Art Standards

“They might learn to describe works in terms of their formal elements, but rarely can they explain how these function to contribute to a work’s expressive power or how the expressed content reflects the perceived realities that fit its cultural location.”
This is a quote from a book I’ve just started reading called Art and Cognition: Integrating the Visual Arts in the Curriculum, by Arthur D. Efland. I’d have to say that this statement is generally true and reflects what goes on in every lesson in every Art classroom that I’ve ever been in… including my own. I teach what I’ve been taught. In every curriculum or standards writing workshop I’ve been to art teachers go on and on about the elements and principals of Art as if to say that if we break Art down into it’s basic quantifiable parts and teach the kids to memorize, analyze, and organize these elements and principles then we’ll have taught them something worthwhile. I’ve always found these kinds of discussions dusty and pedantic… I’ve actually heard teachers arguing over what is and isn’t an element. Who cares? I get it that certain artists have taken a very clinical approach to these “building blocks” and done wonderful and meaningful work but I can’t think of any that have started any work with a thought about them; rather our work begins with other things and as the work progresses we consider the elements and principles more or less intuitively and instinctively… or… more or less reasoned and calculated. I’m now beginning again to look at curriculum, having never been satisfied with the current version (usually something I’ve inherited and modified slowly over time), and I’m looking at the Standard for Art Education (National and State). I’m finding myself again at odds with this insistence that kids be made to “know the elements and principles…”
Let them explore Art and it’s meanings for them as well as for others... we can worry about the elements and principles as we go along.

Gregory of Nazianzus

I wanted to try a word cloud of something I was reading. I think these things are interesting... maybe helpful? in some way. Here's a word cloud from St. Gregory of Nazianzus' The Third Theological Oration: On The Son:

http://www.wordle.net/gallery/wrdl/624020/Gregory_of_Nazianzus

Giving up Sweets for Lent

This morning I read Matthew 25:31-46 from the daily lectionary for the first week of Lent. What an alarming passage! An inescapable and terrifying judgment on those who fail to do acts of charity; not on those who fail to believe (or who believe wrongly). Lenten readings are meant to be “hard hitting”; aimed at making us consider how we live and this is one of the most sobering I think… and one that makes me think of Isaiah 58 where the prophet speaks about a true “fast”. I might have to reconsider the whole idea of "giving up" for lent… maybe something along the lines of “giving out”?
Matthew 25:31-46
‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’

The prayer of Bishop V.G. Robinson

"I want it to be a prayer for everyone so it will not be overtly Christian so as to be a prayer for all people of faith," he said. "Certainly there will be prayers for the new president but also prayers for the nation. I think we have laid so much on the shoulders of this man and we need to be reminded that we have an enormous role to play in what happens in these next four years as well."
This is a quote from Bishop V. Gene Robinson, who was invited to pray during a pre-inauguration gathering in Washington D.C. This is a recurring theme for me... maybe one for the Episcopal Church (TEC). Why not an overtly Christian prayer? I mean after all, V. Gene Robinson is a Christian Bishop. I think the other religions had plenty of representation. Obviously Bishop Robinson, we wouldn’t expect your prayer to be brazenly “in your face”… something along the lines of “Jesus, please reveal all the other religions represented here as the complete and utter lies that they are”… but what’s wrong with a simple and honest approach to your faith.
I follow, or attempt to follow, Christ. I am a baptized and confirmed member of a Christian church. Do I need to apologize for my faith? Are all faiths on the same “level”?
What is the Gospel in the world? What is the cross but a scandal and stumbling block?

PB Jefferts Shori and the Gospel?

I came across this interview with PB (Presiding Bishop) Jefferts Shori of the TEC (The Episcopal Church) and read it with not a little concern.

RY: TIME Magazine asked you an interesting question, we thought, “Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?” And your answer, equally interesting, you said “We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.” And I read that and I said “What are you: a Unitarian?!?” [laughs] What are you– that is another concern for people, because, they say Scripture says that Jesus says he was The Light and The Way and the only way to God the Father.
KJS: Christians understand that Jesus is the route to God. Umm– that is not to say that Muslims, or Sikhs, or Jains, come to God in a radically different way. They come to God through… human experience… through human experience of the divine. Christians talk about that in terms of Jesus.
RY: So you’re saying there are other ways to God.
KJS: Uhh… human communities have always searched for relationship that which is beyond them.. with the ultimate.. with the divine. For Christians, we say that our route to God is through Jesus. Uhh.. uh..that doesn’t mean that a Hindu.. uh.. doesn’t experience God except through Jesus. It-it-it says that Hindus and people of other faith traditions approach God through their.. own cultural contexts; they relate to God, they experience God in human relationships, as well as ones that transcend human relationships; and Christ ians would say those are our experiences of Jesus; of God through the experience of Jesus.
RY: It sounds like you’re saying it’s a parallel reality, but in another culture and language.
KJS: I think that’s accurate.. I think that’s accurate.

