the talking heads who decry Obama's speech as "indoctrination" have ever read or remember the speech Reagan gave to school children in 1988 - it was all kinds of political. Maybe the difference in the perceived appropriateness of one or the other is simply that it was from Reagan, involving policies with which they agree...

LV, very good point. I tend to see Sojo as really not being much different in substance from Christian-right groups, just generally espousing different policies. Sometimes there does seem to be an astonishing blindness to some of the glaring shortcomings on the so-called left (I say so-called because I'm not convinced there really is much difference between "right" and "left" in contemporary American mainstream politics).

Re: Tables scraps or the One Whole Loaf

Jason Barr — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:26:35 -0000

Yikes! Sorry! Would anyone care to wipe the egg off my face?

My apologies, the only person I've known who spelled his name that way was male. My bad for assuming.

Re: Tables scraps or the One Whole Loaf

Jason Barr — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 21:12:17 -0000

Definitely. I still think that's a totally valid application of the passage, but for a different reason than the one given above. In fact I would argue that my reading gives a stronger basis for that application, but at any rate I certainly have no quibble with Loren's application - just the way he got there.

Re: Tables scraps or the One Whole Loaf

Jason Barr — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:43:25 -0000

As much as I love Myers' work and respect him, I think he has this passage fundamentally wrong. There are a lot of details in the text I don't have time to go into right now, but it's worth mentioning that the word translated as "dog" is kunarion, not kuwn. The latter would have been insulting, as it was used more often to refer to scavenger dogs; however, the former was commonly used to refer to pets. While it would not have been common for a Jew to have a pet dog, there is precedent in Jewish literature (Tobias, in the book of Tobit, has a dog (kunarion for a companion). Jesus' term is of endearment, not insult, and the image evoked is of a pet lying under the table lapping up the crumbs, not a dirty scavenger.

Furthermore, Jesus' statement is not one of denial, but delay. Jesus never says (or implies) no, just "not yet," and the way I read it his not saying no leaves the door open for the woman's quick-witted insistence. Not only that, but given the placement in Mark's text, right after the episode with the Pharisees, the faith of the woman is a positive counter-example to them. The implication in the text is that the "children" have already had their fill, and now it is time for the "pet" to have her turn. I don't think it's too much to say the "pet" ended up getting the better end of the deal.

Another consideration is the extent to which Jesus takes the situation to create a teachable moment for the disciples - which he does in a way that fits in well with rabbinic methods and even Jesus' own, using an aphorism instead of giving a direct answer. This aspect is brought out more explicitly in Matthew's version, when silence is added to Jesus' repertoire of teaching tactics.

That being said, I think the point of your post is quite salient. If the text was actually doing what you say it does, then you would be spot-on. A bit of further exploration into my reading could surely bring out parallels between the pericope and James' exhortation to be impartial with regards to rich and poor - after all, Mark has just depicted Jesus as canceling one of the most important markers of Jewish religious and cultural identity - the food laws, in verse 19. So it should be easy to make the move of applying the episode with the Syrophoenecian woman in a similar way, that the boundaries of who has access to God as a follower of Jesus are broken down so that those positions formerly considered privileged are brought down, and the disadvantaged one is elevated. It took an encounter that surely would have been shocking to the disciples to make that point.

Re: Is the Earth Valuable or a Resource? Quote to Ponder: Christopher J.H. Wright

Jason Barr — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 13:21:45 -0000

I know this is an old post, but I sometimes like getting new comments on old posts, it lets me know they still get read every once in awhile. Perhaps you feel the same way.

I wrote a reflection for Earth Day on my blog arguing that we should value the earth for its own sake because it has been created by God, for God's own pleasure, keying on Rev. 4:11. After reading this post I thought you might enjoy it.

Re: The Illusion that Power can Produce What the Heart Desires

Jason Barr — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:51:05 -0000

What I meant to say in that rambling screed (that probably wandered so far from my intended point because it's nearly 3 AM and I'm very tired) is that an "emphasis on political activism" would be caused by an overly-immanent vision of theology, which would be the same error as the overly-transcendent vision Mr. Collins opposes. In point of fact, in his excellent book Liberation Theology After the End of History, Daniel Bell does charge conventional liberation theology with being overly-immanentized, albeit in a highly nuanced way that takes seriously the claims and purpose of liberation theologians. But after reading the article and noting Mr. Collins' careful attention to the interconnectedness of spiritual and material aspects of reality, I'm not sure it's warranted to charge him with too strongly immanentizing the kingdom. Nor am I convinced that it does justice to the full picture of the New Testament to say that the kingdom towards which we are working is "far, far in the future." I am not convinced that the coming of the kingdom is primarily conceived of in terms of linear time so much as in a kind of dimensionality. But that's quite an argument and a fuller discussion of that would probably sidetrack discussion of this fine article.

