A Place to Keep Stuff

A message from Cornel West to US President Barak Obama

Mike Wagenman — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 17:57:52 +0000

Cornel West's note to Obama – January 20, 2010
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“After Psalm 137″

Mike Wagenman — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:40:12 +0000

We’re still in Babylon but
We do not weep
Why should we weep?
We have forgotten
How to weep

We’ve sold our harps
And bought ourselves machines
That do our singing for us
And who remembers now
The songs we sang in Zion?

We have got used to exile
We hardly notice
Our captivity
For some of us
There are such comforts here
Such luxuries

Even a guard
To keep the beggars
From annoying us

Jerusalem
We have forgotten you.

“After Psalm 137″ by Anne Porter, from Living Things Collected Poems. © Zoland Books, 2006.

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Stanley Hauerwas on Bonhoeffer

Mike Wagenman — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:01:39 +0000

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“Ora et Labora”: To work is to pray. Really?!?

Mike Wagenman — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:45:15 +0000

“To work is to pray,” dreadful because of the cynicism, the justification, the contempt which it expresses. Oh, I know all the possible theological justifications! Work is willed by God. Work fulfills man’s destiny. Work serves to complete nature, which is only in the rough. Work turns nature to the glory of God. When all that is put together, we see clearly that there no longer is any need to pray, for given those conditions work is itself a prayer.

Very well, I declare that all that is a lie…I call these “theological” explanations lies because they are nothing more or less than justifications for continuing to work without pause, without turning toward God, without praying…Precisely if I say that work is the carrying out of a vocation to which God has called me, I cannot at the same time say that “to work is to pray.”

[This] is an invention of the bourgeoisie for affirming the sanctity of work, for justifying oneself before men (how could it be before God?), for proclaiming the sanctity of one’s “religion of work,” and of the implacable discipline of work which it imposes on others. The worker has no need of free time for prayer. In the factory there need be no stopping, no pause. When the factory lets out at the end of the day, what does it matter that the worker is staggering with fatigue, unable to put two ideas together, that he is filled with rebellious hatred for his exploiter, and hence is incapable of the peace which is necessary for prayer. What does it matter? Thanks to the employer this profane worker has prayed whether he wanted to or not, ten or twelve hours a day. Such is the frightful lie which the bourgeoisie, the management, have proclaimed for a hundred and fifty years to maintain a religious facade and to assure a strict totalitarian regime of work.”

Jacques Ellul, Prayer and the Modern Man (1970).

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What’s wrong with what we eat?

Mike Wagenman — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:32:05 +0000

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A kinder, gentler version of “success” and “failure”

Mike Wagenman — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:56:33 +0000

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I guess there’s still charity left in the world…or, was.

Mike Wagenman — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:09:49 +0000

Herman Bavinck, the Dutch Reformed theologian of the late 19th and early 20th century, is often credited with a “kinder and gentler” tone when writing about others. He wrote the following in his little book, The Certainty of Faith, about the “works righteousness” perceived in the medieval Roman Catholic Church – and remember, he was writing 60 years prior to Vatican II:

“[W]e must remind ourselves that the Catholic righteousness by good works is vastly preferable to a protestant righteousness by good doctrine. At least righteousness by good works benefits one’s neighbour, whereas righteousness by good doctrine only produces lovelessness and pride. Furthermore, we must not blind ourselves to the tremendous faith, genuine repentance, complete surrender and the fervent love for God and neighbour evident in the lives and work of many Catholic Christians. The Christian life is so rich that it develops its full glory not just in a single form or within the walls of one church.”

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Cheap Grace

Mike Wagenman — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 13:42:32 +0000

It’s now possible, as you can see from this ad, to sacrifice to the Lord without any sacrifice at all. It won’t hurt. It won’t cost you anything additional. You won’t even miss it. In fact, as the machine itself says, when you give you’ll get more back in return – so sacrifice has now become a good investment strategy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer talked about this in his book, Discipleship. There, he called this “cheap grace”: “Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks’ wares…Grace without price; grace without cost!”

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Mike Wagenman — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:14:47 +0000

“Because Jesus was the Christ, his resurrection is not, as previous raisings of the dead, an isolated occurrence, but in it the time of salvation promised in him, the new creation, dawns in an overwhelming manner, as a decisive transition from the old to the new world…As the Firstborn among those many,…Christ not only occupies a special place and dignity, but he also goes before them, he opens up the way for them, he joins their future to his own…Our word ‘beginning’ is no adequate translation…For what is intended is not merely that Christ was the First or formed a beginning in terms of chronological order; he was rather the Pioneer, the Inaugurator, who opened up the way. With him the great Resurrection became reality…Here the picture of the harvest is in the background. The firstfruits are not only its beginning, but its representation. In the firstfruits the whole harvest becomes visible. So Christ is the Firstfruits of them that slept. In him the resurrection of the dead dawns, his resurrection represents the commencement of the new world of God.”

Ridderbos, Paul.

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Mike Wagenman — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:06:01 +0000

“It is entirely possible to create an aura of personal success around a record of incompetence.”

David F. Wells, Losing our Virtue: Why the Church Must Recover Its Moral Vision, p. 102.

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