Another Week Ends

1. Before we get into the articles, friend and former NYC Mbird conference musician Jon Guerra released a daring EP this past week, American Gospel, which I’ve had on repeat since it dropped. While, yes, the songs touch on the election-related acrimony we’re all swimming in at present, they point mercifully beyond it — and without blunting the edge or comfort of the gospel. Jon has something important to say about the theologies of glory (and diseased self-righteousness) running amuck on the Right and Left–and in between! — but he thankfully resists the anti-grace browbeating that marks so many attempts at ‘prophetic art.’ For those of us who feel profoundly alienated by our political landscape and discourse, especially on Christian grounds, it’s a little dose of serenity amidst the chaos. Plus, the melodies are top-notch.

Speaking of beloved musicians, what a delight to discover the brand-new mini-documentary The Many Disappointments of Andy Squyres! Directed by Caleb W. Ford, it captures our misfit friend’s gift for uncovering God’s presence and power in the ridiculousness (and frailty) of contemporary life. Like the devotions of his that we highlighted yesterday, the doc also abounds with humor and poetry. Andy will be playing at our conference later this month (9/27 & 28) in Tyler, TX, btw.

2. On our first Mockingcast of the fall, we broached the third rail subject of familial estrangement, which from all reports (certainly the ones from the pews!) is booming. The phenomenon lacks any one-size-fits-all explanation or means of redress. In fact, it’s nigh on impossible to discuss the explosion of kids going “no contact” without sounding callous toward one of the parties involved. Yet as Todd pointed out in last Friday’s weekender, it also feels naive to suggest there isn’t some correlation with the therapization of all things, or at least the concept creep when it comes to words like trauma.

Enter the never-boring Freddie deBoer, who penned a newsletter a few weeks ago about his crusade to “rescue therapy from therapeutic culture.” Instead of estrangement as a jumping off point, he takes an adjacent (and more Mbird-sympathetic) subject, namely, forgiveness, citing an article published in the NY Times this past summer that called forgiveness “overrated.” Anyone sticking up for forgiveness is cool with yours truly, even if the tone they adopt in doing so isn’t exactly, you know. Here’s Freddie:

The fundamental argument in the piece is that, because forgiveness only sometimes soothes the feelings of the forgiver, forgiveness is therefore overrated. … the cultural directive to be forgiving is misguided, because it’s not always strictly speaking what’s best for the person who might forgive. That is the argument of Caron’s piece: that you should contemplate forgiveness only when and because it might benefit you. If it doesn’t, you should feel no pressure to forgive, let alone believe that you have an affirmative obligation to forgive.

That we might want to embrace moral virtues like forgiveness in the pursuit of benefits that can’t be measured with an Apple Watch goes unconsidered. [The] implicit value system would justify saying that compassion is good because it reduces blood pressure, that honesty is good because speaking the truth causes a pleasant release of endorphins, that you shouldn’t rob and murder someone because doing so might worsen fine lines and wrinkles. It’s a stance on morality that has completely excised the interests of others, which is to say, an anti-morality, a consumer product marketed in moral terms, a justification for selfishness bought off the rack.

The man speaks his mind! And I can’t say I disagree. When the Self replaces the Soul, and productivity becomes enshrined as an unquestioned Good, there isn’t really room to evaluate moral action otherwise. Not that I can think of at least. Before you know it, personal sacrifice and forbearance become unintelligible virtues (if not reprehensible vices), recast as self-loathing or codependency. This is not necessarily a matter of therapy overreach so much as spiritual vacancy being filled by the world of, well, #seculosity.

Freddie goes further in dissecting where this anti-forgiveness sentiment may be coming from:

Do you want to know what ideology is? It’s not a collection of policy positions … It’s not even your conscious beliefs about right or wrong, your philosophy about how humans should act individually and collectively … No, ideology refers to those beliefs you do not examine because you do not see them as beliefs at all. … it’s the assumptions that you cannot understand as assumptions. And the ideology that Carons demonstrates here … says that the individual has no responsibility to anyone but themselves. There is no moral duty, there is only the immediate emotional needs of the individual, which eclipses all other concerns, which is sacrosanct.

We have a vestigial communal sense that forgiveness is good and important, for the very sensible reason that we are all fallible and thus are all deserving of some kinds of forgiveness, sometimes.

The question remains, who in the world could possibly look out at contemporary society and think that the message “put yourself before other people” isn’t loud enough? Every women’s site on the internet preaches this message. Every hustle bro on Threads preaches this message. Every therapist between San Diego and Sacramento preaches this message. Every eight-word meme in overly elaborate cursive font on Pinterest preaches this message. There’s the girlboss version and the Joe Rogan bro version and horoscope obsessive version and the Wall Street grindset version and the fitness guru on trenbolone version … Justification for selfishness is not in short supply. It is the water in which we swim.

