Oh, those magical Christians

I've been thinking, lately, about the "magical" elements of Christianity. And lo, in an article in the Jewish Review of Books ("It's not just for Jews anymore!"), I read this:

To put it crudely, if Christianity is a fantasy religion, then Judaism is a science fiction religion. If the former is individualistic, magical, and salvationist, the latter is collective, technical, and this-worldly.

The article, incidentally, was quite interesting; it asks, and attempts to answer, why there have been no great Jewish fantasy writers. But I digress: I'm wondering about the characterization of Christianity as "magical", which, I think, is not inaccurate. There are certainly elements of the religion that defy any sort of conventional logic (viz., transubstantiation, parthenogenesis, trinitarianism, &c.). In recent centuries, various sects have attempted to excise those elements that have proven increasingly baffling to modern man. The end result of this process is, I suppose, Unitarianism. My favorite Unitarian joke, if you must know, is this:

Q: How do you get a Unitarian family to leave town?
A: Burn a question mark in their front yard.

Last night while I was trying to fall asleep it occurred to me that, should one remove all the "magical" elements of Christianity, one is left without any sort of physical manifestation of the Divine whatsoëver. The Real Presence in the Eucharist? Out. The Incarnation? Nope. Miracles? Well, of course not. A de-magicized Christianity is, in fact, a good deal more "spiritual" and a lot less material.

Here I shall make an argumentum ad verecundiam: Wendell Berry says we need to be a good deal more cognizant that we are creatures of matter, so it must be true. (The implications of this are fodder for a great many other posts, but I shan't delve into that here.) I wonder, however, how a Unitarian, or a Jeffersonian agnostic, or certain Episcopalians, can back up this sentiment without recourse to that absurd idea that matter itself has been made divine.

From "Christian Discourses", Søren Kierkegaard

Father in Heaven, well we know that it is Thou
that givest both to will and to do, that also longing,
when it leads us to renew the fellowship with our Savior and Redeemer,
is from Thee. Father in Heaven, longing is Thy gift.

But when longing lays hold of us, oh, that we might lay hold of the longing;
when it would carry us away, that we might give ourselves up.
When Thou art near to summon us,
that we also might keep near to Thee in supplication.
When Thou in the longing dost offer us the highest good,
oh, that we might hold it fast!

Dies Cinerum

One of the small pleasures of attending such an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic university as Notre Dame is that people don't look at you funny for walking around with a smudge on your forehead today. (Of course, Lutherans and other saner Protestants also distribute ashes, but an ostensibly Lutheran school like Augustana is basically secular.)

It is a remarkable thing, this wearing of ashes. No other day of the year do we so boldly proclaim our identity as followers of that Jesus fellow. And how could we? Indeed, how can we, even for one day, presume to represent the moral teachings of Christ? We fail miserably, and are (rightly) judged as hypocrites. And yet God suffers this (or, at least, is content to let it continue). I suppose it is right that we are permitted to persist in our striving towards sanctity.

O-lim-picks

Christopher ("Christ-bearer"! Ha!) Hitchens may be an intolerable blowhard, but he happens to have some interesting thoughts on the Olympics (which, I understand, are going on now).

Have you ever had a discussion about higher education that wasn't polluted with babble about the college team and the amazingly lavish on-campus facilities for the cult of athletic warfare? Noticed how the sign of a bad high school getting toward its Columbine moment is that the jocks are in the saddle? Worried when retired generals appear on the screen and talk stupidly about "touchdowns" in Afghanistan? By a sort of Gresham's law, the emphasis on sports has a steadily reducing effect on the lowest common denominator, in its own field and in every other one that allows itself to be infected by it.

As usual, Hitchens has overstated his case in his rush to be "controversial", but there's something to be said about the sports-mania that afflicts our society. It is certainly obvious that international sports have very little, if anything, to do with promoting goodwill among nations. Bread and circuses, I say. Bread and circuses.

"Moral Luck"?

I'm not a regular reader of The New Yorker, but if I happen upon it (i.e., if I find it unused in the common kitchen area of the house), I'll give it a look-see. In an article on Van Gogh, there's a digression on Gauguin—who, like Wagner, happened to be a generally terrible man who made extraordinary art.

[Bernard] Williams points out that Gauguin's is a prime real-life case where doing the wrong thing—abandoning your wife and children and betraying your friends—appears to be morally justifiable, since the art made was, as it happened, great. Moral assessment, Williams suggests, has a strong component of sheer contingency and chance. You run a red light and no one notices; I run a red light and hit an old lady and I'm the worst guy in the world.
...
Gauguin is the original of the type, of whom Picasso is the most famous realization, of the artist as gambler—the solitary risk-taker, indifferent to anyone's welfare but his own and therefore capable of acts of independence and originality unknown to timid, orderly, nice people, acts that thrill and inspire new acts a century later. It is the goal of that kind of modern artist to run the red light and hit the old ladies—the old ladies of custom and convention. Where art since the Renaissance had attempted to limit luck in a system of inherited purpose and patterns, modern art demands that you press the pedal as hard as you can, and pray.

So that's what's wrong with modern art: the urge to upset people enough to be remembered for it by future generations, and the rejection of "inherited purpose". The great myth of modern art (of modern man, come to think of it) is that the artist is an autonomous individual whose actions, however abhorrent, may be justified by the acclaim of people unknown, or unborn.

It is far to easy for me to sit back in my armchair and complain, though. Let me talk of something I may be a bit more qualified to discuss: music. We see the same type among composers, as well: Wagner, Schoenberg, perhaps even Mahler(?!). But the world would be a far worse place without the music of these men. (For those uncertain about Schoenberg, I suggest you try his Gurrelieder, or Verklärte Nacht. Gorgeous pieces.) Would their great art have been possible if these men had not been egotistical bastards? I don't know.

Carcassonne

Distraction, as Mr Berry tells us, is inimical to discipline. (One assumes it is inimical to disciprine, as well.) This is unfortunate, as I recently have discovered a new source of distraction. Perhaps you are acquainted with that methodical German board game, Carcassonne? Well, I discovered that it is possible to play this game online (though it is not exactly the real thing; the online version is named after a different walled provençal city, Toulouse). If you happen to know how to play, perhaps we might play together sometime, eh?

Of course, I do feel a bit guilty, what with the distraction and inimicity to discipline. For my penance I intend to visit a local bookstore and buy the real thing, which I have espied in the window of said bookstore. I will then be able to play Carcassonne with real people, which I'm sure will be far more satisfying, anyway. (I'll continue to insist that people make that "doot-do-do-dooo" trumpet sound when claiming a city, though...)