Religion and Power

Today I had my fist day of classes in the new semester, and I got my first assignments. In one of my classes, Interpretation and Argument, we focus on the topic “religion and power.” And the first assignment in this class was to reflect on that topic. What does religion mean to me? What does religion have to do with power? So, I figured I might as well use the opportunity to write a blog post.

But before I give my thoughts on that, let me tell you about the class and about me. We are twenty-something students in the class, and we have very different religions and beliefs. There were some Christians, a few Hindus, one Muslim, some atheists, a half-Jew and a bunch of agnostics. Fewer than I expected seemed to have strong feelings about the topic, but I am at least one of them. I write from the perspective of a sincere follower of Jesus Christ who has experienced various Christian fellowships, including a fellowship following the Lutheran tradition, a Pentecostal church, a military church, non-denominational contemporary churches and a Presbyterian church. I have even participated in a few Roman Catholic masses during the international military pilgrimage to Lourdes. This was one of our priests:


Many of those churches I listed are afraid of the word religion. Religion is a word that has so much shit on it that Christians do not want to use it about themselves. Greg Boyd, pastor in the non-denominational Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota, wrote the book “Repenting of Religion,” whose title pretty much capture the notion that Christianity and religion are two different things. This does of course not make much sense to an outsider, and it neither does to me. Is not a religion simply a set of beliefs one is holding? And do not Christians hold a certain set of beliefs? So, then, why are Christians so afraid of religion?

One plausible answer is that Christians accept the premise that religion is a significant reason why there is, has been and will be war and conflict. Yet, they do not in any way see how their own faith and life could have such implications, and thus they conclude the two must be different things. Subsequently, they redefine religion not to be the holding of certain beliefs, but to rather to be about confining blindly to the more or less political institutions that sometimes surround these beliefs.

We are left, then, with two questions – does a certain set of beliefs, let us call it a religion, always or in some cases affiliate with power? Power, that is political power, is power granted through means of violence, such as police and military. And if beliefs themselves do not imply use of political power, does the institutions that surround such beliefs, like churches and denominations (let’s call that for religion too), still make this affiliation inevitable?

My intuition is, not necessarily. However, it is always a possibility that someone with intentions of political power can use such institutions for their purposes if they are given prominent positions in the fellowship. These intentions of power can appear to be good in the eyes of churchgoers, such as an intention to pass laws against abortion and gay marriage. However, the intention of law-passing itself may not be a part of the original beliefs. In those cases, it clearly must be the institutions that cause the affiliation to power. That form of religious practice is what Greg Boyd and others are repulsed by so much that they want to escape the term completely.

But, if the church is careful not to let such intentions of power render in their fellowship, then they are still holding a certain set of beliefs, yes of course, but they are not affiliating with political power. In fact, they may even do the opposite, searching to serve people rather than to control them. Or, and this may sound like a way too stereochristian cliché, but it is kind of beautiful: Lifting people up rather than pushing them down.

If that is still religion, then I cannot think religion and power are always affiliated.


More:
Amazon: Repenting of Religion by Greg Boyd
Woodland Hills Church: The Bridge (online community)
My instructor Kari Lundgren's site: Religious Rhetorics

Friends in eros

One of my fellow warriors once posted a note about her love life on Facebook. Not too personal, nor too general. Interesting and profound, but not specific, at least not for an uninformed person like myself. Inspired by that and other notes, this is my first take on the matter. However, I will (of course) write in the perspective of a guy.

To be clear, the love life in question is for once not the agape love to which this blog is devoted. Rather, it is the kind of love that occurs when a boy flirts with a girl, or when a woman kisses her man. It is the love that in greek is called by “eros,” at least so I think. Native Greeks or scholars in New Testament linguistics can probably elaborate the nuances to the word, but I wouldn’t know or care too much about it. You get the idea. It is that girlfriend/boyfriend thing.

So then, what does it mean to have a girlfriend? First, I think most agree that being a boyfriend is a temporary state. You are not meant to be just a boyfriend forever. There is a purpose to that state outside of itself. So, and I hope this doesn’t cause too much headache to grasp, if I choose to be someone’s boyfriend, I do not intend for that to be the final state of our relationship. And neither do I intend for us to break up at some point in the foreseeable future. No, the intent of going out with someone is to examine if we can grow to become husband and wife. If not always spelled out with writings on the wall, it is clear to me that this is the direction the boyfriend-arrow is pointing.

Thus, it would make sense to find out how a husband and wife should relate to each other, since that is were we are headed. I strongly believe, from observing my own and other families and couples, that a happy family is one in which the husband and wife not only have a passionate eros love for each other, that is they desire each other, but were they also are best friends. It can and will cause a lot of stress if your best opposite sex friend is outside of your marriage. All sorts of awkward situations will occur, and eros is not always as reliable and faithful as one can wish. There will be pain and heartache.