The original Time interview seems to have been a written interview or something to that effect. The section that was referred to by the above interviewer was printed like this:

Is belief in Jesus the only way to get to heaven?
We who practice the Christian tradition understand him as our vehicle to the divine. But for us to assume that God could not act in other ways is, I think, to put God in an awfully small box.

If pluralism can be defined as “a state of society in which members of diverse ethnic, racial, religious, or social groups maintain an autonomous participation in and development of their traditional culture or special interest within the confines of a common civilization”, it can also be described as “a theory that there are more than one or more than two kinds of ultimate reality “. I would say that the Presiding Bishop’s comments not only indicate her feelings for the first definition but also reveal that she holds equally to the second as well.

It should go without saying that a pluralistic world view holding to the first definition is compatible with a Christian world view. The gospel was and is meant to be broadcast to all the world and to people of all cultures; Of course, that doesn’t mean that some cultural distinctive might be contrary to the gospel… some religious and practices notwithstanding... many cultural practices would be brought into question; then again, the gospel brings a lot into question; Midwest, middle-class American culture as much as any tribal, national, or sectarian culture.

BUT… how can a Christian world view be compatible with the second definition of pluralism? If Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me” then there seems no way to reconcile belief in Jesus, following Jesus, being a Christian with the idea that there are or is another way to come to God… even if it is in a “radically different way”. I didn’t become a Christian because I was born one (or because I was baptized by an Episcopal priest… oops, did I say that out loud?!), I didn’t become a Christian because I was convinced that of all the possibilities it seemed the most reasonable, I didn’t become a Christian because I was born in the US (although… the chances of me becoming one probably were significantly higher having been born in the northern and western hemispheres), I made a conscious choice to follow Jesus after having spent some time not caring and then searching for meaning… I stumbled back around on a faith that I heard about as a kid and had only experienced a very shallow understanding about. Maybe it’s true that I didn’t give all the religions of the world a chance… but my “conversion” at 16 or so was a result of what became an irresistible sense of Jesus as the risen and present Christ… at some point I acknowledged that... and continue to do so.

I think we’ve all asked the question, “what about all those “other” people? Will they simply be cast into hell because they don’t believe in Jesus?” If there is someone who hasn’t asked that one, or a number of other “hard” questions, then I would say they are blessedly oblivious and in many ways better off. However, most of us have probably, and as a result aren’t so lucky. I’m fairly certain the answer, “yes, those people will simply go to hell.” Isn't altogether accurate… however, the PB simply boils the question of the incarnation... the uniqueness of Christ and the gospel down to a cultural variable. She sweeps away the Advent readings and meditations with such comments. She says as much, “all streams lead to the ocean”. A fine statement of magnanimity and tolerance but for a bishop in a church that claims apostolic succession to make a statement that denies the unique and universal gospel message is going too far. In some respects I wouldn’t care so much if she were the dean of some theological seminary… I’d chalk it up to professional license or some other such nonsense, but a bishop in a tradition that clearly stands on a foundation of at least the unique and extraordinary message of Christ?

I recently read the account of the martyrdom of Ignatius… I think it would have had a different outcome had Ignatius taken up the line of thought put forward by the PB. I think it would go something like this…

Trajan said, "Do we not then seem to you to have the gods in our mind, whose assistance we enjoy in fighting against our enemies?" Ignatius answered, "You for your part worship your gods… they are fine enough and will help you experience the divine and you yourself have God in you so emperor worship will do for you and the Romans, but for me there is another God, who I believe made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that are in them; and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whose kingdom I hope to enjoy, though I think your way to the divine is just as legitimate. Trajan then says, “…? The prisoner is free to go. Next!”. (italics mine)

I’ve always believed the statement, “all truth is Gods truth”. It makes sense that in all religions there are bits of truth, and these truths point to God… the Divine. BUT… the gospel doesn’t give me options… unless I think away certain difficult passages or tradition… and maybe that’s the foundation of the PBs comments? I would give the PB no better than a D- in honesty and integrity on these comments.


I didn't and don’t make the decision to be a Christian because I want to be on the “winning team” but having made and continue to make that decision I am confronted by the exclusivity of the gospel… or maybe I should say the exclusivity of Christ. Yeah… we want to say inclusive (it’s magnanimous and who doesn’t want to be magnanimous?), and it is true the gospel is definitely inclusive… it includes people that we all might be inclined to exclude; it includes people that definitely deserve to be excluded. It includes me! BUT… there is a strong element of exclusion in the gospel; an unavoidable thought that certain things remain steadfast and immovable and that I (we) am given only the choice… take it or leave it.

