Echoes

We watched a DVD of The Conspirator last night.  It wasn't a movie I'd heard anything about, although it had a fairly distinguished cast: James McAvoy, Tom Wilkinson, Robin Wright, Kevin Kline, and a bunch of other reasonably well-known faces hidden under various 19th century beards and moustaches.   Robert Redford directed.

It concerns the trial of Mary Surratt, a woman who had the misfortune to be the mother of a young man aligned with John Wilkes Booth and the other men involved with the assassination of Lincoln (and the attempted assassinations of the Vice-President and the Secretary of State).  How much of what we saw was factual, I don't know, but it made a satisfactory drama.  (The story is told in great detail on Wikipedia.)

Booth and his crew used Surratt's boarding house as a meeting-place because of John Surratt's involvement with them.  This fact was used against Mary Surratt to charge her with conspiracy, although it seems likely she wasn't in fact involved in any way more than being a relative and a sympathiser of the lost Southern cause.   McAvoy played her initially unsympathetic lawyer thrown into the deep end with no witnesses on hand, and fighting against a military tribunal; the case was illegally heard by the military rather than a civil court.

The film connects the case in many ways to the state of affairs in American life that surfaced after 9/11, when normality was often overturned, and the military viewpoint allowed to hold sway.  While there is no specific reference to later events, it's evident that the scriptwriters had this in mind.

It's inferred in the movie that the conspirators originally only planned to kidnap Lincoln.  This isn't clarified to any extent, and the film opens with a long sequence in which Lincoln is shot and the Secretary of State violently attacked in his bed (the Vice President was supposed to be assassinated too, but the assassin lost his courage).   Redford produces an excellent movie that holds your attention throughout, even though it seems unlikely that Surratt is going to be let off.  The odds are stacked too highly against her.

Looking back you wonder why these men plotted as they did, when the Civil War was to all intents and purposes well and truly over (official peace is announced in the movie some time after Lincoln's death), but such situations have been a common after-event of wars for millennia.  I was reading again this morning in the book of Jeremiah (in the Old Testament) how, after the Babylonians had finally destroyed Jerusalem (it took many years of various states of siege) and had taken off its puppet king to Babylon, they gave over the governorship of the land into the hands of a Jew named Gedaliah.  Gedaliah seems to have been a man of integrity, trustworthy, capable of keeping the land in a reasonable state on behalf of its captors.   Jeremiah was one of the many poorer people who were left behind in his care.  Everything seemed to have come about as Jeremiah had prophesied, and a certain state of peace reigned.

Except that there was a bloke named Ishmael (he may have been a member of the royal line, as Gedaliah may also have been) who, not content with the state of affairs, plotted to kill Gedaliah.  The latter was warned of this, but chose to ignore the danger - probably as Lincoln himself chose, or had to choose, to ignore the possibility that there would be factions still unhappy with the state of affairs. and that his life might be in danger.

Ishmael assassinated Gedaliah, and many of his followers, and proceeded to slaughter a number of pilgrims who were on their way to what was left of the Holy City.  When violence is started, it spreads to innocent people who happen to get in the way - as we see in the movie where Government aides and others are injured.  Ishmael and his crew were eventually routed by people faithful to Gedaliah, but by that time it was too late for the unfortunate Governor.

The fabric of...

It's intriguing how the word fabric is used so often to indicate something abstract as opposed to something material (as in upholstery fabric).  I've just been flicking through the various clippings I have on Evernote and again and again the usage relates to humans within a particular grouping.  I guess you could say that wasn't abstract, in the sense that humans are fairly material on the whole, but the usage is metaphorical rather than realistic, I'd think.

Here are some examples:

we see that the MET is a beautiful place and that the fabric comes from us all.   MET here is an abbreviation for Metropolis, and is used on the site, My Modern Met.

“The cost I feel is a deep unrest and a threat to the fabric of the church,” says one pastor. [Taking Your Church Missional].  Fabric in this instance is used in a quite common sense, but the next one takes the metaphor further: 

...mile upon mile of clogged collector roads [are] the only fabric tying our disassociated lives back together [The Missional Church in Suburbia, byTodd Hiestand]

...the power of a type of "curated membership community" that, while not new, has become an [sic] increasingly central to the fabric of modern professional life.  [Beyond Groups: why curated membership communities are today's most important networks, by Nathaniel Whittemore]  

Here's a slightly different usage: The Church is intrinsic to the vision of the purposes of God and the fabric of salvation.  [Jeremy Begbie on N T Wright and the Emerging Church.]   

And I like this one: Something of God must be woven into the literary fabric, not just embroidered on as decoration.  [Joseph Bottum writing about literary detectives in God and the Detectives.]