That is why I think it is a good thing if you know your girlfriend well, from even before you ever thought of being with her. If she was a good friend to you before, the chances of you becoming bestest friends with a little common effort are quite high. This can sure be achieved with some random girl, but those chances are far more - yes - random.

At the same time, it strikes me this can be somewhat dangerous. You do not want to lose a good friend – especially not one of your best friends – just because some stupid coupling attempt went wrong, do you? No, of course you don’t. And can things go wrong? Well, I guess. However, when the worst heartache is over with, I know many who have overcome and still are close friends. In the two cases I have in mind, they took a break for six months or so. Then, when the eros deficiencies were fading, they could again be those good friends, happy to work together and again inviting each other over for dinner. I wouldn’t know how much it would take to become “besties” again, though. But that one spot is reserved for that special one anyways, right?

Urban dictionary definition of “besties:”

Friends who have each other's backs, look out for each other, spend lots of time together, and are just really good friends. They have inside jokes together, they go to the park and swing on swing sets, get ice cream, go to the beach, go to concerts, go bowling, and basically any activity that they like doing together as friends.

Does this strike you as your perfect girlfriend, or what? Only, you can also hold her hand.

Read more:
Urban dictionary: Besties
Btw, I'd also like: Newfoundland
or, maybe a: Papillon
or something in between: Shetland Sheepdog

Oh, as I recall now, my previous official take on the matter was a song I wrote and recorded in 2005, "Jentesangen" (The Girl Song)

Christmas wishes

I used to distribute my Christmas wishes to my family as a neatly organized list of nice things for a boy my age to have. It was only the latest years the list included actual useful stuff, like clothes, and most items were usually way to expensive for anyone to buy. Thus, also included in the wish list was a step-by-step procedure for how to collaborate when buying presents. I was always ambitious writing the Christmas wish list.

I have stopped distributing these. I no longer feel they are appropriate. In fact, I am kind of ashamed I sent out those lists for so long. They were more than slightly materialistic, and totally without any self-awareness of it. Now, I am still materialistic in nature, and would be happy to receive a lot of expensive stuff, and I enjoy unwrapping those packs with nice things in them. However, this Christmas I’ve decided to wish for something more noble:

Support for my spring break trip to Monte Cristi in the Dominican Republic, were I am going to help an organization called “Orphanage Outreach” alongside a bunch of fellow Carnegie Mellon students.

So, instead of buying me a sweater for, say, 200 kr, then buy me a cheap pair of socks or a fair-trade chocolate plate for 30 kr, and then donate 170 kr to Orphanage Outreach. Or, instead of buying me a fine vintage wine (dunno why you would do that, but if so), then buy me some exotic soft drink you found in the Asian food store, and donate the difference to Orphanage Outreach.

You can donate and read one of my very short scribblings about the trip here:
Donate to Orphanage Outreach

If you want to donate, beware that the amounts are in dollars, not in kroner. Adjust accordingly, I don’t want to ruin ya’ll so you can’t afford lamb ribs for Christmas! And you are of course most welcome to donate even if you didn’t plan to send me a present this year.

Orphanage Outreach: Donate
Calculate amount: Valutakurser (Norwegian)
YouTube: Villanova University on similar trip
Carnegie Mellon University: Alternative Break
Charity Navigator: Charities with the Most Consecutive 4-Star Ratings

Footage from New York City

I had Bon Jovi's "I Love This Town" spinning in my head from my first steps there. This is the result.



As I hope you can tell, we had a lot of fun. Thanks to Christian for inviting me, thanks to friends we met up with or failed to meet up with, thanks to Christian's uncle, who provided shelter and a beautiful breakfast, thanks to Justin, who kept us company watching Mythbusters, thanks to Dad's old friend Michael, who offered us room in his apartment if we needed it, even though he'd never met us (Michael: I guess Dad appreciated that the most, as you really trusted his word of me), thanks to CMU for providing editing software, thanks to Greyhound for flexibly taking us there and back, thanks to Bon Jovi for making awesome music, thanks to YouTube for not removing the sound for some stupid copyright reason (for the record, I do have the record), and thanks to New York City for reminding me of home.

// Say hey (say hey) say yeah (say yeah) // You make me feel at home somehow // That's why I love this town // (...)

// No matter where you're from, tonight you're from right here // This is where it all goes down, down, down // That's why I love this town //

More:
New record currently in the mail: Bon Jovi: The Circle
Graffiti: 5pointz
Fun place: Central Park

New design

It is not too much to say, really. Maybe I should mention that it was a bit of a battle to get the same picture to show up correctly everywhere. But though several individual defeats, in the end I was victorious in the war on CSS. In case you can't tell what's different, here is a snapshot of the previous design for comparison. Maybe the pictures will turn out more colourful from now, also.


