20080411

If pop-Christianity is marked by anything here in the late-Aughts, it's the theme of Culture War. We hear it time and again that there is a culture war raging between, what, liberal America (?) and Christianity. Battle lines, we are told, have been drawn between the sides of such issues as abortion, gay marriage, feminism, et and cetera. And as is common in times of war, we hear charismatic speeches, rallying cries, and soul-soothing lilt of propagandists in their variety of shapes and forms.

There is a war at hand. Or at least, so some would have you believe.

No, the truth is, there is no war. And there never was. At least not between Christianity and American society. That war of culture is one built of myth and fancy and, like we should come to expect, is more a product of the politics of niche cultures than anything so real as an actual war.

Let me interject here that clashes between cultures are frequent. When Jazz came on the scene, the grumpy old whiteys didn't take to it and branded it an evil, sordid thing. When rock 'n roll came on the scene, the grumpy old whiteys didn't take to it and branded it an evil, sordid thing. When punk came on the scene, the grumpy old whiteys didn't take to it and branded it an evil, sordid thing. Et and cetera.

Let me further interject that the church is alien and the foreignness of its culture is indelible. Christianity cannot be changed or understood by the world in which it presently sits. It is, in fact, so entirely other that there can be no nurturing of the church on the food of the world and no nurturing of the world on the food of the church.

And yet, despite the fact that there are indeed battles between cultures and the fact that Christianity is fundamentally at odds with the world around, there is no culture war involving Christianity.

One more interjection. I think it safe to say that the sub-cultures that Christians involve themselves in may indeed be at war with various other cultures or sub-cultures. Those who find themselves deeply embedded in the culture of Chuck Colson may indeed find themselves at war with the cultural ideologies forwarded by the Democratic Party. Those who find themselves swallowed up in the culture of Evangelical Christianity might find themselves at war with those of the culture of social liberalism. Those who cherish their culture of moral integrity might find themselves taking arms against those who forward the agendas of Hollywood. Et and cetera. There's just one thing...

None of that has to do with Christianity.

The church is not interested in affecting culture; it has better things to do. There is no war between Christianity and the culture of the world in which it sits as an outsider. Even should the culture outside of the church choose to war on the church, there is no cultural war for the Christian to engage. Why? Because wars are about ground gained and lost, the destruction of enemies. Christianity is an all or nothing venture. A person is not an almost Christian or mostly redeemed. A person is of this world and its culture or of the next world and its culture. And Christianity isn't about the destruction of the enemy because all Christians know that such a resounding and climactic defeat as that has nothing to do with us but is wholly a victory earned and sealed by the Son of God himself.

Let's put it this way. If John and Mark are not only unable to marry but are shunned by society for expressing their carnal desire for each other, is the cause of Christ forwarded? Nope. If those who would dare to abort a child are imprisoned and perhaps even sentenced to execution, is the promise of the Gospel ennobled? Not really. If prayer is in schools, God in the Pledge, profanity out of Hollywood, morality in rap music, and justice in the courts, then is Christianity on the rise? Nuh-uh.

This cultural stuff has nothing to do with Christianity. Though Christians are at liberty to engage in any number of hobbies (culture wars being little more than a hobby), such individuals should not make the mistake of thinking their interest in such things is "Christian" or that their involvement in "making the world a better place" forwards the cause of Christ.

While culture wars may exist, they have nothing to do with Christianity and anyone who sells you on the idea of a culture war between the church and the world is, well, selling you something. And you should always beware of those who try to sell you something without telling you that they are actually selling. Those people are sneaks and liars, whatever their cause.

20080324

So Easter turned out to be a great source of inspiration for me. Unfortunately, both of the great ideas I came by would do perhaps blasphemous damage to other world-faiths. Still, the ideas are rad so it may be necessary to step on a few infidel toes before the decade is up. Due to time constraints, I'll only treat one of the ideas here. It is, I think, the better of the two.

