Interstellar and the Incarnation

(Warning: Minor spoilers ahead.)

2014: A Space Odyssey

When Interstellar came out last November, the hoopla surrounding it was matched only by the film itself. It was, in a word, spectacular. It was a true space epic on par with 2001: A Space Odyssey in its scope and profundity, and it arguably outdid 2001 with its more humane depiction of mankind's future (i.e., no disturbing acid-trip tran- scendence into who-knows- whatzit). Add to it moments of thrills and suspense, plus outstanding special effects that afforded scientifically accurate space phenomena, and it is as I said: spectacular.

It is not unfair to say the film espouses humanism, but it's not entirely fair either. True, there is a great deal of emphasis on humanity's ability to save ourselves with our pluck, ingenuity, and (above all) science and technology, but there is something more than these that the film acknowledges, something outside of science and technology and pure reason but not wholly outside of us: love.

Kickin' it old school.

This is a new kind of hu- manism. Old school human- ism (from the Enlightenment to Modernism) saw Reason as the supreme attribute of humanity, and thus its advancement was our pri- mary motive power: we are built to know, so let us unlock and understand and manipulate and control the very fabric of existence. Love, being primarily emotional, was unreasonable, and therefore of limited use outside of coercion and manipulation. (See The Abolition of Man.) Such an older humanism is present in Interstellar, mainly embodied in Matt Damon's character, the interestingly named Dr. Mann, who talks a big game about his duty to preserve the human species at all cost. Such costs included betraying his own teammates (killing one of them) and nearly wrecking the entire interstellar mission in a foolhardy move that only killed himself and jeopardized everyone else. All the while, he excuses himself as doing what is necessary, and how one day the human race will recognize him as a hero.

Dr. Mann: the failure of the old.

He's an interesting character, mainly because you know he doesn't believe a word of what he's saying. The brilliance in Matt Damon's performance is the anguish and struggle you see come over Dr. Mann as he does his nefarious deeds in his well-meaning attempt to save humanity. There's more that could be said about him, but the movie makes the basic point quite clear: Dr. Mann's way is not the right way. His attempts to be purely detached from his decisions fail miserably (in more ways than one), and Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) rightly dubs him a "coward," someone who uses rational justification as a smokescreen for giving up hope.

But what exactly drives Cooper and the others? The answer is love. Love is their motive power. Not some abstract "love" for the human race, but specific, concrete love. Cooper goes on the mission because saving the earth means saving his daughter. Amelia (Anne Hathaway) is trying to reach a fellow explorer trapped on a distant planet because she loves him, even though getting to him is not an option, and the scene where she argues for going there anyway ends up with her admitting that she's wants to go there simply out of love, but what's wrong with that? Maybe love is something scientifically understandable, some force or power or substance in the universe existing dimensionally in ways we don't yet understand but know it's real because we experience it nonetheless.

Cooper and Amelia: the near miss of the new.

That scene is fascinating to watch, because as Amelia goes on, her argument breaks down and sounds utterly absurd, and the movie lets it sound absurd because it is utterly absurd to try and scientifically quantify love. It is (as she puts it) "transcendent," something existing beyond the scope of pure scientific inquiry, and yet it is knowable because we just know. Our experience and intuition rise to defy (and convince) our reason. It was this sequence, listening to Amelia speak of love this way, that made me later realize how amazingly, frustratingly close to the truth this movie got.

Listen again to what was being said: Love is a transcendent something existing and acting within our universe and yet is greater than it, filling it, and driving us in our deepest being to move beyond ourselves towards something other than ourselves. That sounds suspiciously like God.

Think about the basic plot: Cooper agrees to go on an interstellar journey across space and time to save humanity from an inevitable doom, and he does this all out of love. That sounds suspiciously similar to the Gospel.

Somewhere in time....

And think of the climax: When Cooper is swept up into a tesseract of Time, he attempts to communicate with his daughter out of frantic, desperate love for her by interacting with the physical world from his transcendent position. During this scene, he at times literally had his finger on the Incarnation: his transcendence touched the very dust.

This is not a Christian movie. Christopher Nolan was not deliberately trying to symbolize the Gospel or Incarnation. I believe that it just happened that way, because the Gospel and the Incarnation are true (not just factually and historically but also ontologically and ultimately), and you can't talk about "love" in any serious or profound way without them. It just isn't possible. (It's vital to note that the very strength of the "love" in this film is made possible because we see it incarnated in Cooper's relationship with his daughter. In this way, it avoids becoming merely sappy and sentimental.) This is the film's true power and what makes it so moving: not just its incredible composition as a work of art but also that it was so incredibly close to the truth. It brushed up against it multiple times, literally (as I said) placing its finger on it.

In the end, brushing up was all it managed to do. Since the film contained no concept at all of Christ or God (either for or against), it couldn't make the final step to connect it all together. Just as old school humanism emptied Reason of any higher meaning and thus left it bankrupt whenever it came up short (as it did in the 20th century), so Love in the new humanism points to nothing beyond itself and thus must ultimately remain mysterious and unknowable, a transcendent something that we experience but don't really understand. We experience it, but are ultimately shut out from it. It is there, but it is silent.

Thus, the film feels like a near, near miss.

