Ain’t it keen? Click to continue reading “Groovy new look”

Just to go full circle, here are some questions for non-Christian UUs.

Do you find the Christian story worse than other sacred stories? Is it no worse than others but just not the one that works for you? Do you buy that the Christian story can change and transform people? If so, why doesn’t it change you? Do other sacred stories change you? Or, if none do, do you wish one did?

(Questions for Christian UUs are here.)

UPDATE: Somehow I accidentally turned off comments, but they’re back on now. Please comment away!

UPDATE: Another set of question for non-Christian UUs.

Peacebang wrote a groovy post about what UU Chrsitians do. Here are some questions about why they do what they do, though the questions could be for any group really with a little adaptation.

Do you find the Christian story better than other sacred stories? Is it the first among equals? Is it no better than others but just the one that works for you? How does the Christian story change and transform you?

I was talking with a friend yesterday about sacred stories, and we remembered a time when the liberal (especially liberationist) Christian story was life saving for us, but now we have to tell that story in past tense. I’m curious how folks tell that story in the present tense.

(Some questions for non-Christian UUs are here.)

Church 2.0 just pointed me to a new Firefox plugin called Bible Fox, which changes your browser’s buttons into fishes and doves, crosses and churches. I think I hear Jesus crying.

The trouble with Empire is its persistence. Empire falls down now and again, but it always gets up.

What’s worse, those who push it down usually help it get back up. If they’re lucky enough to kill Empire, they find themselves becoming its latest incarnation.

Empire is dead, long live Empire.

Anti-Empire means well, but it doesn’t really get it. Its analysis of Empire’s failings is often brilliant. It can tell you just why and how Empire is stupid or evil, or both. It can lay out a beautiful vision of a perfect society and why it’s the one to make it happen.

But it can’t heal. Ideology can’t. Anti-Empire, with its earnest ideologuery, is just laying the groundwork to be a new Empire. As soon as it gets the chance.

Empire begets Empire.

I finished up Philip K. Dick’s freaky book VALIS last night. It’s gnostic, and if there’s anything consistently true about Gnostic writing, it’s that it’s freaky.

“Phildickian” gnosticism does not disappoint on that account. There’s the VALIS—the Vast Active Living Intelligence System—which controls the world and even creates it. There’s the Black Iron Prison, which is Phil’s tag for the oppressive, inescapable, bullshit socio-political order we live in.

And then there’s the sentence that pops up over and over again: The empire never ended. (Almost always in bold, natch.)

I write a lot about Empire here. By “Empire,” I mean something like the powers-that-be, something like the psychological, economic, political order that changes and evolves but always keeps us from being our best and brightest.

I don’t believe Empire is “real.” It’s just that it explains things to me. It’s a metaphor that works for me, so I run with it.

Other folks use other metaphors for it. Liberation theology types call it hegemony, racism, patriarchy, and more, pointing out how it shapes our very selves. Joe Bageant calls it the Hologram, pointing out it’s fakeness. Walter Wink calls it the Powers That Be, his paraphrase of Paul’s notion of “the princes and principalities of the air.” Folks used to call it the Man. And Phil Dick calls it the Black Iron Prison. It’s not a nation or person, it’s a way of exercising power.

What does it explain to me? It’s challenging for someone who doesn’t believe in Original Sin to explain how human shittiness keeps happening and happening. Click to continue reading “The empire never ended”