Or this line, from Kevin Ward, in a his Inaugural Lecture at Knox College in 2009: Incarnation is a one-off, unique, unrepeatable break in the fabric of creation.

These are enough examples for one post, but I must just mention that when I did a search for fabric in my clippings, I brought up several posts by Kim Fabricius, a writer whose sharp, even mordant, wit is a delight, as is his wisdom.  A few examples of his 'doodlings' - plenty more can be found on the Faith and Theology site.

I reckon that adults should be admitted to the Bible only if they are accompanied by children.

I don’t have a PhD (for me the suggestion to do one was a temptation, not an opportunity), but tell me if I’m wrong in saying that unless it bears fruit in the virtues of gratitude, humility, and friendship, it does indeed amount to poo “piled higher and deeper”.

Enough is enough. Attacking the New Atheists is like shooting a man giving himself a lethal injection.

I like the idea of Liquid Church – as in liquid lunch.  And Messy Church has got to be better than the usual anal retentive one.  But the church patterned on saints I love and admire is Circus Church (William Stringfellow) – a travelling freak show. 

Election Forums

An invitation from the Centre for Theology and Public Issues to

ELECTION FORUMS in DUNEDIN and WELLINGTON

There's an election coming next month. How should we vote? What questions should we put to candidates? Will our voices be heard?

There's an opportunity to discuss some of the important issues we face at two Churches' Election Forums which the Centre for Theology and Public Issues is co-hosting in the first week of November. Each will include short presentations from an invited panel; summary and commentary; and opportunity for discussion and questions. (Please note these are not 'candidate meetings').

At each event the focus will be on four broad themes:

• alcohol, advertising, consumerism and their effects;
• our national identity and the Treaty;
• families and relationships;
• crime and punishment.

Churches are also encouraged to download the Centre's 'election resource pack' which also covers these themes. These would be ideal for discussion by groups in the weeks leading up to the election.


You are very welcome to these forums. Please also make them known among churches and other networks.

Dunedin: TUESDAY 1 NOVEMBER, 7.30 - 9.00 pm, Burns Hall, First Church, Moray Place.

Panel:

• Glyn Carpenter (Director, New Zealand Christian Network)
• Gillian Bremner (CEO Presbyterian Support Otago)
• Prof Andrew Bradstock (Centre for Theology and Public Issues)
• Dr Andrew Shepherd (Centre for Theology and Public Issues).

Summary: Rt Rev Kelvin Wright (Anglican Bishop of Dunedin)

Chair: Rev Anne Thomson (First Church).

Wellington: THURSDAY 3 NOVEMBER, 7.00 - 9.00 pm: St John's in the City.

Panel:

Glyn Carpenter (Director, New Zealand Christian Network)

Rev Susan Blaikie (Wellington City Missioner)

Lisa Beech (Research and Advocacy Coordinator, Caritas)

Dr Andrew Shepherd (Centre for Theology and Public Issues)

Summary: Rev Canon Deborah Broome

Chair: Very Rev Frank Nelson (Dean of Wellington).

Further information from: Jill Rutherford, Centre for Theology and Public Issues (03 479 5358; jill.rutherford@otago.ac.nz)

Office Hours:  9.00am - 12 noon,  Mondays -Thursday

Andrew Bradstock
Howard Paterson Professor of Theology and Public Issues
Director, Centre for Theology and Public Issues
Department of Theology and Religion
University of Otago
PO Box 56
Dunedin 9054

(03) 479 8450 
andrew.bradstock@otago.ac.nz
www.otago.ac.nz/ctpi
www.facebook.com/pages/University-of-Otago-Centre-for-Theology-and-Public-Issues/237859522928938

The right way to deal with statistics

Bradley Wright, pg 218-9 of Christians are Hate-filled Hypocrites...and other lies you've been told:

For reasons I don't fully understand, statistics hold a strange power over people. Someone who is otherwise a clear thinker will readily accept something not true when it is presented as a statistic. (This is especially true for statistics presented in written form.) Statistics somehow can bypass the critical-thinking part of hte brain and go straight ot the "oh, that must be right" part.

Guess what? You don't have to believe all statsitics! The Bible commands us to love others unconditionally, but this applies to people, not statistics. With statistics, we should be everything we shouldn't be with people - cranky, sceptical, and critical. With statistics, acceptance should be earned, not freely given.

I routinely irritate friends and family by not believing the statistics that they tell me if the statistics don't sound right. When I disagree, they sometimes respond by repeating the statistic, in case I somehow missed that it's a statistic (and therefore to be accepted at face value). I still choose not to believe it, and their reaction is often one of disbelief, as if I'm breaking some unwritten rule.