But, good grief, what a spectacular near miss.

Seriously: you need to see it.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2015

 

Dexter and the Necessity of Confession

"When I kept silent, my bones grew old through my groaning all the day long." Ps. 32:3

"Get it? It's a pun."

In the T.V. show Dexter, the eponymous protagonist is a sociopath whose foster father taught to direct his homicidal tendencies in more "con- structive" directions, i.e., becoming a serial killer of serial killers and other atrocious criminals. Some of the show's dramatic tension revolves around the usual nonsense about moral ambiguity (which as I've mentioned elsewhere is simply another proof of moral absolutes and our guilt before them), but the primary dramatic tension comes from Dexter's loneliness. Who he is and what he does isolates him from everyone: his coworkers, his sister, his girlfriend/wife. Regardless of the moral question over his actions, he feels there is no one who can really understand him and what he's going through (except his father, who's dead, and other crazy people, who he always winds up having to kill). Thus, the true tragedy of the show is not all the death Dexter causes but the silence he must endure. He longs to be honest with someone about who he is, but he knows he can't.

When God said, "It is not good for man to be alone," He was making a relational proposition. We were not meant for isolation or separation, to hear those awful words, "Depart from me. I never knew you." We are meant to be with others, even if it's just one other, for we are made in the image of the trinitarian God, who has never been alone, even in the time-before-time when He was by Himself. This is what makes Dexter a tragic character: his is the tragedy of Eden. He hides himself because of himself. Fearing rejection, he self-imposes isolation. It is not impossible to imagine that if he did not fear rejection, if he knew that confession would be met with forgiveness and mercy, that shame would be met with love (from his sister, his wife, or anyone)---it is not impossible to imagine that in such a scenario, he would find peace.

Confession is good for the soul, because it is not good for us to be alone. Silence is isolation, and isolation is a slow (perhaps infinite) death, a growing old of the bones through groaning. But unless forgiveness and mercy are guaranteed, unless we know that stepping out in confession is a step into a loving environment, then we will keep silent out of fear. This is what spearheads David's praise in Psalm 32: the truth that "perfect love casts out fear" (I John 4:18). When he kept silent, he found the shadow of death upon him (Ps. 32:3). But when he confessed, he found forgiveness from God, an occasion that causes him to stand still (Ps. 32:5, including the "Selah"). Because of this radical forgiveness, David calls God "my hiding place," a place of safety and deliverance rather than judgment (Ps. 32:7). Forgiveness and mercy are the end of silence and fear and isolation, and "he who trusts in the Lord, mercy shall encompass him" (Ps. 32:10).

God's house is on the corner.

That is why it is "radical" forgiveness: it is completely unexpected. The Holy, Perfect, All-Powerful God who is absolutely and intimately aware of all that you are and have done---that is the one place where we rightly expect judgment, and yet it is the one place we find perfect love desiring to forgive. "I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked," says the Holy, Perfect God, "but that the wicked would turn from his way and live" (Eze. 33:11). "I knew," said Jonah, "that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and revoking condemnation and calamity" (Jonah 4:2). "Who is a God like you?" exclaims Micah. "Pardoning iniquity and passing by transgression because you delight in mercy and compassion" (Micah 7:18-19). Where is fear now? It is removed. Why should we run and hide? Love is waiting to replace all our ashes with beauty and all our shame with peace.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

"...the philosophy of Light" (ramblings and parables from orthodox rebels)

Recently I flipped through an essay by Roger Scruton called "How I Became a Conservative," where he charts his course to philosophical conservatism from the Student Riots of 1968's Paris to his professorship in the 1980s. He mentioned how during the Student Riots, a friend of his (one of the rioters) justified the mayhem with a book by Michel Foucault called The Order of Things. Scruton had few kind words for the book, but one thing he did say stuck with me: "The book is not a work of philosophy but an exercise in rhetoric. Its goal is subversion, not truth...." 

That last remark in particular wedged itself into my mind. As a member of the postmodern "millennial" generation, I have found myself flummoxed by the strange audacities committed in our name. Rampant relativism, the near deification of doubt and skepticism, and a narcissistic insistence on a conformity to our own "authenticity," i.e., if something doesn't speak to or "resonate" with us then we have no ears for it and that's that. A lot of books have been written in defense of these atrocities, many of them religious in content, all of them mystical in tone.

It is that mystical quality that often astounded me. When I would read the "history" of Foucault or the "theology" of Rob Bell, I found a singular consistency: what they said was gibberish, but it was artful gibberish, and very often infused with a romantic flair or delivery. Some of Foucault's best chapters are his last ones, where he drops all pretense to scholarship and simply slips into the artist that he is, weaving an intoxicating and provocatively put pack of lies. Bell is even better, being an artist from start to finish. His books are more a product of creativity than serious study. Anyone with a critical eye can see through all the ornamentation to the real substance of the work, which is either terrifying (Foucault) or damnable (Bell). In either case, it is utter nonsense in fancy garb.