He goes on to make the connection to religious decline explicit. Suffice it to say, the mounting ambivalence about forgiveness (and reflexive reliance on therapy-isms) might be seen as evidence of spiritual hunger, not spiritual indifference or antagonism. It’s an attempt to circumvent the pain of condemnation (the law), which, when married to an unrealistically high anthropology, sadly tends to amplify it. This is a gospel that seeks to find consolation in the insistence that you and I have nothing to be forgiven of — our only crime is that we haven’t been self-seeking -caring enough. As opposed to a gospel which says that you have been forgiven, out of love, for more than you know. See also: Luke 15.

3. In a similar vein, Kathryn Jezer-Morton had the guts to ask, “Is Affirmation Culture Sabotaging Our Friendships and Ourselves?” in her fantastic newsletter, The Brooding. You may be aware of the spate of recent books about women in the throes of midlife meltdowns, most of which depict and even seem to celebrate divorce as the key to liberation. Parul Sehgal made waves in The New Yorker for taking aim at one of these books (Sarah Manguso’s Liars) for some of the reasons that Freddie outlines above. In doing so, however, she appears to have violated the unspoken little-l laws that govern the way modern women often communicate with one another. Jezer-Morton took the opportunity to interrogate what happens when affirmation (ostensibly a wonderful thing!) becomes axiomatic and ironclad — that is, what happens when grace becomes a law: in this case, forgiveness is once again written out of the equation. I couldn’t help but appreciate the refreshing note of #lowanthropology at the end.

It feels like the prevailing communication style among adult women — moms especially — is affirmation. Maybe this gels into place during the baby and toddler years, when we’re all just helping each other survive, and it’s hard to break the mold. Or maybe affirmation-based friendship is a wider phenomenon of our current moment, not exclusive to new moms… There is a cautiousness innate in the way we seem to approach the self these days — be careful with me, we demand. I like to be handled with care as much as the next person, but I also wonder what we lose when we stick to validation instead of risking the consequences of directness when it comes to our close friends.

The rule goes something like this: A woman who is the aggrieved party in a relationship with a man is entitled to affirmation from other women. Women in this situation are considered categorically blameless, because women are categorically blamed for so much. There’s a cosmic score being settled: Women have been f—–d over by men for so long that we should get full immunity in our domestic disputes. Even in my longest-standing group text of moms, we have a little joke that if one of us were ever to drop in and admit to having committed a murder, we’d all reply, immediately and vehemently, that she was justified. Babe. You had no choice. The group text will defend its members, no questions asked, no matter how heinous the crime. Nothing can compel us to break the bonds of affirmation.

This is a rule based on fairly reductive black-and-white thinking … I’ve often felt that by insisting that women are in the right when we’re dealing with men, we’re denying ourselves the privilege of being the asshole. This seems unfair, almost a denial of part of our own humanity.

4. In Humor, “Raygun’s Apology To Breakdancing Community Sparks Outrage From Apology Community” from The Onion cracked me up. Parents will get a chuckle out of McSweeney’s list, “We Have Updated Our Children’s Menu Options to Better Reflect What We See Your Children Doing in Our Restaurant.” The mac ‘n’ cheese one hit home especially. The funniest thing I’ve listened to in an age is “lugubrious huxter,” the Magic-the-Gathering-themed episode of Australian comic James Donald Forbes McCann’s podcast, The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan. Heh. It’s niche as can be, but those who fit the bill should prepare to roll on the floor. McCann, probably my new favorite comedian, also hosts a show with a fellow Aussie Catholic in which they go through their church’s catechism called The Catecast AKA “the hip new Catechism podcast taking the world by storm.” Hilarious and profane but also utterly sincere and smart, I can’t think of a Protestant equivalent. You can thank me later.

But definitely the most Mbird-y humor this week would be “Things People Have Yelled Down to Me, a Person Trapped Alone at the Bottom of a Well,” which brilliantly satirizes self-help approaches to non-self-helpable problems (depression, addiction, grief, oppression, etc). For example:

— Yeah, I was trapped in a well once too. It was pretty dank. But the well just went away when I made sure to sleep more every night, eat protein at breakfast, and cold plunge every ninety minutes.

— Maybe there’s something you need to learn from this well, like resilience?

— C’mon, this well isn’t even that deep. Did you know there was a guy in 1895 who got trapped in a well that was 143 feet deep? The water in his well was up to his chest. Yours is thigh height at the most. Anyway, this guy carved his own steps into the well, climbed those steps with broken bones, and then hoisted his own battered body out using enormous sunflowers!

— You could start by changing the story you’re telling yourself. And maybe your attitude.

— That 1895 guy didn’t even have a single person around to shout suggestions down to him from the safety and comfort of not being in the well. You really do need to practice gratitude. Have you gotten yourself a journal yet? I mean, you could at least try etching things you’re grateful for into the well’s wall with your fingernails.

5. Theologian Brad East, one of the more reasonable (and irenic) voices to emerge in the theologosphere over the last few years, sure has been on a roll lately. Over on the Homebound Symphony, Mbird fave Alan Jacobs has been going back and forth with East about the buzzy subject of (re-)enchantment, and I’ve found their exchange to be predictably edifying. It even relates to the discussion of demonology we ventured on the Mockingcast this past May. Brad also has a new book about The Church coming out next month from Lexham Press, from which his essay “Worship Together or Bowl Alone” on Christianity Today was presumably developed. Jason Micheli interviewed East about that book and I recommend tuning in, even if you, like me, have a pretty hard time getting excited about ecclesiology in any guise these days. A couple notable paragraphs from the CT piece:

The lesson we should have learned long ago is that the more the church is indistinguishable from the world, the less the world has any reason to take an interest in it. The church cannot do better therapy than counselors, better concerts than rock bands, or better TED talks than best-selling authors. In a competition to entertain, the church will always lose to brunch and the NFL.

