“Rooted in Economic Discernment?”

A Review of
Being Consumed:
Economics and Christian Desire.
by William Cavanaugh.

By Chris Smith.

Being Consumed:
Economics and Christian Desire.
William Cavanaugh.
Paperback. Eerdmans, 2008.
Buy now from: [ ChristianBook.com ]

When William Cavanaugh’s little book Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire was published earlier this year, no one could have guessed how relevant it would become with the recent economic turmoil.  This little book of four essays is a tool for helping us reflect in our churches on why we got into this economic mess.  The book’s essays are structured around the contrast between pairs of key ideas related to contemporary capitalist economics: “Freedom and Unfreedom,” “Detachment and Attachment,” “The Global and the Local” and “Scarcity and Abundance.” 

                In the first essay “Freedom and Unfreedom,” Cavanaugh uses Augustine’s concept of freedom as the basis for a Christian critique of the modern capitalist notion of “free markets.”  The thrust of his critique lies in the distinction that the capitalist concept of freedom is a “freedom from” that has no clear end, whereas Augustine views freedom as a “freedom for” which has a specific end in mind (i.e., reconciliation with God).  Cavanaugh also emphasizes that in contrast to the stark individualistic autonomy of capitalism, the Augustinian view of freedom maintains that others are “crucial to one’s freedom” (9).  Our desires, he observes, do not merely bubble up from within us, but rather our desires are formed in a social crucible, being shaped both from within and without (i.e., from our relationships with others).  Finally, Cavanaugh highlights Augustine’s notion that everything that exists is good, but only to the extent that they participate in the telos of creation – reconciliation with God.  Thus, when we desire things for their own sake, they become nothing to us.  Cavanaugh sagely observes that this provides a striking explanation for the addictiveness of consumer behavior:

A person buys something – anything – trying to fill the hole that is the empty shrine. And once the shopper purchases the thing, it turns into a nothing, and she has to head back to the mall to continue the search.  With no objective ends to guide the search, her search is literally endless(15).

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Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, our next issue will be posted on Monday December 1.

We will resume Friday publication on Friday December 5.

The Bugler’s First Communion

Gerard Manley Hopkins

A BUGLER boy from barrack (it is over the hill

There)--boy bugler, born, he tells me, of Irish

          Mother to an English sire (he

Shares their best gifts surely, fall how things will),

This very very day came down to us after a boon he on

My late being there begged of me, overflowing

          Boon in my bestowing,

Came, I say, this day to it--to a First Communion.

Here he knelt then in regimental red.

Forth Christ from cupboard fetched, how fain I of feet

          To his youngster take his treat!

Low-latched in leaf-light housel his too huge godhead.

There! and your sweetest sendings, ah divine,

By it, heavens, befall him! as a heart Christ's darling,

     dauntless;

          Tongue true, vaunt- and tauntless;

Breathing bloom of a chastity in mansex fine.

Frowning and forefending angel-warder

Squander the hell-rook ranks sally to molest him;

          March, kind comrade, abreast him;

Dress his days to a dexterous and starlight order.

How it does my heart good, visiting at that bleak hill,

When limber liquid youth, that to all I teach

          Yields tender as a pushed peach,

Hies headstrong to its wellbeing of a self-wise self-will!

Then though I should tread tufts of consolation

Days after, so I in a sort deserve to

          And do serve God to serve to

Just such slips of soldiery Christ's royal ration.

Nothing else is like it, no, not all so strains

Us: fresh youth fretted in a bloomfall all portending

          That sweet's sweeter ending;

Realm both Christ is heir to and there reigns.

O now well work that sealing sacred ointment!

O for now charms, arms, what bans off bad

          And locks love ever in a lad!

Let me though see no more of him, and not disappointment

Those sweet hopes quell whose least me quickenings lift.

In scarlet or somewhere of some day seeing

          That brow and bead of being,

An our day's God's own Galahad. Though this child's

     drift

Seems by a divine doom channelled, nor do I cry

Disaster there; but may he not rankle and roam

          In backwheels though bound home?--

That left to the Lord of the Eucharist, I here lie by;

Recorded only, I have put my lips on pleas

Would brandle adamantine heaven with ride and jar, did

          Prayer go disregarded:

Forward-like, but however, and like favourable heaven

   heard these.