Yet they gain traction, and it is because of the fancy garb. There is something to be said for the power of beauty: it has a moral force. As such, its abuse is incredibly dangerous. It can turn a man's heart faster than any syllogism. I speak as an artist myself: in the grand scheme of any debate, rhetoric often trumps logic. That is the meaning behind Scruton's statement. It's not what you say but how you say it, and if you speak it well then you can bombard people with any number of things, hiding your true meaning and purposes behind a flurry of colorful lights, like a fireworks display obscuring an incoming storm.

The exact purpose of all this rhetoric is indeed "subversion," and the goal of subversion is the destruction of every "truth" that has apparently imprisoned us. Such a task can sound very noble, especially if you dress it up with terms like "tyranny" and "liberty," "oppression" and "authenticity". It can even speak of "truth" in a sense, i.e., all of the "truths" we've been given are just the oppressive constructs of dead, white, European men. We must tear down those constructs so that we can get to the real essence of things (if there even is such an essence). One could very well argue (and I'm sure that some have) that subversion is all about "truth": the destruction of its counterfeits and the discovery of its true form or nature.

"White is only the beginning."

Calling "subversion" the search for truth through destruction reminds me of The Fellowship of the Ring where Gandalf recounts his ill-fated meeting with Saruman. Gandalf discovers that Saruman has rejected his title of "the White" and has instead become "Saruman of Many Colors". Gandalf retorts that he "liked white better." Saruman sneers at this: "White! It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten, and the white light can be broken." Gandalf's reply is another statement that has stuck with me: "In which case it is no longer white, and he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

Tolkien was referencing a medieval theory of light. Medieval Christianity viewed light as the perfect physical image for God, being not only pure and clarifying but also an absolute unity of multiples. Such logic is fundamentally trinitarian, as is all of Christianity. Every inch of Christian thought and act and artistry revolves around this central notion of separates being one while remaining separates (neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance). The Trinity is the highest expression of this (three in one). There is also the Incarnation (God and Man) as well as Atonement (God and man). The Church fits the bill (one body, many members), as does the Bible (66 books of different genres written at different times and places in different contexts, yet all unified around a singular theme). The Liturgy is built upon many separate elements coming together to form a singular worship, while the sense and structure of stained-glass windows and the cathedrals they adorn give vivid concrete testimony to the amassing together of many into one (without losing the many).

Out of many, One.

For the Christian, existence (from the foundations of ontos to the spectacles of quarks and quasars) has always been a fragmented whole, a great and glorious tapestry of many threads of many colors(!) woven into a singular image. Reality, truth: these things have always been a work of art, not a didactic platitude. Truth cannot be summarized in a statement; that is why it was summarized in a person (John 14:6). The swirling complexities of reality are captured by the irresistible gravity of an incomprehensible center that is God. But that capture does nothing to diminish the complexities, anymore than gravity diminishes the stars. On the contrary, it is their capture that gives us the beauty of the night sky, with its constant constellations and expansive milky way. From the foundations of trinitarian doctrine, you arrive at a philosophy of light, which says that it is neither unity nor diversity, neither solidification nor fragmentation, but rather the whole spectrum working in unison, in perfect, sublime harmony and holism.

Not that I see it, but that I see all else.

It is this "both/and" trinitarian logic that has been missed by the radicals of yesterday and today. They fear solidification at every turn, so they tear it down. To them, the light is nothing to them but blinding, so they break it that they might better see. But then it is not light at all, just disparate colors scattered about without direction or clarity. And in such a catastrophe, one of two things typically happens. Either they revel (or despair) in the prismatic chaos they have created, or they try to contain the madness by reducing everything to one of the disparate colors. Thus, everything becomes a reductionism: it all boils down to economics, or genetics, or sex, or race, or class, or truth-to-power, or pacifism, or Republicanism, or patriotism, or doubt, or whatever else comes and goes in fashion. Whatever way they go, they have broken the whole, and have left the path of wisdom.

I end this random ramble with a parable, told by G.K. Chesterton in the first chapter of his book Heretics. It is not his best book, but it is relevant here. Each chapter has Chesterton dealing a deathblow to a different kind of reductionism, for subversion (rhetorical or otherwise) has been in vogue for a long time now, which is why today we are practically drowning in it:

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good---" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmedieval practicality.

But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted an electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, and some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery, and some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes.

So, gradually and inevitably, today, tomorrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we may have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.

-Jon Vowell, et. al. (c) 2013

 

On Evil and Gay Marriage (and Gun-Ownership, and the Death Penalty, and Hell, and...)

The reason the average discussion about anything goes nowhere is because everyone always talks about the thing at hand rather than the things assumed. What I mean is that we always discuss the "topics" but never our assumptions that under-gird and give life to those topics. It's like having weeds in your garden and deciding whether to break out the weed-eater or pull them up by the roots. Most of us break out the weed-eater: it's easier, takes less time, makes a glorious racket, and is good for a laugh when the casual passerby is barraged with vegetative shrapnel.

Pulling up by the root takes too much work. It's a hands-on, dirty, intimate process. We have to get on our knees and take each weed one at a time, coming to grips with their unique shapes and challenges, finding the right amount of leverage to unseat them, and finding the right consolation when we fail to yank the suckers fully free from the earth. It's all too messy and involved, but we'll never really take care of the weeds if we don't deal with the roots. That's what's wrong with the majority of our so-called "discussions" or "conversations": we're all whacking each other with weed-eaters, while the roots remain untouched.