State and Kingdom

I was and am exploring a theologian by the name of Stanley Hauerwas. I came across his name on a blog site. A comment someone had made about him. I was intrigued and still am. I was reading an interview and came across this exchange. I thought I’d try to give my thoughts… it did make me think. I got this interview off the website: theotherjournal.com

TOJ: While Stout says that you offer a prophetic “No” as did Barth and Bonhoeffer did in their time, to the church’s accommodation to theological and political liberalism, he says that “there is little in your work that resembles Barth’s active commitment to democracy and social reform.” What do you see as some concrete examples of ways forward for the church regarding social reform, if any, while remaining faithful?
Stanley Hauerwas: That’s a good question. I always think that the way you start being the witness in the world at which you find yourself is the Church asked to care for the poor, to care for the widow, to care for the orphan… and we do that, we need to do that. Unfortunately, I think that many liberal Christians today think that the way you do that is we are on the liberal democratic side to ask the State to do that, so we don’t need to do that. So I would like to think that the wider public, if we did it well, in caring for our poor that we find among us, would then say ‘that’s pretty good we need to copy that.’ I mean people forget, for example, that the hospitals came out of Christian discoveries that we don’t want to let people die alone. And the wider society took that up, now, and hospitals have become a place that people think ensures that we will never have to die. And so you get those kinds of reversals that Christians must always be sensitive towards.

I don’t know if I am liberal or conservative. Depending on whom I happen to be talking to at any time determines this; that is, I hold positions that would be classified liberal and others that would undoubtedly pass for conservative. We desperately need a new paradigm for pigeon holing concepts. I lean toward what many would consider liberal thought… it’s more interesting, exciting, full of possibility, fluid, more challenging, more human in many ways; it is open to divergent thinking and there’s the rub… it is dicey, dangerous, and messy. It makes me squirm. I am undone intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually many times; agonizing over the razor edge of what is truth. I many times am forced to question what I think and believe; my faith is not safe.

I left behind the safe confines of the charismatic evangelical fellowships that I worshipped in a few years ago. I am not living the cutting edge Christian experience. I wish I could say I was… or maybe I don’t… sometimes I tremble about it all…but not enough I imagine. I am not convinced that I hear the Spirit any more in my charismatic and evangelical experience than I do now in my not so evangelical and charismatic anglican/episcopal experience… even if it was sometimes uncomfortably hell-fire and brimstone.

I take exception with what Hauerwas says above about the “liberal democratic side” asking the state to basically do the work of Christ, something he maintains, “, so we don’t have to”. I’m not sure… I grew disillusioned by the Conservative Evangelical rejection of “liberal democracy” and what it said were its aims. No… I should say rather, I became disillusioned with the Conservative Evangelical embrace of a conservative political agenda and reframing it as the Kingdom agenda. Many of the issues taken up by the Conservative Evangelicals were righteous to some degree but we failed the cause of Christ when we embraced an American Conservative Political machine and gave all it spoke, did, and thought, the imprimatur of Truth. We confused Kingdom with Republic.

The last round of politics made me think more about what the role of faith is in American politics, as if American politics is any different than Roman politics. The role of faith is for the Church… let the State be, faithless as it is and will remain.

New Monasticism

At my EFM group at church we’ve just started our third year. Third year is a survey of church history… from an Anglican/Episcopal perspective I suppose. The first chapter includes a very brief outline of events, dates, and personalities of church history. I scanned through it and saw that it didn’t list Saint Anthony “The Great” and the “desert fathers”. I thought it strange since I was under the impression that these men (and some women) had an impact that extended beyond them and their immediate milieu; after all, Saint Anthony is considered the “father of monasticism”. There may be some controversy about the relevance of and the meaning of monasticism but no one can deny the impact the movement has had upon the church and history. Anthony was not the first Christian to live as a monastic. When he made his decision there was already a tradition begun of men and women living as anchorites but also in community, which would be a hallmark of monasticism.
Saint Anthony was a Copt and lived in the third century near Alexandra in Egypt. He heard a reading in his church that compelled him to sell all he had and live as a hermit. “Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’” Anthony sold his family's estates, left his sister in the care of a community of Christian virgins (proto-nuns), and placed himself under the rule of a Christian anchorite. Later he was to take up a very severe form of devotion… in the desert.
This brought to mind a conversation I had recently with my brother about his boys... about the “new monasticism”... a movement that’s afoot these days that seems to be getting back to some of the ideals of monasticism. I read an article in Christianity Today a few years ago and was intrigued by this new “movement”. Communal living, radical hospitality, moving into abandoned areas of “empire”, etc… these are some of the tenants of the new movement. There is some claim that the seminal work for the new monasticism is Jonathan Wilson’s book, Living Faithfully in a Fragmented World, and also the work of philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre who wrote about longing for another St. Benedict in regards to the loss of community and with it morality and ethics (that is way too simplistic a view of MacIntyre’s work… I’m not familiar with him at all). This is something to look into.
I still am thinking about Anthony in the desert… and the monks of Skellig Michel. These were warrior monks who embraced a white martyrdom. They lived simplicity to the bone, wrestled in prayer, and lived only on the edges. They are at least examples of sacrifice and devotion. They lived to save themselves and I think believed in doing so would save others.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/september/16.38.html?start=1