Thursday, June 08, 2006
Al Zarqawi killed, an Iraq success story ...
I woke up this morning to see the front page of both the BBC and Yahoo news reading Al Zarqawi killed!! A major success in the U.S. led war in Iraq and the broader war on terror. It is amazing what is happening in one's life when major things happen in the world. When 9/11 happened I was sleeping when the U.S. invaded Iraq I was eating a hamburger at a local Red Robin getting over a huge blow up with my wife. This morning I have been preparing to put together a talk on the Meaning of the Eucharist. What a difference success means today and what the first Christians saw as success in the life and death of Jesus Christ. As a member of the Emerging Church, and now Fresh Expressions here in the UK, I wonder how we contextualize the gospel to this world, that is the world of violence we see in our two countries?
Context seems to mean everything these days. Post-structuralism dictates to us that every bit of meaning that we find in the world is mediated to us through some sort of context. Family systems theory and transactional analysis pushes the need for differentiation in hope of beginning to understand what effect living within our contexts has done to our psyche. As I prepare for this talk I am beginning to realize that I am being drawn and quartered from four different contexts. Sorting them out has been difficult to say the least. Maybe I should pray for differentiation.
The first is my familial background. I am one of the only men in my extended family who has not been in the military. Two of my cousins on my father's side of the family have served in the American military and continue to do military type activities. One was a scout sniper in the Marine Core, and the other has served three tours in Afghanistan as a medic with the Special Forces. When I struggle with my call to the ministry (or when I watch shows like 24 and other violent options) I always fantasize about what it would have been like if I enlisted. You see I was prevented because of my allergies and instead I watched many of the men and friends in my family go off to the military and come back strong in body, and disciplined in mind. This is what I dream about, to become more disciplined in mind and body.
The second being my environmental background as a young adolescent. I watched violence tear up my best friend and his family when his father was murdered on my twelfth birthday. Of course it did not affect me the same way as them but it forced me to question the violence in the world, the hero images in my mind as looked at my cousins, and the different television programs and movies I grew up watching. You see America pushes the need for heroes, and the strong to admire and imitate. Where was the strong when a person shot my best friends father while he cooked at Chicago's downtown?
As I grew out of the need to be a hero, I embraced the importance of education. I became the first person in my extended family that ever graduated from University. Of course one of my grandmother's brothers started at Yale but was so poor that he began to write the rich kids English papers at a dollar a page and was found out and got the boot from the authorities in the department. The important thing for me was to be educated and intelligent. It is interesting that the year I started at University was the year that Forest Gump came out at the cinema. A movie where the main character is too stupid to sin.
Lastly, is my Christian background. In the near eleven years that I have been taking my faith seriously I have move in many different directions. From a fundamentalist beginning, to a more open evangelicalism, towards Anglo-Catholicism, and now I am just sitting in the middle of many different traditions. I hold the charismatic expectation that conversion actually changes us. I see us sanctified by Christ through our dialogue with God and the world as we participate in the sacraments of the Church, so I guess that makes my piety of the Anglo-Catholic variety. I agree with N.T. Wright who sees Scripture as being the first four acts to a five act play. The fifth act we have to work out using the first acts authoritatively. Lastly, I see social action as a necessary call to anyone who follows Christ, I agree with Stanley Hauerwas who sees the church as a social ethic rather than needing to follow one of the different options given by the state.
You see this leaves me in a state when I look back over my life. I want to see the world through the lens of heroes and villains, but I am crippled by a struggle with the different voices that speak into my life. I know that Al Zarqawi is violent, but have we (that is the coalition in Iraq) in going to war against terrorism just made him into a warrior rather than a murderer? I do not know, by taking a cue from this country (who has dealt with terrorism longer than we have in the states) I understand "going to war against terrorism" as a problematic way of dealing with the problem. Is it not a police action, can we ever defeat terrorism in the way that the allied forces defeated Germany, Italy, and Japan in WWII? Terrorism might be something that we have to live with in world gripped by sin, and we should fight against it for sure, but maybe not in a way that takes an entire country with it. But again does this make the work of my cousins, my father, and grandfathers not worth anything? I have no answers but questions that may remain unanswered. Is maybe our role then asking questions rather than pronouncing judgment in either direction in cases like these.