Take any "hot-button" issue and you'll see what I mean, like gay marriage for example. Everyone makes everything and anything out of it: it's about the degradation of culture, or equal rights for equal people, or legislating morality, or protecting our children, or protecting our liberty, or freedom of conscience, or love, or hate, or whatever additional buzzwords are floating about, clouding up the debate like a pack of flies. The truth is that gay marriage is about none of those things. Those things are a part of it, they spring naturally from it, but they're not what it's about, what it's fundamentally built on. And what it's fundamentally built on is whether or not there is anything "fundamental" at all.

Is gender a fundamental reality or an arbitrary construction? Is there a fundamental reality out there? How can we know? To what authority do we reference? Is there such an authority? How do we know it/them/him/her? These are the questions that gay marriage is really asking. These are the presuppositions that inform the debate. These are the roots. Gay marriage is not about whether morality is on the decline; it's about whether or not objective meaning is an illusion we've created. It's not about whether we should let inequality exist; it's about whether or not nihilism is true.

Subjectivist? Nay! Subject-abyss.

If you are pro-gay marriage, then at bottom you hold that (at the very least) gender and marriage are empty concepts, and the only authority to say what they are is the subject(s) participating in it. You may not put it in those exact words, but that's exactly what a presupposition is, i.e., pre-supposed, assumed before any words. You assume gender and marriage under an individualistic, subjectivist, nihilist framework and let the rest roll from there. Likewise, if you are anti-gay marriage, then at bottom you hold that (at the very least) gender and marriage are not empty concepts, that they have fundamental, essential realities, and that conformity to those realities is the only way to truly live and enjoy them. Again, you may not have put as much into words, and you may not even be sure what authority gave those concepts their essential reality and meaning, but you hold to the existence of those realities (and authority) nonetheless.

Every topic or "hot-button" issue has their roots somewhere, and the only real way to have a real debate about these things (and not simply a shouting match or a group hug) is to deal with the roots. If you want to discuss gay marriage, then don't start with the shrubbery of equality or morality. Start with the roots of authority and reality: is there an objective reality to things, and is there an authority that tells us what that reality is and is not? Until that debate happens, everything else is so much window-dressing in a never-ending flame war.

By Jove, it's all linked!

I have found this to be true in my own discussion or engagement with certain topics and issues. I find a strange collaboration amongst things that seem at first to be disparate from each other. Somehow, a collection of unrelated items was all along involved in a conspiracy within me. I found to my shock that all my separate shrubs belonged to the same root system. For example: gun-ownership, the death penalty, and Hell are all things I have opinions on, things that everyone has some kind of opinion on. The thing is, I thought that they were each (by themselves) an issue unto itself, when in fact they all belonged to the same source. They all rested on the same fundamental assumptions.

Those assumptions had to do with evil. Your opinion on whether or not men and women should own a weapon, whether or not certain crimes are punishable by death, and whether or not a just and loving God would send/condemn/confine certain people to eternal punishment all stem from this one source, this one question: what is evil? What does it look like? How do we recognize it? And how ought we to respond to it? Believe it or not, your stance on self-defense, capital punishment, and eternal damnation all rest on this hinge: what is your "stance" on evil? What assumptions about it do you have?

"I find your lack of evil disturbing."

Allow me to speak for myself in order to produce an example. Here is at least one thing I believe about evil: that it comes in many different shades and intensities, including the darkest shades and worst intensities. I believe, in other words, that there is such a thing as irredeemable, irrevocable evil, of a place where a moral frontier has been crossed that cannot be uncrossed, where the downward spiral has reached terminal velocity and cannot be recalled. Not to be cliche or hang my laurels on a worn-out nail, but when Alfred described the Joker as a man "who doesn't want anything logical," who "can't be bought, bullied, reasoned to, or negotiated with," and "just wants to watch the world burn," I believe him. I believe he is absolutely right. There are such men (and women) out there, and they are not as rare as we suppose.

This is one of my assumptions about evil, and it is why I am in favor of gun-ownership and the death penalty, and why I believe in a place called Hell. Not because I necessarily "like" those things or are glad they exist, but because I know there are certain persons to whom there is no other solution or answer but an extreme one. There is no forgiveness or mercy or grace that will turn them, no therapy or accommodation or understanding that will change them, no compromise or appeasement that will stop them. A line has been crossed, and they will not turn back. What else is there that we can do to or for them? What else is there for even God to do? If they will not be forgiven, if they will not receive help, if they will not stop, then they must be stopped. I believe in such an evil as that, an evil in which our only legitimate response is to stop it by whatever means necessary.

This is one of the reasons I lose all patience with the anti-death penalty argument that says, "If we kill them then we are no different than them." The idea is completely absurd; the very reason we seek to put them to death is precisely because we are "different" than them. We seek their death because we belong to a moral sphere; they sought death and destruction because they stepped out of and beyond all moral spheres. We want them dead because we care too much about the lives of others in our communities (and even our prisons); they wanted others dead and destroyed because they cared nothing about them at all. There is a universe of difference between us and them, between the whole of common sense humanity and the occasional degenerates who seek our slaughter. If there truly was "no difference" between the two of us, then we wouldn't even be having this debate, for we wouldn't even call their actions wrong or punishable in the first place. The very idea of punishment can only come from a moral order and those who adhere to it. Thus, our similarity is merely superficial: the shrubs seemed identical, but their roots are miles away, in different depths and other soils. 