A Brief Review of
JEAN VANIER: ESSENTIAL WRITINGS.

by Chris Smith.

Jean Vanier started what would become the L’Arche communities by taking in two mentally challenged men in 1964.  In the intervening years, he has written profusely out of these experiences in communal care for those with mental or developmental challenges. His writings – marked by their clear, pointed prose spun in a warm, gentle tone – have found a large audience around the world.  I, for one, have long considered Vanier one of my favorite writers.  Thus, I was pleased to see the Orbis Books had released a volume of his “Essential Writings” this fall.  The 40+ page introduction by Carolyn Whitney-Brown, who had lived for a number of years the L’Arche Daybreak community in Canada, does an excellent job of framing his life and tracing his development.  Although I am not typically a fan of these sort of collections that pull paragraph to page-long snippets out of their original contexts, Vanier’s writing, like that of a poet, packs loads of meaning into relatively few words and thus it works better in this format than the writings of other authors.  The selection of passages does a superb job of representing the span of Vanier’s life and work and also at including pieces from his lesser known works.  However, the finest part of this book is perhaps the epilogue, which emphasizes the vision of shalom that has served as a catalyst for Vanier’s life.  Jean Vanier: Essential Writings is an excellent introduction to Vanier’s writings.  When I introduce people to Vanier’s work, I usually recommend one of the little volumes From Brokenness to Community or Encountering ‘the Other,’ and I will probably continue to do so, but now I’m glad that I can also recommend this broader work to them.

Jean Vanier: Essential Writings.
Paperback: Orbis Books, 2008.
Buy now:  [ Doulos Christou Books $13 ] [ Amazon ]

A Brief Review of
BINDING THE STRONG MAN:
A POLITICAL READING OF
MARK’S STORY OF JESUS (2oth anniversary edition)
by Ched Meyers.

by Chris Smith.

I was delighted to see that Orbis Books has released a twentieth anniversary edition of Ched Myers’s iconoclastic study of Mark’s gospel, Binding the Strong Man: A Political Reading of Mark’s Story of Jesus.  I originally read this book ten years ago, so I was glad for the opportunity to re-visit it.  The most striking thing about Binding the Strong Man, however is that Myers wrote for a primary audience, not of insulated biblical scholars but of “church members and Christian social activists” (xxxiii).  Unfortunately, I fear that the intensity and rigor of Myers’s scholarship has intimidated much of his intended audience and created a reality in which this book is read more frequently in seminaries than in churches.  I pray that this new edition would provide an opportunity for this reality to be righted.
Myers is a brilliant mind and his diligent research combined with his perspective as an outsider to biblical scholarship make this a very refreshing book to read.  He does an excellent job in the book’s first part of setting the socio-historical stage on which Mark’s gospel will unfold.  He then proceeds in the following parts of the book to work carefully through the text of Mark emphasizing the political meaning of each passage.  In the afterword and appendix, he briefly explores some ways in which his reading of Mark, and other socio-political readings of the life of Jesus, are relevant to the mission of the Church in the present age.  The text of the book seems to be same as that of the original edition, but Orbis has added a new foreword, a new preface by Myers and a new introduction.  Of these three new pieces, Myers’s preface is the most useful, commenting on the ways that this book has been read and used in the intervening decades.  If you have not read this important work of scriptural reflection, now would be an ideal time to dive into the rich hermeneutic waters of Binding the Strong Man.