His rules for his 'deputy-sociologists' in dealing with a statistic (pg 221):

Question whether it's accurate
Question the motives of the person writing
Disagree with the conclusions
Judge the statistic in light of your own experiences
Not believe it for any reason, including just being in a cranky mood.

I note that this has been my way of working with statistics for quite some time, so it's nice to know I'm in good company!

N T Wright on the Arts

‘We have lived for too long with the arts as the pretty bit around the edge with the reality as a non-artistic thing in the middle. But the world is charged with the grandeur of God. Why should we not celebrate and rejoice in that? And the answer sometimes is because the world is also a messy and nasty and horrible place. And, of course, some artists make a living out of representing the world as a very ugly and wicked and horrible place. And our culture has slid in both directions so that we have got sentimental art on the one hand and brutalist art in the other. And if you want to find sentimental art then, tragically, the church is often a good place to look, as people when they want to paint religious pictures screen out the nasty bits. But genuine art, I believe, takes seriously the fact that the world is full of the glory of God, and that it will be full as the waters cover the sea, and, at present (Rom 8), it is groaning in travail. Genuine art responds to that triple awareness: of what is true (the beauty that is there), of what will be true (the ultimate beauty), and of the pain of the present, and holds them together as the psalms do, and asks why and what and where are we. You can do that in music, and you can do that in painting. And our generation needs us to do that not simply to decorate the gospel but to announce the gospel. Because again and again, when you can do that you open up hermeneutic space for people whose minds are so closed by secularism that they just literally cannot imagine any other way of the world being. I have debated in public in America with colleagues in the New Testament guild who refuse to believe in the bodily resurrection and, again and again, the bottom line is when they say ‘I just can’t imagine that’, the answer is, ‘Smarten up your imagination’. And the way to do that is not to beat them over the head with dogma but so to create a world of mystery and beauty and possibility, that actually there are some pieces of music which when you come out of them it is much easier to say ‘I believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit’ than when you went in’.

Thanks to Jason Goroncy for alerting me to this (long) paragraph, which comes from a talk N T Wright gave entitled, 'Jesus, the Cross and the Power of God' - a conference paper presented at the European Leaders' Conference, Warsaw, 2006. (It seems only to be available as an mp3.)

I love that response: Smarten up your imagination!

Atonement

For some reason I'd heard mixed opinions on Atonement, so wasn't sure what to expect. In terms of performances and film craft (particularly the visual aspects) it's superb. In terms of intensity, the first half is strong, but the second, where it focuses almost entirely for some time on the character of Robbie, seems to lack something. Things pick up again once we're back in London, with the grown-up Briony trying to make amends for her most ill-judged decision back when she was 13, and then there are the final scenes with Vanessa Redgrave playing the elderly Briony, where Redgrave imbues her few minutes of screen time with an intensity that matches the early scenes.

Saoirse Ronan gives an extraordinary performance, the gaucheness matched by the conniving, the stiff body that seems unable to relax, the jealousy that we only understand much later. And Keira Knightley and James McAvoy are solid in their roles. Knightley's role unfortunately diminishes after the first half - she only appears briefly two or three times, and in the war scenes McAvoy is left to play almost to himself; the two accompanying soldiers make little impact. This is the way the screenplay is constructed; I don't know as yet how the book works in this respect (though I'm more tempted to read it after seeing the movie).

Joe Wright seems to be one of those directors who's come out of nowhere. Apart from his recent revamp of Pride and Prejudice, which had some odd moments, (but certainly gave fresh vision to the story) his only work seems to have been in television, and even there, it's been not well-known in general. How did he get to handle Atonement, which obviously has a good deal of money behind it? The lengthy single take on Dunkirk beach is a huge achievement on its own, even though it doesn't add a lot to the story, regrettably. (It competes strongly with the single take in Children of Men.) And it must have used up more than half the film's budget.

About this scene, Wikipedia notes: Charles II: The Power and The Passion, Pride and Prejudice and Atonement all have long tracking shots in them. Atonement has a continuous 4.5 minute shot of the Dunkirk evacuation. "Basically, I just like showing off," Wright told the audience at the Hay Festival. Showing off or not, (or seeing how much he can pack into one shot, like the number of bytes now packed into the average micro sd) the lengthy take is remarkably constructed, and the visual aspects have a painter-like feel about them, something that reflects Wright's art history background.

It would be interesting to re-view the film now that I know how it ends, and know what sort of 'trick' is played on the viewer. I think the acting and visuals would continue to enthrall, and the story might no longer be seen as the main thing. Knowing a great deal more about the characters and where they're headed would actually add to a repeated viewing, rather than take away from it, I think.