Because I assume these things about evil, it not only shapes my own stance but also my thoughts on the stances of others. If someone is anti-gun ownership, anti-death penalty, anti-Hell, or (what is more often the case) all of the above, I find myself assuming (because of my presupposition) that they have an incorrect view of evil, that their view of evil is skewed, that it is somehow lesser or weaker than mine. Now, I may be right or wrong in having that assumption, and I may be being unfair to those who disagree with me, but for now it is what it is: the roots have affected the shrub and its relationship to other shrubs.

...seems legit.

The point of all this blather is this: any debate that does not deal with the fundamental assumptions that under-gird our ideas will dissolve into shadow-boxing at best. I'm even willing to bet that most of the stupidity and incivility that reeks across our social and political realms like rot on a tree trunk could be avoided (for the most part) if we would actually get to the real point(s) behind our myriad "topics" and "issues" and "platforms," if we would get to the real heart of the matter. There we find what is really at stake, what we really believe, and (perhaps more importantly) who we really are, for our beliefs spring from who we are. Like Jesus said, "Out of the heart" comes all that makes us who we are, for good or ill (Matt. 15:18-20), and we would do well to cease from squawking at each other and take some time to first look at our self square in the eye. Then, perhaps, we can look at others in the eye as well.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

An Accident of Language (and other follies of the times)

Sundays are a good day for me. Church in the morning, parents' house in the afternoon, and in the evening I head to a friend's house for dinner and lively conversations and debates with whoever else shows up. Those evenings are a mixed bag, mind you. Sometimes we have a lot of people with great discussion, a few people with so-so discussion, and vice versa. Two Sundays ago, we had a great discussion with an average sized crowd. We talked about the Boston Bombings, which  led to a debate on the death penalty. Many interesting arguments were made for and against, but in the end no real conclusion or consensus was reached, though many thought-provoking questions were asked.

The next Sunday, I ran into a friend of mine who had been at that discussion but had left early and thus missed the end (or non-end). He asked me how it went after he left, and I relayed it to the best of my memory, including the part about us walking away with more questions than answers. He smiled at that part: "I like leaving with questions rather than answers. It helps create a sense of wonder about things." I smiled back, hesitated, then replied: "Yes, but I like answers too."

Now, my friend is a very kind and thoughtful young man, so I understood what he was saying. It's something I've dealt with before (multiple times, actually): in a world of too much systematization, where every "t" is crossed and "i" dotted and no angle is left uncovered or stone unturned, things tend to lose all life. It is the dead, predictable boredom of the machine, with everything in order and functioning exactly as it should and exactly as it always has without deviation, now and forever, amen. Life, however, and all good things (i.e., beauty, love, joy, etc.), are not mechanical. They are full of spontaneity and surprises, bursting forth in newer and newer manifestations, like an endless array of fireworks ascending higher and higher with different colors and shapes all along the way. It is exciting. It is enthralling. It is, indeed, wondrous.

However, as sympathetic as I am to such an image, I could not help but protest to my friend. I believe he has committed an error many commit today. They confuse "wonder" with "wonder," which you also probably did just now. It's not really anyone's fault that this happens; it is an accident of language that the two words look, sound, and just feel the same. But they are not the same, and the distinction between them is vitally important to understand and maintain.

Allow me to explain this distinction. "Wonder" has (at least) two primary definitions. The first is a sense of awe caused by coming into contact with something sublime, i.e., something too great and grand for you to fully take in. We have all experienced this type of "wonder": staring at the stars, listening to a piece of music, looking out across a mountain range at dawn, watching the clouds painted by the setting sun, or even those incredible, incalculable moments when we come in contact (however minor or subtle) with the presence of God. Whatever the case or incident, we have all been struck by an overwhelming sense of humility and respect for (and joy in) the grandeur of something truly great and greater than us. In those moments, it does not matter that we cannot fully comprehend it; indeed, its incomprehensibleness is all a part of the pleasure. That is the first definition of "wonder".

The second definition is related to the first, but is also much different. It is a sense of questioning and/or confusion caused by coming into contact with something confusing. We have all experienced this too: an unsolvable puzzle leaves us perplexed, an unanswerable charge leaves us bewildered, and an unfixable problem leaves us frustrated. In those moments, we wonder, wonder how something like this could have happened? what are to do or say now? what does this mean for my loved ones? where was/is God in all this? how could He allow such things? Those moments leave us in pain and in doubt and (above all) desiring answers, and that is the key distinction between this definition of "wonder" and the previous one. In the former, you have no desire for answers, or even for further questions; the beauty of the mystery is its own satisfaction, its own answer. In the latter, however, you only desire answers as you spiral out into further questions; the terror and darkness of the mystery leaves you starving for a solution, for solid ground to land on.