The more we try to play catch-up to Hollywood, Nashville, and Silicon Valley, the less distinct the church will be — and the less suited to its purpose of worshiping God and forming humans. The practical benefits of the church’s common life are not its proper center. They are byproducts of the Spirit gathering a human community around the incarnate Son of God, and they will deteriorate or vanish altogether if we are no longer centered on Christ.

I would only add that there can also be a idolatry of church-as-Church, or church-as-Other, that can distract from its purpose (God) just as effectively as any consumerism. I see this primarily in more “high church” settings, in which the forms/language are so foreign to contemporary life that a suffering person who didn’t grow up in that tradition would simply have no entry point, let alone feeling of welcome. Church-as-Wholly-Other can be a transcendent space, but it’s one that risks failing to address actual people (and/or keep them engaged). Of course, then there are those churches on the lower end of the spectrum that almost seem to luxuriate in their oppositional stance re: the world — and look for places to aggressively differentiate — which strikes me as equally idolatrous and anti-Jesus. If you figure it out, I’m all ears.

6. Social science study of the week: “Our Morals Change with the Seasons.” The journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences recently published findings suggesting that, “at a population level, people are less likely to endorse more traditional moral values in summer and winter.” There’s a caveat though:

Individualizing values, defined as ones that include care and fairness, focusing on the morality of individual rights, showed little variation over time and didn’t follow a seasonal trend. However, binding values — values that prioritize the needs of one’s group, including loyalty, respect for authority, and purity of tradition—followed a biannual pattern. Endorsement of these values seemed to peak in spring and fall, and dip in the winter and summer.

Fascinating. Also this: “Population-level patterns in anxiety also followed a seasonal cycle — peaking in the spring and fall.”

7. In closing, and to return to the themes that Jon Guerra touches upon in his song at top, Plough published a marvelous essay by Benjamin Crosby that explores the difference between American Freedom and Christian Freedom. Let’s just say that a certain tract by a certain German reformer plays a central role.

For [Martin] Luther, Christian freedom means that we are free before God so we can love and serve our neighbor. Consider this: if we do not grasp our freedom before God by the gift of salvation through faith, we use works in an attempt to enter into a right relationship with God. Our good works are thus not entirely disinterested; we are hoping to get something for them. Even the best thing we might do for someone else is related to our desire for salvation. But for the Christian who understands that we truly are free coram Deo, says Luther, our works can function differently. Now we no longer need to perform works for ourselves. Instead, we can do good purely for our neighbor as an expression of our gratefulness to God.

If the Christian life coram Deo is embracing Christ’s free gift, the Christian life coram mundo is reflecting Christ’s own ungenerous, abundant love to our neighbors. This leads to what Luther calls the “freest servitude,” when the Christian, “abundantly filled with the completeness and richness of his or her own faith, serves another freely and willingly.” Such service is done wholly without concern for reward or remuneration; the Christian soul “expends itself and what it has in a completely free and happy manner, whether squandering these things on the ungrateful or on the deserving.” […]

True freedom for the Christian isn’t about making our own will or desires the measure of our reality; it isn’t really about exercising agency at all. Rather, it is about embracing the truth that our standing before God rests not on who we are but who God is, and what God has done for us in Christ. And then it is about responding to that glorious good news with gratitude, embracing our freedom from earning salvation by living for our neighbors with Christlike love and service.

In this light, American-style individualism is revealed as not freedom but in fact a perverse form of unfreedom, a bondage of the self to itself, to its own fleeting whims and desires.

Strays:

• RIP James Earl Jones. The man’s legendary voice and presence shaped us all in many ways (the Sesame Street lore was new to me!), but I think I speak for a generation of Gen X men when I say I’ll never get over when he transformed into that snake in Conan the Barbarian.
• The church is not the only social institution falling off a cliff. The Economist reports that nudist organizations in Europe have been declining just as precipitously. #newsyoucanuse
• About the most interesting exploration of the Stuck Culture Theory and eternity I’ve ever read, courtesy of Sam Kriss, beginning with Lena Dunham and ending with Augustine. Has culture stopped? Does God only exist in the present or at all times simultaneously? Does Girls stand up ten years later? All this and more.
• Speaking of which, according to the Wall Street Journal, “Dumbphones and Fax Machines Are the New Boss Flex.” This certainly tracks with my own observation in recent years that the more affluent the environment, the worse the cell phone reception and Internet connectivity will be.
• Finally, Iowans take heed! As part of the Iowa Preachers Project, Mbird is co-hosting a Preaching Slam on Monday, September 23rd at Luther Memorial Church in Des Moines, Iowa: