From Bonhoeffer to Weatherhead

My friend wrote to me about yet another potentially great institution doing something stupid. I found it helpful to respond in this way:

Subject: From Bonhoeffer to Weatherhead

I was talking yesterday afternoon to my process theologian friend about the evil that institutions do. I do think you must be talking about institutions and their mad, insane, irrational preoccupation with Bonhoeffer's subject, success.

Here are three theological seminaries with which I have personal experience. Three that have accrued such a surplus of stupid decisions that they cannot but do the harm they do. Add to the surplus of stupid the surplus of irrational idealism that we -- oops, I-language, Anne -- *I* invest in them. I want them to do the good that they can do. The good is why I wanted to join up with them. When I find that they are not communities after all, but collectives, with all of the magnification of human potential for bad, it hurts all the more. They continue to do this harm over and over. The salary and benefits eventually are not enough, and my capacity for detachment is not enough, to keep me there, entrapped by the system and my collusion in it.

What potential, then, is on the public face of these institutions, if not the evil one? Gospel potential, the rebel Jesus, the impulse of self-giving love, whatever it is that draws us into that light -- *that* potential. That's the false consciousness, I think, that sets up the miserable disillusionment and sense of the hidden parallel reality of meanness, bitter cruelty, and mindless plowing under of any nascent creativity and novelty.

Witness the damage these collectives have done. Not just the accretion of history (Inquisition, Constantine, the theologians and institutions under Hitler whom Bonhoeffer might have been addressing), but the immediately past memories of our own lives in churches, seminaries, and the institutions who employed us. We, the ones with whom I am now speaking in solidarity, threw our lives into them and were beaten down bluntly by the collective wickedness.

I asked M, is there not still a sum of good, potentially, that these broken institutions can do? We argued ourselves into a place that said, no, they have to eventually exhaust themselves (die?) of all of the negative energy they are accumulating more rapidly than they care to know. It takes a long, long time because the momentum they have accumulated is so strong. Creativity, novelty, options, the force of the better argument are not overwhelmed, however. These forces for good (may I say, forces of God -- in all of the beyonds, thanks, Laurel) emerge where they will, especially in the critical consciousness of those who survive the blunt force trauma and others who are able to escape the entrapment.

Will institutions always have this sine wave, of diminishing duration, this alternating current of good and evil? It seems such a waste because so much is possible when an accumulation of sufficient numbers of people form committed communities capable of clarity and unity of vision. Can't we go into these idealistic (real world) communal efforts with eyes wide open on the possibilities of distortion, to the net effect of a surplus of good? Isn't this happening somewhere? Or does it happen only for brief times and eventually succumb to the fatal flaw?

[I said to Chiclette (age 8) recently as we were approaching the bottoms of our ice cream cones after her softball practice on one of our just-the-two-of-us outings:
--Well, Honey, I guess all good things must come to an end.

Her reply, shaped by the disillusionments she has already suffered:
-You mean like you and Mommy?

Stunned, I responded:
--No, Honey, just ice cream cones. Your Mommy and I are just fine and we love you very much.

I think my point is, this relationship requires attention, careful presence, mindfully monitoring the potential for erosion of the energy that draws us together. The erotic idealistic energy that drew us together is not as sustaining as the energy of relationships anywhere eventually, in which the love and its potential must evolve constantly into novel forms and spaces. It's hard to explain all of that to an 8 year old. It requires lots of ice cream, and watching us grow, argue, test, bond, laugh, cry, etc.]

My New Airstream Web Site

You can click the heading above to get to the iWeb site I set up on my lunch hour today, to chronicle my Airstream projects. The first concerns the same subject as the previous post, with more photos and description.

To make it easy, I am IndyAnne on all of these Airstream-related places, like the Airforums. That's a wonderful web site, a great big help. Lots of DIY Airstream renovation enthusiasts post information and share advice here.

Let's face it -- most DIY adventures start with, "I was just trying to fix ... [insert your latest disaster here]."

That's my story on the bathroom rip-out. So, I get to rebuild the Airstream bathroom. And yet, I also made reservations to go camping in June with some good buddies from church, so getting it all back together is really going to be interesting.

Every tub has to sit...