This is where the error comes in: people do not maintain that distinction. They assume that the latter definition of "wonder" (i.e., the posture of confusion and questioning) necessarily leads to the former definition (i.e., the posture of awe and joy). I will admit that questioning can eventually, through many twists and turns and toils and snares, lead to awe, but it is never "necessarily" the case. In fact, questioning can have the exact opposite effect. It can harden into an arrogant skepticism that sees questioning as the only stable thing, the only true thing. That is the danger that I was trying to avert (however poorly) in the mind of my friend. It is a danger I try to avert wherever I can.

We deceive ourselves on a crucial point: we conflate together the two separate, distinct definitions of "wonder" and thereby unconsciously equate them. Thus, we believe questioning "helps create a sense of wonder about things." It is here that awe can (and often does) become a cloak for doubt. To be frank, this is an error that I absolutely hate to see happen, and it happens everywhere. It is fashionable even in many Christian circles to see questioning and the doubts they bring as some sort of unassailable good. From David Dark calling it "sacred" to Rob Bell calling it "central to Christian experience," there is a certain naivete floating about, rooted in the assumption that questioning invariably leads to awe. Such a stance is nonsense, of course. Awe is not a result of questions but rather their answer, the answer that silences all questions, for "wonder" (i.e., awe) is an end of questioning. There is nothing left to say; any and every word would be inadequate to capture or express what you are feeling, thinking, seeing, experiencing.

That is a fact sorely missed by many: it is the answers that create awe, not the questions. That is what the Bible reveals. Does it have questioners? Of course, but that is not where their awe came from; it came from the answers they either remembered or received. Think of the Psalms. Lots of despairing questions crop up, but they are never the end of the matter. There is always an answer, and that answer is always a return to the truth of who God is in spite of our situation. Job was the same way. He piles up questions upon questions that no one (save Elihu) could answer. Then God shows up, and His answer is a revelation of the truth about Himself. It answers none of Job's questions, and yet somehow it answers all of them, and Job's response is silence and awe: "Now my eye sees You." The answer was the truth, and the truth set him free, including from questions.

And that is the key: truth is the only source of awe, of wonder, because truth is a wild and wonderful thing, as wild and wonderful and alive as God. Yes, He is beyond our feeble categorizations, but those who think they can outstrip Him by piling up questions upon questions in the hope of overcoming Him with numbers and bigness will never approach His depth and breadth and height and width. To understand this in your own life is the actual "central Christian experience": not to question, but to let our questions and moments and circumstances and experiences and every aspect of our lives drive us deeper into our deep God, to step further into His presence, to come in more intimate contact and communion with His incomprehensible Being. To be there and continue there is not to question but to cease from questions, to become speechless, to place your hand over your mouth in wonder at the awesome answer that is God.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

Staying-Power (thoughts on music and art)

I have heard from some that "Christian" music is going through a kind of renaissance. The days of crappy pop-culture cloning are dying out, being replaced slow but sure by more substantive musical art. Such a sentiment may be overstating things a bit, but it's not completely without merit. Mainstay and mainstream juggernauts like Anberlin and Switchfoot have carried that torch for the past ten years or so (though the latter has begun to show signs of wear and tear), and current big timers like Mumford and Sons and hidden gems like My Epic cannot help but feed the excitement that the dark ages of CCM are finally fading away.

Like I said, it's overstated. Pop-culture is big business, and "Christian & Gospel" is one of the biggest money-mongers around. Chris Tomlin and WOW Worship aren't going anywhere, and mainstream Christianity's seemingly incurable drive to ape the world and its culture will continue to be an ever-present source of parody and scorn.

But my point here is not to comment on the current state of so-called "Christian" music, but rather to point out how unpredictable it can be. Junk and jewels often get spewed out in the same breath, and there can be diamonds amongst the rough, rough sewage that passes for "Christian" "art". This is a fact no matter what day it is or what generation of music (or film or literature or whatever) we're going through. The dark ages can still produce a Beowulf, and the latest generations can still produce horrors to the ears and eyes.

Case in point, I have two songs to share with you. One is "Light Up the Sky," a single released in 2010 by The Afters (your obligatory generic Christian band). The other is "Calling Out Your Name" by legendary CCM icon Rich Mullins. Let's deal with "Light Up the Sky" first. Regardless of your musical taste, try and listen carefully:

Now, look: I do not in any way question these guys talent or sincerity, and since I believe that God is big enough to use any and every thing for His glory, I don't even doubt the song's ability to touch people. (Its official music video is actually quite inspiring.)

Having said that, be honest with yourself: they sounded like The Backstreet Boys, didn't they? (Seriously, when the chorus hits and they do the "light, light, light"/"I, I, I" thingy, try some choreographed hand gestures. It totally works.) It's fluffy, it's predictable, it's safe, it's...fine. Really fine, mind you, but just fine. It came out two or three years ago, and you've probably never heard of it, since it is not built to last. Canned pop-art is never built to last; when it ever does, it was an accident. Their primary purpose is to be disposable and replaceable.

Again, this does not mean that they weren't fun in their day, but it does mean that there is nothing everlasting about them. And the sign of good art (in any medium or genre) is that it has something everlasting about it. It has "staying-power" across generations. Shakespeare was said to be "not of an age but for all time," and guys like him and Mozart remain, not because dead white guys shove them down our throats forever. How can they (being dead white guys, after all)? Rather, it's because they have staying-power: they resonant down through the ages.