On the screenshot: Warfare experience

Hugs

I’ll like to dedicate this blog post to all those hugs you guys have given me over the last week. Sometimes things are hard to talk about. Sometimes talk it is tiring, because so many loving and caring people are all asking the same questions, or at least questions to which I must give similar answers. Sometimes a hug is the best there is.

As most of you know by now, my Dad was just diagnosed with cancer. They discovered this big malicious brain tumour, which they successfully removed by surgery last Monday. He is now recovering from the big cut they made in his skull. While still waiting for those wounds to heal, he is being transferred to the cancer department at the Hospital for further treatment. Please visit Dad’s blog to read more about my hero’s journey through the valley of the shadow of death.

Last summer, I was travelling the Midwest with my parents. Dad was having a sabbatical at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and happened to just finish a conference in Salt Lake City when I had my vacation. Our road trip back to Ann Arbour went through Bryce Canyon, Yellowstone (which turned out to be my favourite place of all time), Minot, Edmonton, Minneapolis, Chicago, and many smaller places along the way. In Chicago, the plan was to spend two nights before I would board a flight back to Europe, and Mom and Dad would return to Ann Arbor.

However, as I tried to check in at O’Hare International Airport, the machine kept telling me that I had a void reference number. It wasn’t until the lady in the desk told me, that I realized I had missed the flight – by a day. It was my fault. I had messed up. So many times, I had told my parents, “my flight is leaving the 3rd. I’m positive.” Not so. I deserved someone yelling at my blown up self-confidence. As I turned away from the desk lady to tell my parents, I knew that any scold, anger, frustration or evil eyes would be totally justified.

But Dad just hugged me.

So, when I Skype-chatted with my brother the previous week, the most important thing I could tell him was to give Dad a hug from me. The moment when we then ended our chat with two of those CMU-invented smiley-faces, was the moment when I first felt the gravity of the situation. Woh. Dad could go away. What if my kids won’t get to meet their wonderful grandfather? Oh no....

Read more:
Dad's blog: Rapporter fra Stein Arild (if you don't know Norwegian, you can read the Google-translated version in english)
Free hugs: Free hugs campaign

Change we can believe in

I asked Professor Rouse if he believed things could get better.

We had just watched a documentary (China Blue) on child labour and exploitation of manpower in China, at a factory that produced pants. We had been talking about the difficulties of implementing regulation and minimum standards for how the companies treat their employees, and how widespread such problems are – they are not only present in the clothing business, but also in markets of food, diamonds, toys and electronics. As a teacher of courses in globalisation, Rouse pointed towards the new shape of capitalism that has evolved in the last thirty years as a cause for such conditions’ continuous deterioration. (I don’t know what exactly type of capitalism Rouse is aiming at, but I still think it sounds perfectly reasonable. To me, practices of the European Union such as open borders and same currency comes to mind, and also a high pressure on developing countries to open their markets)

Did Professor Rouse believe things could get better? Yes, he did. He knew from his own experience and his own life, things could indeed get better. Before the late 1970’s, things were getting better. What hinder us from improving again? Rouse believed in change, so it was worth the effort for him to come and talk to us students about this in his spare time. Professor Rouse’ heart and effort made him a beautiful person; his faith – his confidence in what he hoped for – was allowing him to be so.

Al Gore was asked the exact same question concerning his campaign to stop global warming. “Do you believe the world can change?” And Al Gore did believe. His belief that things can change allows him to be beautiful in fighting for that very change. Just as Nelson Mandela, Dalai Lama, Henrik Wergeland and Martin Luther King Jr also were warriors of beauty when they fought for changes that they believed in. Now, none of these I have mentioned took the change for granted. None of them were certain change would actually happen – the only thing they knew for certain was that it was possible for change to happen if a sufficient number of citizens would decide to join their faith, be beautiful and “get the finger out” (an anglified expression from my gorgeous home country right there:-).

Let us consider for a moment what it means to have faith in Al Gore. Then you obviously also have faith in Al Gore’s project, and believe that it is actually possible to stop global warming. However, this belief alone does not automatically make you beautiful; in fact, if you believe that Al Gore is going to save the world single-handedly, or by the help of all those other people, is that not hypocrisy? To be beautiful, and “follow” Al Gore if you will, you need to actually make an effort yourself. You actually need to sort the garbage – because you are confident it can make a difference.

I also consider to put Jesus on that list. May give the phrase “believe in Jesus” a new flavour.

Learn more:
Teddy Bears Film: China Blue
TED: Al Gore's new thinking on the climate crisis