Re: The Illusion that Power can Produce What the Heart Desires

Jason Barr — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:38:23 -0000

I think there is a danger of overly immanentizing the kingdom, and that is a tendency that is present among some advocates of liberation theology. But I don't see it as inherent to liberation theology per se. For just one example, Pedro Trigo definitely has a robust vision of the kingdom that is not limited to an emphasis on political action. Also, John Howard Yoder could be construed as someone who has quite a bit in common with liberation theology as a whole in that he connects political and ethical practice to one's identity as a follower of Jesus. Yoder could hardly be said to have emphasized political activism - though admittedly identifying Yoder as a "liberation theologian" is quite a stretch. I guess what I would say about that is that Yoder is *my* kind of "liberation theologian."

All that is to say liberation theology is a pretty wide net, but I might argue that its immanentizing of the kingdom can be seen to provide an important corrective to the transendence emphasized by other theologies. I would agree, though, that if liberation theology by definition emphasizes political activism (which is not necessarily the case, *some* do, but some don't necessarily - for example, I wouldn't describe Guitierrez's work as such, particularly not his later work) then that would be a weakness.

Re: The Illusion that Power can Produce What the Heart Desires

Jason Barr — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:24:58 -0000

Yes. This is a great article. I have little to add except one thing: I would have started not with the idea that the earth is our home, but that the earth was created to be a home/temple for God, and we are created not only to be at home here but to be at home with God here. I don't think that makes much difference for the substance of your article, but it might affect some nuance or another. If nothing else, it adds to the argument that the spiritual and material reality is intermeshed.

Re: Book Review: A People’s History of Christianity

Jason Barr — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 13:55:16 -0000

Michael,

Very good review, very much along the same lines as what I would have said. I was simply stunned, given her stated goals at the beginning, that Romero merited such a paltry mention. Perhaps that's not only because of the emphasis on the (North-)Western church, but also related to the apparent anti-Catholicism bias you point out. After all, if one is constructing a narrative that promotes the idea that "institutional" = bad and "countercultural" = good, it becomes much more difficult to include counter-narratives from the "institutional" tradition even if they support the stated larger goal of the project.

And you're spot on about the difference between her and Zinn's projects in that Zinn wanted to tell the truth about America. I felt extremely jarred by Butler-Bass' failure to include significant narratives from the non-(North-)Western church precisely because if there is one major identifiable "institutional" problem with particularly the American church, it's the church's complicity and involvement in the expansion of American military and commercial power, against which the counter-narrative of radical non-(North-)Western Christian expressions provide vital stances if we are to see ourselves through the eyes of truth.

In the end, 300 pages probably isn't nearly enough to do even what she tried to do, but the omission of Southern and non-Western expressions of "people's Christianity" makes the book very difficult for me to endorse. Even though it's much more of a project to read, I consistently recommend that people who are considering this book make the jump to the project edited by Horsley.

Re: Revolutionaries Don’t Have Room For T-Ball…Right?

Jason Barr — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:10:11 -0000

I think there's definitely some amount of middle/upper-middle class American assumptions going on in Tony's response, just have to get that out of the way first - as if what should be considered normative to family life is a kind of withdrawal from "radical" concerns into what is "normal," with normal being defined by the "soccer mom" or, in this case, "T-ball coach" ideal. I would take Tony to task on that.

That being said, I think your basic point is correct and bears repeating - in fact, one thing that has been discussed a fair amount in radical (not necessarily Christian) circles in which I've orbited has had to do with how to raise children in a radical environment, as well as how to equip them to be an example to other children in the neighborhood - while also giving them the tools to not be co-opted by "normalcy" (whatever defines "normal" where you are). This was so particularly because two of the families who were often involved in demonstrations, meetings, and organizing had children, in one case two and in the other I think they're up to six now.

I think one thing that needs to be done is we need to find ways so that a radical embodiment of the Gospel is not only integrated with family life, but in fact is the center of it, and is embedded into the life of the family and the family's engagement with the neighborhood. It probably will involve re-ordering certain conceptual categories about what it means to be and live as a family, but then I seem to recall Jesus doing a fair amount of that himself - as you aptly point out.

I mean really, who says I can't play catch with my (hypothetical, at this point - right now my wife and I have cats, not kids) son and 5 of his baseball-playing friends and still live with a radical embodiment of the Gospel at the heart of how my family inhabits the neighborhood? It seems to me Mr. Jones exhibits a stunning lack of imagination on this point.

Re: prints in the sand

Jason Barr — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 15:34:43 -0000

Yes, yes, holy cow yes. Seriously, I really love this. LOL!

Here's to hoping I don't get dropped on my butt! ;-)

Re: …as we forgive our debtors.

Jason Barr — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 20:42:46 -0000

Excellent post. I think you've cut to the heart of the matter here - our economic system at its root is based on principles that violate the very core of Jesus' teachings. We can't escape it by simply "not being greedy," we are enmeshed in a fatally-flawed structure that is premised on slavery, not liberty. No amount of "free market" rhetoric can overcome that fact.

Thank you.