BINDING THE STRONG MAN (20th Anniversary Edition):
A POLITICAL READING OF MARK’S STORY OF JESUS
By Ched Myers.
Paperback: Orbis Books, 2008.
Buy now:  [ Doulos Christou Books $23 ] [ Amazon ]

Byron Borger of Hearts and Minds Books
Reviews Walsh and Bouma-Prediger’s BEYOND HOMELESSNESS

http://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/reviews/beyond_homelessness_christian/

In my enthusiastic announcement at the BookNotes blog this June I confidently stated that Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement by Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian J. Walsh (Eerdmans; $24.00) will be the Book of the Year.  Perhaps I was a bit rash, since so many truly great titles have subsequently been released  (I admit I’m writing this postdating it, in the fall since I didn’t get to this review earlier.)  Still, I insist that this book is one of the most important in ages, a thrilling, if demanding, read, and a great example of the wonderful kinds of books that are being written these days.  This book is deeply, profoundly Christian, radically faithful, and wondrously interdisciplinary.  There are a few trouble spots and a few annoying tics, but my criticism, which I will raise eventually, should not keep you from taking it seriously.  I again announce that I suspect it will be named as the Hearts & Minds book of the year.

There are lots of fine books, many good ones this year, and we are grateful to be in the business of recommending many.  Every now and then, though, one comes along that stands out, and although it may not be for everyone, we truly try to promote it widely.  We are often told that customers appreciate this, since some of the best religious books are not sold in typical bookstores.   I say this from time to time, I know, but I couldn’t be more sincere or more urgent: for serious Christians, those who care about how God’s Word impacts and shapes our thinking and living, who desire an integrated worldview that can propel us towards distinctive cultural engagement, who wants to learn more about the nature of our times—Jesus told us to read the signs, recall—Beyond Homelessness is a must.  Yes, a true must-read.    As Marva Dawn puts it in her very enthusiastic recommendation, “Broadly researched and splendidly written, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants truly to comprehend and mend our culture.”  Amen.

…

Read the full review:
http://www.heartsandmindsbooks.com/reviews/beyond_homelessness_christian/

BEYOND HOMELESSNESS:
CHRISTIAN FAITH IN A CULTURE OF DISCPLACEMENT
Brian Walsh and Steven Bouma-Prediger.
Paperback: Eerdmans, 2008
Buy now:  [ Doulos Christou Books $20 ] [ Amazon ]

The Civil War was by far the bloodiest war in American history. The Union and Confederate armies suffered more than 620,000 fatalities— roughly equivalent to the American dead of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War put together. Among all combatants, the death rate was six times that of World War II; among Southerners, three times that of Northerners. Noncombatants, too, were swept up in this first modern, total war: An estimated fifty thousand civilians died. The numbers can be fleshed out with images of suppurating wounds, severed limbs, and mass graves. Scholars have documented this suffering, popularizers have sensationalized it, but few retrospective accounts have sustained a focus on its moral and emotional meanings for the people who experienced it.

Most Civil War chroniclers have lifted their gazes from battlefield losses to political gains—the emancipation of African-American slaves and the emergence of the United States as a modern nation. The war, from this view, was a Christian saga of suffering and redemption. Its outcome was the “new birth of freedom” envisioned by Lincoln at Gettysburg, a more democratic society purged of the original sin of slavery. This Civil War story lies at the heart of the American political mythos; it also resonates with fundamental human longings—above all, the desire for mass death to make sense, to fit into some larger pattern of cosmic meaning. No wonder the grand narrative possesses so much staying power.

…

Read the full review:
http://bookforum.com/inprint/015_04/2999

AWAITING THE HEAVENLY COUNTRY.
Mark Schantz.
Hardcover: Cornell UP, 2008
Buy now:  [ Doulos Christou Books $20 ] [ Amazon ]

THIS REPUBLIC OF SUFFERING:
DEATH AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR.
Drew Gilpin Faust.
Hardcover: Knopf, 2008
Buy now:  [ Doulos Christou Books $22 ] [ Amazon ]