So I'm workin' on the Airstream, the little love nest. I love the vintage postcard I got one time, dated circa 1950, atmosphere of post WWII optimism and individual freedom and all that, with a couple sitting in folding chairs on the roof of a travel trailer, watching the sunset. The caption read, "You know you're in love when you have to take your bedroom with you everywhere you go."

The grody 40-year-old bathroom in the Airstream is comin' out. I got a sabre saw and cut out the bathtub, the surround, and took up the white throne of judgment and put it in the garage. Then I hauled the love nest to CDS Trailers to get new tires and replace the angle iron holding the honey pot onto the frame underneath the throne.

Work has begun in earnest! Anybody need a fiberglass RV tub? I'm sure all the pieces can be glued back together, like a jigsaw puzzle.

They say the first thing to go into and Airstream was the rear bath, and you have to take everything out starting in the front in order to get the tub out. Oh yeah? Well, that's why the good Lord gave us sabre saws. That sucker is gondhi! Only this ghostly outline remains.

Now, on with the rehab. The floor gets ripped up, plumbing cut out -- more beer money from copper taken to reclamation! and everything updated with Nyloboard and PEX tubing. Woo-hoo!

Eggshells

Here I go again, walking on eggshells, knowing I probably should keep my mouth shut, but just can't do it.

The Jeremiah Wright speedbump in the Obama campaign is drawing all sorts of strange bedfellows together. The President of CTS has jumped into the fray.

President Wheeler and Dr. Jeremiah Wright are friends. I know they were both mentors in the D. Min. program at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH, where I used to teach. In fact, Dr. Wright's DMIN is from UTS. They are both leaders of leaders in significant segments of African American Christians. I realize the recent political scene has done harm to Dr. Wright’s reputation, used for political gains and losses. Dr. Wright’s inflammatory sermons may well have been taken out of context. Charges of racism behind the muckraking journalism calling attention to his sermons may very well be accurate.

Dr. Wheeler is a good friend, to speak up for Dr. Wright in the Indianapolis Star.

I recall another public statement from the President about another controversial matter at CTS this year, defending the seminary’s hosting a homophobic Christian denomination for ordination of its bishop in Indianapolis. This denomination is the Convocation for Anglicans in North American (CANA) and the local parish, The Anglican Church of the Resurrection. Our permitting this ordination in our facility was presented by the President in the guise of hospitality, of freedom of expression, of advancement of dialogue.

I have the impression that President Wheeler has a selective righteous indignation, or else he has a narrow view of friendship that might actually be very consistent. In his office, he is entitled to speak up for himself and to advance dialogue in the public sphere. My comparison of events spanning just a few months, however, finds that he will defend one friend who is being slandered by racists and opportunistic politicians, but he will live and let live while another group in the vicinity (from which he seems to distance himself while extending hospitality) engages in hate speech and uncharitable behavior toward gay, lesbian, sexual minorities, many of whom are also baptized Christians.

The public statement of December 15, 2007, strikes me as double-talk, far from calling out CANA and its congregations, priests, and bishops, some of whom are alumni or students of CTS. They should be challenged from this high office for their participation in homophobia, and, in fact to confront the reality that their very existence is fed by the energy of hate.

President Wheeler states that we have a relationship with the denomination, its priests, bishop, and local congregation. Friendship and reputation have tangled the President’s tongue over the troublesome matter of homophobia. The gift of President Wheeler’s friendship seems to entail a call for him to hasten to speak up against injustice. Hence, I must assume that he has no homosexual friends who have suffered because of Christians who hate them.

It is very difficult to call attention to injustice when the community at which hate is aimed has no legal status as a protected class. However, everyone who understands bigotry knows that we can still do the right thing when we are faced with the opportunity to advance justice and the beloved community. It is especially difficult to draw parallels between civil rights and social justice for gay people and the history of African American civil rights. A broad and deep critique exists that would ban such inferences. However, one oppressed community ought to be able to help the cause of justice for injustice anywhere. This is not easy, it is not politically expedient, but I think it is the right thing to do.

President Wheeler’s public statements could be considered by many to be statements of the position of CTS on matters of public consequence. In fact, responses to the opinion piece referenced above indicate that CTS is totally implicated in the defense of Jeremiah Wright, for positive or negative effect. This bears remembering and it will be remembered by at least one.