Compare and contrast that song with this one by Rich Mullins. It first appeared in 1991, during the early heyday of CCM. I would argue that while both this and "Light Up the Sky" are perfectly legitimate works of art, there is something inherently different about Mullins', and that difference is its eternal nature. It has staying-power. What it says, how its says it, how the whole composition rolls and rides through the soul like the wind and the waves...it's truly a transcendent experience. There is a reason this song (and other Mullins songs) still speaks while others (though well-intended) fall silent in the end. It's because he's singing to touch eternity, while everyone else just seems to be living for the moment.

See what you think:

-Jon Vowell, et. al. (c) 2013

"...a beautiful city..." (Nolan's Defense of Civilization in The Dark Knight Trilogy)

Aristotle once said that man is a "political animal." He did not mean that we instinctively form voting blocks. What he meant is that human beings are fundamentally communal: they come together and form families, and many families come together to form communities, and many communities come together to form the city, the "πολις". Nations and empires also emerge from this ascension, but what also emerges is what we call "civilization," an ordering of human conduct and affairs around our communal instincts. Whether in the home or in the city, there is (or ought to be) a general sense of deference to those who share the space with you. We all belong to the city; we are all in this together. To be "civilized" is to respect your fellow man as a member of your community; to act otherwise is to go the way of the brute, the savage.

For millennia, civilization was thought to be a good thing, or at least better than barbarism. Heaven was often viewed as the place of ideal order and community, and thus Augustine lauds The City of God, while Charles Williams' Arthurian poetry contrasts the Christian image of Logres with the pagan wildness of Broceliande. The key to all of this is the idea of order: order is good, while chaos is bad. In the Christian worldview, the whole of existence is built on the order that is Christ (Col. 1:17), and the city (with its inherent civilizational bent) was  meant to be a concrete emblem of that order, of Christ, of heaven itself. Thus, order was beautiful, order was true, and order was good, and thus so was the city.

Not everyone agreed or agrees with this idea. There have always been anarchists and extremists who view order as the height of oppression. Ovid's subversive narratives in the Metamorphoses, the barbarism of the dark ages, Romanticism's revolutionary poetry and practices, anarchical terrorists at the turn of the 20th century as well as postmodern deconstruction at its end: history is full of those who would see order fall, fail, die trying. They have existed alongside and in tension with civilization, and the howling debate between the two rages on to this day: is civilization good? when and how does it become destructive? ought it to be defended? how ought we to defend it?

One of the most recent voices in this debate (I believe) has been director Christopher Nolan and his Dark Knight Trilogy (henceforth, DKT). Ostensibly a set of Batman films, Nolan's work has been lauded for legitimatizing the "superhero" film as a genre capable of true cinematic quality and narrative depth. It was not just his move towards realism (as opposed to the visions of Burton and Schumacher), but also the serious substance that he gave to his films: they proposed intriguing scenarios, asked interesting questions, and provided powerful (and sometimes controversial) answers. One such scenario was the various dangers that can threaten the "city" (viz., Gotham, which comes from a nickname for New York City), which lead to questions about the inherent goodness and defense of civilization itself. I believe that Nolan's answer to this scenario and subsequent questions is that the "city," while far from perfect, is good and ought to be defended against all extremists.

DKT is full of extremists, some more easily recognized than others. Of course, the Joker is the most obvious example. The self-described "agent of chaos," he sees "these civilized people" as monsters just like him: their "moral codes" (i.e., the deference towards others that creates civilization) are all flimsy facades, "dropped at the first sign of trouble." Unique in his anarchism, the Joker is not out to destroy the city but rather prove that it is already destroyed: we maintain the illusion of civility and order, but "when the chips are down, [we'll] eat each other." Thus, for the Joker, the city and civilization are not just bad; they are a "bad joke," and he feels called, like an unholy prophet, to point us all to the punchline.

The League of Shadows is a unique kind of extremism. Whereas the Joker sees civilization as so meaningless as to be illusory, characters like Ra's al Ghul and Bane see civilization as so paramount that they will destroy any and all that do not meet their ideal standard. Thus, they will "bring justice to Gotham," but it is justice in the void, cut of from any other balancing virtue (such as mercy or wisdom). They are so sure of Gotham's irredeemable corruption that they will not simply destroy it; they will let it destroy itself, whether through "fear" or revolution (two highly corrosive elements to any civilization). There is a certain satanic allure to both their and the Joker's extremism: civilization is often messy and imperfect, and the drive to burn it all down and either start afresh or just "watch the world burn" can become irresistible to those who have lost all hope for the city.

It is indeed possible to lose hope for the city, but it only comes when you first give in to another kind of extremism, an extremism that is far more subtle, and if you weren't watching the films carefully you would've miss it. I am referring to the extremism of characters such as Officer Jonathan Blake, Commissioner Loeb, and (most significantly) Harvey Dent. This is the extremism that says that the city ought to be defended, but its defense must always play by the rules of the city. Thus, Commissioner Loeb wants the "vigilante" known as Batman "off the streets," and Blake always works inside the system (often with an air of pretentious self-righteousness). In their world, the rules are the city, and to work outside of them is to not only defy civilization but also (in effect) fundamentally deny it. As Blake tells Gordon, "You've betrayed everything you've stood for." Why? Because Gordon broke the rules.