The thing that set me off was the ham. The Monk and I were tooth-and-clawing our way through a choice Golden Baked Ham and the smell was intoxicating me. It was as if the mixture of honey, brown-sugar, and glorious pork product had transported me to a whole new realm. An underheaven, if you will. That heady bouquet brought to me my first lightning-flash of genius for that day:

Ham-flavoured hookah!

Seriously, I could smoke that all day. And then it would be smoked ham! And I don't know if the ham flavouring would be mixed with the tobacco or would be innate to the hookah apparatus itself, but man, what a night that would be. And imagine if it was the hookah itself that was flavoured! Then the flavour of whichever tobacconized delicacy would mix and broil with that of the golden-baked ham aroma. It would be amazing. Apple-ham hookah! Mint-ham hookah! Strawberry-ham hookah!

Need I continue? As I said: an underheaven!

Unfortunately, The Monk reminded me that I would probably have to invent such a thing myself since it was unlikely that the largely Muslim purveyors of fine hookah products everywhere would readily break their dietary laws for something so vainglorious as the Best-Tasting Smoke Ever Crafted by Man.

Christ Figures in Literature

(a.k.a. the post that will never be read)

Recent conversation over at DYL on the possibility of Harry der Potter as Christ-figure got me to thinking what we mean when we say this. Honestly, I think the term is used (in the circles that care to use it) pretty loosely and with a bit more abandon than I'd prefer. Part of the problem is that anytime a protagonist bears the remotest similarity in deed or circumstance he is labelled Christ-figure. And this - this just isn't a useful way to go about things.

Really, there are a few ways and nuances in which we can intend the term, so let's explore those before moving on.

Authorship with Intent
The first question we've got to answer is the question of author intention. I think that conversation about "Christ-figures" almost immediately breaks down at this point. I think I've argued with Johnny T to some degree about this in the past (though not in connection with redemptive pictures), with me taking the position that for the reader to say that something in a story represents a particular object or idea, the author must have intended such an interpretation for it to be valid. Now I could be horribly misrepresenting Johnny T here (though I don't believe so), but his position was that authorial intent, while important, is not necessary in the interpretation of literature.

I believe meaning is transmitted only through intentionality, though in both conscious and subconscious intentionality. That is, I believe that when we speak of the meaning of thematic elements in literature, we should only be speaking to the question of authorial intent. Our order of discovery is to uncover what the author is both consciously and unconsciously implying. This is what I mean when I say that meaning is transmitted; it comes from the author and arrives at us to some degree (depending of the forecast for communication that day).

Some people like the flavour of the Elevation of Inference. They like the idea that anything one can draw out of a text is a valid interpretation, the idea that meaning stem's from reader response. I believe Johnny T likes this view, or did at one point, as I seem to remember him arguing in favour of post-structuralism.

This seems to travel against the grain of simple semiotics. Stepping away from literature for a moment, let's look at how signs function. When I create a sign, say a red plus sign on a white field, I am signifying something. And I am signifying something to a "reader." Now what that reader interprets my sign to be signifying is anyone's guess. But if he infers anything other than what I've signified, he is, despite good intentions to the contrary, mistaken. Perhaps he comes from a culture that sees the red "cross" as a religious symbol, so he reads religious import into my sign, believing its signifier to have some sort of affiliation to that, when really, all I mean is Medical Aid. Despite the validity of his cultural values, he has allowed his biases to lead him astray in the interpretation of my sign. Now while we understand where he's coming from and don't really fault him on his interpretation, I would be quick to point out that he was, alas, wrong.

Another illustration is the Christian sacrament of bread and wine. Scripture gives the sign and explains what it signifies: the body and blood of Christ. It is, of course, possible for me to add my own meaning to the sign - perhaps the bread reminds me of sustenance and the wine reminds me of joyfulness - but we cannot say that the Lord's Supper is a sign of the joy and sustenance that God offers. We cannot because Scripture does not say that and we aren't allowed to give signs our own meaning. We either interpret it rightly (as it was intended to be interpreted) or we interpret it wrongly (any way other than intended).

