Techno-Luddites Rejoice!

If you are one of those (like me) who eternally debates the various benefits of listening to custom MP3 playlists all day against gently and reverently placing a cold, shiny vinyl album on a spinning wheel and watching in glee as a plain, honest, literal needle descends and magically sends forth warm, beautiful, snuggleably organic tonalities.....then according to Wired Magazine, your time may be at hand!

Heterodoxy, or: Further Up, Further In, and Our Hope in God that We End Up in the Same General Direction

Do any two Christians actually believe in the same version of Christianity?

On the face of it, most people (or at least most Evangelicals) would give a resounding "yes." I mean, of course there are the "conservatives," who "believe in the Bible," and the "liberals," who are a bit more squishy about matters of doctrine (generally) but no less lacking for steely-eyed indignation against certain evils in the world. And then those emergent folks, who try to mix the two in strange ways while using bigger words for secular matters and little short words for theology (because that's the language the world speaks). And of course the Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, but in America they mainly stay huddled up in corners and occasionally make silly faces at the rest of us.

So lets just look at organized Conservative Evangelicalism. Heck, let's just look at the Southern Baptist Convention. They all convene together, after all. Though they do tend to argue, and form various sides such as "reformed" and "prosperity heresy" and suchlike. So...let's look at the Conservative, non-superchurch, plane-jane SBC First Baptist Churches that pop up in your typical mid-sized Texan town. And let's look at the people in one theoretical version. Some people are Southern Baptists because they grew up so by God and going to Church on Sunday is simply what good people do. Some because it's the place with dead-on doctrines, preaching boldly and without flinching even when the Bible talks about homosexuality as a vile preversion (although they generally tend to downplay things the Bible has to say about, say, excommunication and submission to Church leaders.) Some are just there because it's the place where the Gospel is preached, even though they personally find it stuffy and oppressive. But all of them have about an equal right to be called Baptists.

Recently, C. S. Lewis tried to solve all this fuss, and gave a series of WWII radio broadcasts explaining the fundamental thing that Christianity "is," the things that all Christians share regardless of denomination. He did such a great job that Mere Christianity became arguably the most-read "classic" among evangelicals, yet a work that reaches out to a far broader audience. (I was amused once to find him outside the "C of E and Dissidents" section of a Catholic bookseller--my conclusion is that he is considered a Catholic author only because of the prayers of the departed Saints Tolkien and Chesterton. And if that's improper Catholic doctrine--hey, what's being a Protestant mean if you can't occasionally Make Stuff Up Yourself.) The only problem: he offered a common-sense explanation. And therefore, I've seen at least a couple of very well-reasoned Evangelical articles on why Mere Christianity demonstrates Lewis' status as a heretic, and therefore someone (presumably) roasting in Hell. I mean, not only was he downright friendly with the scientific theory of Evolution, but the guy said that you didn't even have to be a Christian to be a Christian! “There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it."

Of course, generally it is only lay-Christians who even assume a commonality of doctrine among believers--pretty much any time an intellectual discipline of theology develops, a gradient of "core issue/ancillary issue" and the concomitant "orthodox/heterodox/heretical" soon follows. Of course, few systems (as much as they might want to) line up precisely--even on the "core issue" area. And that's before the theoretical ideal "system" gets interpreted by its followers.

I'm not about to say that I have a theologian's understanding--and unless God calls me to make a career of theology, I probably never will. But the whole point of the Chestertonian Rambler is for me to blog irresponsibly, so here's my two cents:

If God exists, then my theology, like my life, is in His hands. The unity of the Church, too, is in his hands. So I'll spend my own time wrestling with Scriptures as Jacob wrestled with the angel. And I'll pray that God breaks me where I am wrong, just as the angel broke Jacob. And in all things, even theology, I'll seek humility (and the child of humility, graciousness of speech) as in various ways I testify to what I can see of God.

After all, as the liberally foulmouthed and often surly Luther once said (or was it his erstwhile ally and bitter foe about human free will, Erasmus?):

In essentials unity, in non-essentials diversity, in all things charity.

The horror! The horror!

Just saw the latest Beowulf Trailer. A few confusions.

1) LSD and Anglo-Saxon literature should NEVER mix.
2) Trailers that do the "fade-in, fade-out" montage style...should FADE ALL THE WAY IN. If I ever develop epilepsy, it will be because of that trailer. I don't care if such causality is physically impossible--that trailer can do the impossible, as long as it's pointless and irritating.
3) I saw Beowulf standing on top of the dragon. This means, I think, that I should give up all hope of anything I like from the poem of being included...even Wiglaf. Darnit. Wiglaf is cool.
4) Grendel's mother is still played by Angelina Jolie. No matter how many trailers they release, this isn't going to change.
5) Beowulf will never be made into a movie in which the plot and themes of Beowulf are even remotely visible. No matter how many film versions they release, that also isn't going to change.

6) Despite (1) and (5), I'd still see Julie Taymor's Beowulf on opening night, if she ever got around to making it. (She did start, once!)

Magic and Story

Was reading a rather interesting book today, and ran across a comment that gave me pause. Basically, it was talking about legends, and stated the old theme in fantasy that magic is a sort of cousin of Story, and works the same way. That is, we want stories about Families, and so one character who has a miraculous (and magical) life is likely to give birth to another character whose life is, in a manner of speaking, magical.

Or to go with the bigger theme, we want Stories where the little beat-up Cinderella grows up to be the beautiful princess, so we call in the narrative component of Magic to make things interesting and unusual and miraculous--that is, to make them Story-ish.

But if magic were real, it would seem the opposite would be true. Magic would just be one more way for the rich to have comfortable lives--and to ignore the pleas of the poor. Because those who seek power would gain magic, and they would want to keep their power exclusively. I dunno...I hate the tendency to make magic a thin veneer on reality, when there's so much expressive ability in the tropes and characters of fantasy stories themselves, but I still can't help but think: there have to be some wonderful fairy-tales to be found where magic itself is the enemy of Story, the protector of the powerful and enemy of the weak. I wonder what they would look like...