Gordon is an excellent counter-example to this, as he (and Batman) are there to teach us the hardest lesson of all: if you would defend the city, then you must get your hands dirty. This is a hard truth for many (esp. Americans) to swallow, but it is an incredibly necessary and relevant hard truth. When you run into people who "don't want anything logical like money," who "can't be bought, bullied, reasoned to, or negotiated with," you have to take them down for the good of the city. Furthermore, you must realize that more often than not "the systems fail" you (as Gordon says), and "the rules aren't weapons anymore, they're just shackles, ways for the bad guys to get ahead." In those moments, you have to do what needs to be done (what "needs to happen," as Batman puts it), not what will look good on paper. Gordon stated it perfectly to Dent: "I don't get political points for idealism. I have to the best I can with what I have." If you do not have this balanced view, if you succumb to the extremism of the system, then you will fall when the system inevitably falls.

Harvey Dent is the prime example of this fall. As Gotham's district attorney, he is the system, but he has balance in the beginning. He's willing to turn a blind eye to Batman's "outlaw" activities, mainly because they're accomplishing the goal of taking out organized crime (a cancer on any civilization). But he still believes that "we can be decent men in an indecent time," and when he discovers that there are those who will use your systems against you (as the Joker tells him, "I took your little plan and turned it on itself"), he falls into madness and despair. As Two-Face (the hypocrite, the law turned criminal), "the world is cruel, and the only morality [i.e., civilizing deference] in a cruel world is chance," i.e., chaos, the flip of a coin. This is what the extremism of the system does: when it fails (and it does fail), you run the risk of falling with it. (It is important to note that Officer Blake avoids this fate.)

One special case must be mentioned, and that is Alfred. In Batman Begins (BB) and The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR), he too is an extremist (albeit a sympathetic one). In the beginning, he fears Bruce's transformation into Batman is mere "thrill seeking" (a "taste for wanton destruction" as he says in TDKR), and in the end he wants Bruce to give up Batman and work with the police, instead of around them. There are two ironies at work. The first is that he sees Batman as an extreme action when, in fact, Batman is the proper balance (as we'll see). The second is that some of the best statements on that balance come from Alfred, all in The Dark Knight (TDK). This film is unique in that when faced with the Joker, even Batman feels the pull towards the extremism of the system: he will turn himself into and cooperate with the police because "I see now what I have to become to stop men like him.... Batman can't take this." It is Alfred who pulls him back from the brink:

B: "What would you have me do?"

A: "Endure, Master Wayne. Take it. They'll hate you for it, but that can be the point of Batman. You can be the outcast. You can make the choice no one else can make: the right choice."

Alfred understandably forgets his own advice by TDKR, as his concern for Bruce overcomes his understanding of Batman. Nonetheless, for one moment (or film) at least, he did understand the "point" of Batman: the police don't need Bruce Wayne to work with them; they need Batman to work around them, doing what they can't do, going where they can't go, being willing "to plunge his hands into the filth so that you can keep yours clean" (as Gordon tells Blake).

Batman's "point" is to be a paradoxical balance. He is the defender of the city by going outside its systems. He ensures the success of justice by breaking the law. He only has "one rule" (i.e., he won't kill: "I'm no executioner"); any others are expendable. "At what cost?" we may ask along with Lucius Fox (a man also tempted by the extremism of the system). To that question, Batman gives no answer then, but he does later to Gordon: "The Joker cannot win." That is the view Batman maintains (through great struggle) throughout the trilogy, and it is the balanced view. The Joker cannot win; the extremists must not win. The city is good, and it must be defended, even if it takes drastic steps (like "burn[ing] the forest down," as Alfred puts it). That is the messy yet necessary paradox that Batman embodies.

Batman is for the city, for civilization, and he is for it against all comers, willing to even take its reproach in order to save it. ("You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. I can do those things.... I'm whatever this city needs me to be.") The greatest image of this comes in the climactic battle in the final film. Bane, in seeking to "bring justice [i.e., destruction] to Gotham," has started a pseudo-revolution between the haves and the have-nots. Batman mounts his offensive against this extremist activity, and he does so with an army of police officers. This is significant because the police are symbolic of the city; their name even comes from the word "πολις". So when Batman faces down the extremists one last time (because he cannot stand by "while my city burns"), he does so with the literal embodiment of the city itself, all uniformed, marching as one, in defense of civilization.

It is fitting that when Batman is presumed dead at the trilogy's end, Gordon reads a passage from A Tale of Two Cities(!), a passage that could very well summarize the Batman credo, and the credo of all who would defend civilization:

I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see their lives, for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.

This is the final logic of all defenders of the city, of the dark knights and the watchers on the wall: we defend the "beautiful city" because of the "brilliant people". The city must be defended, for the city is good because people are good. It is not necessarily a moral goodness (for we are all sinners), but an ontological goodness: we are, and we make and commune after the image of our Creator. To attack the city and the civility that it stands for is to attack people per se; to attack people per se is to attack God per se, and that is the greatest anarchy, and evil, of all.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013