Now translated this across the massive complexity of signs that authors signify through the written word. The essential function remains the same. The author means to say something, either consciously or unconsciously, and communicates this through the literary signage we call the text.

The signs are definitely more complex, more ambiguous, and may even be contradictory. Just like people. But their meaning can never be anything other than what they signify. And note that I do think that an author's inability to communicate well in the language of the people will usually end in confusion of his signs' meanings. Using the example of the red plus sign, if I went to that land where the red plus had deep religious symbolism, I should not be surprised that no one would interpret it as meaning Medical Aid.

So then, when speaking of Christ-figures in literature, I believe we should only be speaking about those figures who were crafted intentionally as a Christ-character. It's fine and all to ask, Which characters remind you of Christ? but that's quite a different question than dealing with Christ-figures.

The Quest for Consciousness
Next, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that we really only want to talk about those figures who are intended to represent Christ by conscious action of the author. I'm not disregarding the possibility that someone might not write unintentionally a character who resembles Christ, but really, how valuable is it that we recognize those characters - since by pointing them out as Christ-figures, we would merely be pointing out what we already know from Scripture: that every story reflects in some way The Story, that all that exists declares in some fashion the glory of the Lord.

My point is that if in some unconscious way everything says something like, "Apples are not snakes," then it hardly seems worthwhile to point out that something said, "Apples are not snakes," but did so unintentionally. People who point out the everyday are one of two things: boring or comedians. Or maybe both.

So then, really what we're talking about when we speak of Christ-figures, we're talking about authors actively intending their protagonist to fit a certain role, to be identified with Christ. We see this for certain in the case of Aslan. C.S. Lewis set out to tell a story about Christ, so he makes one of the characters into Christ. He does so unapologetically and he does so clearly.

Through a Glass Darkly
The next question, then, is how clear must our vision be? How closely must a character resemble Christ in person or work to merit the term? If the character sacrifices himself, is that enough? Does he need to then raise from the dead? How many must his sacrifice save? Does it matter from what they're saved? Does he need to be a good person? How good? Must he be supernatural? Should he be better than anyone else?

I've referenced the cloudy window of 1 Corinthians here and accordingly, I think we're entering into a dark and murky territory here. And by dark and murky, I mean a realm guarded by that most ferocious and indefatigable of beasts, subjectivity. While I might feel that a Christ-figure must meet more strictly with the reflective criteria, others might (and do) feel that less stringent guidelines are perfectly acceptable. Others still, are willing to bend the rules a bit in order to shoehorn in an otherwise unlikely prospect - just so they can add one more to the ranks of literary Christ-figures.

My personal general rule is to look for characters who are more thematic of Christ than they are less thematic of him. If a character dies to save a nation, fights with religious leaders, and is popular with the masses, but is a foul-mouthed drunkard and pedophile, then he certainly doesn't fit very well the image of Christ.

Now That's an Awkward Fit
I suppose if we determine, through whatever Byzantine means and arcane sources, that an author has indeed created a Christ-figure intentionally - the real question (one of them) is how well they succeeded in their chosen task. Now C.S. Lewis did pretty darned well. We look at Aslan and nod in affirmative, saying, "Yup. He's a Christ-figure alright. Good job, Mister Lewis. Next!" Others don't fare quite as well on this count. How about Simon from Lord of the Flies? Well, he was certainly killed by his culture. And he does run into the devil somewhat while wandering in the wilderness. But then again, as good as he is, he doesn't save anyone by his death or otherwise. And his death was really more accidental by product of madness then the malicious murder of Piggy. So then, "Mister Golding? Were you serious? You can do better than that." I just read something that posited Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn each as aspects of a Christ-figure (prophet, priest, and king respectively). