A Circumcision Party

 A Circumcision Party 

A recent exchange with Gaspar Stephens (after I attended a lecture on Paul’s Letter to the Romans) –

From: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Sent: the other day
To: Gaspar Stephens [addresswithheld@byrequest.org]
Subject: Burn this book

You asked me about the Romans lecture. Apparently the guy had read, highlighted, and taken notes in the margins of, Robert Jenson’s on Canon and Creed. The claim seems to be – Jenson’s claim and our speaker’s, nodding along like a bobble–head doll – that we need to read Scripture through the Creeds, not distracted by the futile fiddle-farting of modernists and . . . the malicious murmuring of (oh my goodness–gracious–sake’s alive) scientists. But Jenson’s counterpoint to that looks to me very much like originalist readings of the Constitution: The Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople got it right; and I know what they meant.

     On the way out one of the ladies in attendance (and the audience was largely ladies) asked me if I liked Paul. I did hesitate, but then I said, “Well, I like Jesus better.”  As soon as I’d said it, I knew it was a good answer, the right answer for me in any case. My faith can founder on any number of rocks and shoals – no doubt it’s built on sinking sand – but I’ll still like old Jesus; and I believe and will continue to believe he likes me. For Paul, I’m afraid, I’d be no more than a hang–nail on the left little toe of the body of Christ. Every part has its part, but . . . (shaking his shaggy head) poor, old Ted . . . .

But back to Jenson and his this–morning’s minion:
      It’s hard for me to imagine that there were people less in a position to get Scripture right than the “Greeks” (and bishops!) that gathered in fourth–century Asia Minor, unless . . . just about any other group (or school) of theologians or biblical scholars you can name, or scientists for that matter. It’s one thing to think, “We’ve got to get this right” – that’s what Jenson is thinking. “We’ve got to get this right; it’s important – it’s the important – stuff.” I can sympathize with that feeling. But, it’s another thing to think we can get it right, or ever did.

On the one hand, there’s Paul, who tried his damnedest and maybe thought in Romans he had. And then there’s Jesus, who told parables – maybe because he knew in advance, or even from the examples around (Pharisees, chief priests, and scribes) that if there was a way to get it right, it wasn’t creeds.

But what do I know? And Paul, he does . . . and his friend Robert,  he does too.

______________________________

From: Gaspar Stephens [mailto:GS@seeabove.fr]
Sent: hours later
To: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Subject: *** SPAM *** Re: Burn this book

Not wishing I’d been there –

Jenson and acolyte – and my biggest problem with the church: How do I put it? The prescribed “group–think.” Is “dogmatism” better? I’m becoming the senile old uncle who can only harp on one note, but . . .  I am sick and [expletive deleted] tired of being told that I should return to “received tradition.”  Because I know he’s smart . . . hell he must be . . . he’s at Princeton . . . . I’m sure Jenson articulates substantial reasons for reading scripture through the creeds/confessions. Fine, have at it. But to me, it’s still boils down to “But this is what Daddy told us, boys and girls. Doesn’t he know best?” Well, [expletive of the same root deleted] Daddy and the horse he rode in on.

______________________________

From: Ted Riich [crabbiolio@gmail.com]
Sent: not long after that
To: Gaspar Stephens [mailto:the same@thesame.com]
Subject: Not *** SPAM *** dadburnit. Re: Burn this book

I’m still not sure – (probably because I’m still crazy) after all these years – how to think this through. But a second daily cleanse – the aid to mental health that logorrhea can bring: empty the little bit your brain holds twice a day and . . . sleep soundly till morning.

Here is what I’m tempted to say – and I’m giving into the temptation: There seem to be two kinds of people, those who don’t know the answers and those who can’t believe there are those that don’t know the answers because they have them and are more than willing to share. There is, of course, the condition that their answers be accepted. More simply, there are searchers and there are those that have already found. I will nuance this at least this far: I’m not convinced that those that have the answers are as confident in their answers as they pretend (even to themselves) to be. Otherwise, like San Francisco Buddha, they’d just sit down somewhere to enjoy them, picking the lint out of their navels, holding it up to the slanting rays of the sun, and gasping “Beautiful, man!” and they’d leave everybody else the hell alone. But they can’t do that, because they are joiners. And they are joiners, because they can’t sit alone with the answers; because the answers need to be shared.

California Circumcision Party - showered
by foreskins of all nations and navel lint

     Joiners create institutions and institutions become dogmatic as the answers get either clearer or more likely – this is not the same – more refined. Oddly, they are more “refined” – this is the opposite of the way ore is refined – by having more accreted to them. (If answer A is so, B, C, and D΄ must follow. Write that down, Bob.)  So “refined” isn’t the right word, but “complicated” and “codified.” 
     Other joiners then join the institution, because it’s tough to be alone, especially if you’re alone and you truly (truly!) don’t know what the hell you’re doing, but you’re convinced that someone must. As joiners join – over time! – the institution acquires not only accretions to its dogma, it acquires a history, which must also be respected.  So, it acquires dogmaticians; and it acquires historians; and pretty soon you’ve got not only circumcision but theological and historical reasons for it. I mean: How the hell did that begin, snipping the end off an eight–day–old’s prick?

     But I digress.

06.14.16