Ian speaks about Unity in Diversity as the only hope for the Anglican Communion, to take this a bit farther it seems to be the only hope for people in general. I have delineated four diverse voices that emerge from my being. The quest for coherence might be at its end. I only hope that in this violent and incoherent world we might find peace of mind and world through a united but diverse body of Christ.
Your Brother in Christ,
Travis K Smith
Context seems to mean everything these days. Post-structuralism dictates to us that every bit of meaning that we find in the world is mediated to us through some sort of context. Family systems theory and transactional analysis pushes the need for differentiation in hope of beginning to understand what effect living within our contexts has done to our psyche. As I prepare for this talk I am beginning to realize that I am being drawn and quartered from four different contexts. Sorting them out has been difficult to say the least. Maybe I should pray for differentiation.
The first is my familial background. I am one of the only men in my extended family who has not been in the military. Two of my cousins on my father's side of the family have served in the American military and continue to do military type activities. One was a scout sniper in the Marine Core, and the other has served three tours in Afghanistan as a medic with the Special Forces. When I struggle with my call to the ministry (or when I watch shows like 24 and other violent options) I always fantasize about what it would have been like if I enlisted. You see I was prevented because of my allergies and instead I watched many of the men and friends in my family go off to the military and come back strong in body, and disciplined in mind. This is what I dream about, to become more disciplined in mind and body.
The second being my environmental background as a young adolescent. I watched violence tear up my best friend and his family when his father was murdered on my twelfth birthday. Of course it did not affect me the same way as them but it forced me to question the violence in the world, the hero images in my mind as looked at my cousins, and the different television programs and movies I grew up watching. You see America pushes the need for heroes, and the strong to admire and imitate. Where was the strong when a person shot my best friends father while he cooked at Chicago's downtown?
As I grew out of the need to be a hero, I embraced the importance of education. I became the first person in my extended family that ever graduated from University. Of course one of my grandmother's brothers started at Yale but was so poor that he began to write the rich kids English papers at a dollar a page and was found out and got the boot from the authorities in the department. The important thing for me was to be educated and intelligent. It is interesting that the year I started at University was the year that Forest Gump came out at the cinema. A movie where the main character is too stupid to sin.
Lastly, is my Christian background. In the near eleven years that I have been taking my faith seriously I have move in many different directions. From a fundamentalist beginning, to a more open evangelicalism, towards Anglo-Catholicism, and now I am just sitting in the middle of many different traditions. I hold the charismatic expectation that conversion actually changes us. I see us sanctified by Christ through our dialogue with God and the world as we participate in the sacraments of the Church, so I guess that makes my piety of the Anglo-Catholic variety. I agree with N.T. Wright who sees Scripture as being the first four acts to a five act play. The fifth act we have to work out using the first acts authoritatively. Lastly, I see social action as a necessary call to anyone who follows Christ, I agree with Stanley Hauerwas who sees the church as a social ethic rather than needing to follow one of the different options given by the state.
You see this leaves me in a state when I look back over my life. I want to see the world through the lens of heroes and villains, but I am crippled by a struggle with the different voices that speak into my life. I know that Al Zarqawi is violent, but have we (that is the coalition in Iraq) in going to war against terrorism just made him into a warrior rather than a murderer? I do not know, by taking a cue from this country (who has dealt with terrorism longer than we have in the states) I understand "going to war against terrorism" as a problematic way of dealing with the problem. Is it not a police action, can we ever defeat terrorism in the way that the allied forces defeated Germany, Italy, and Japan in WWII? Terrorism might be something that we have to live with in world gripped by sin, and we should fight against it for sure, but maybe not in a way that takes an entire country with it. But again does this make the work of my cousins, my father, and grandfathers not worth anything? I have no answers but questions that may remain unanswered. Is maybe our role then asking questions rather than pronouncing judgment in either direction in cases like these.
Ian speaks about Unity in Diversity as the only hope for the Anglican Communion, to take this a bit farther it seems to be the only hope for people in general. I have delineated four diverse voices that emerge from my being. The quest for coherence might be at its end. I only hope that in this violent and incoherent world we might find peace of mind and world through a united but diverse body of Christ.
Your Brother in Christ,
Travis K Smith