[W]hen an album comes along that fits squarely within the Worship Music tradition, and I actually like it, then there may be some evidence that hell has begun to freeze over. But it’s happened with Aradhna. The four core members of the band – Chris Hale, Peter and Fiona Hicks, and Travis McAfee – are as American as their names would indicate. But they’ve all spent significant portions of their lives in Bangladesh, Nepal, and India. And therein lies the strange and wondrous merger of two worlds that contributes to the uniqueness of the band’s music, and to the surprising vigor of Amrit Vani. There are sitars here. And tablas. They sound as exotic as you would expect. And there are acoustic guitar arpeggios and gently lilting violin solos that wouldn’t sound out of place on a very western Windham Hill album. It works beautifully. The lyrics are sung in Hindi, and far from being an impediment, the language barrier is actually a great help (see “apple of my eye” and “wind beneath my wings” above). Like Sigur Ros, sometimes the indecipherable is greatly preferable to the old, tired formulas. And by the time we reach the final song, “Narahari,” the music swells and soars, the ramshackle choir enters sounding like the Hindustani angelic host, and something remarkable happens. I find myself worshipping God.

Amrit Vani digs deep in a contemplative, meditative way that few worship albums even begin to approach. And it’s quite lovely. Even in the car.

Read the full review:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/whitman/2008/02/aradhnaamrit-vani.html

AMRIT VANI
Aradhna.
Indie
Stream songs from Amrit Vani
or purchase the Cd directly from the band:
Aradhnamusic.com

Alternative Gift Fair

Saturday, November 29th,

10:00AM to 4:00 PM

Lockerbie Central United Methodist Church and Earth House Collective

237 N. East St.

A 4:00 PM film showing and 5:00 PM dinner will follow the fair. The day will also include a 7:00 PM holiday concert featuring global music.

More info:

http://earthhousecollective.blogspot.com/2008/11/earth-house-hosts-alternative-gift-fair.html

“Embodying Transcendence”

A Review of
God in the Gallery:
A Christian Embrace of Modern Art.
by Daniel Siedell.

By Brent Aldrich.

God in the Gallery:
A Christian Embrace of Modern Art.
Daniel Siedell.
Paperback. Baker Academic, 2008.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $20] [ Amazon ]

First of all, to title a book of this complexity God in the Gallery is much too narrow; the encompassing image of a “transformed vision” that Daniel Siedell describes in this book points to an ecumenical engagement of the church, that is rooted in the liturgy, to form an “expansive aesthetics” (138) as a basis of living in “a world saturated with sacramental…significance” (91). What he narrates throughout is a fundamental way of living that is incarnational, that sees the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven; art may perhaps be described as an embodiment of this reality, creating a focused artifact of contemplation and communion. For the church, the vocation is to daily embody this reality of incarnation and resurrection, of the hope of reconciliation in the world. Siedell argues that much or modern and postmodern art has likewise been “a witness to both our fallen world and hope for its redemption” (29). The dialogue that opens up from this correlation is expansive in both directions, urging the church to draw from an “economy of the icon” in which “the primary goal is to seek communion with God” (29) as a model to look to contemporary art practices, as well as suggesting how the “church’s spiritual practices and disciplines…can underwrite and sustain aesthetic practice” (148). In both directions, though, it is the “church’s aesthetics that underwrite aesthetics in the larger culture” in a way that “expands the aesthetic potential” (138).

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The bread-n-butter of our bookstore business is the sale of used books, and we do a fair amount of scouting around for used books each week. In this section we feature some of the interesting books that we have found in the past week. Generally, we will only have a single copy of these books, so if you want one (or more) of them, you’ll need to respond quickly.

AND IT WAS GOOD (REFLECTIONS ON BEGINNINGS).
Madeleine L’Engle.
Hardcover.  Shaw. 1983.
Very Good condition. Clean pages, moderate wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $8 ]

Audubon Society Field Guide
to North American Wildflowers.
Durable plastic softcover. Knopf. 1988 printing.
Good Condition. Clean pages, Moderate wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $8 ]

Gardening by Heart
Joyce McGreevy.
Hardcover. Sierra Club Books. 2000.
Good condition. X-library copy. Clean Pages. Minimal wear.
Buy now from: [ Doulos Christou Books $7 ]

The Great Figure

William Carlos Williams

[ Based on Charles Henry Demuth’s painting:
   I saw the Figure Five in Gold ]

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
fire truck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city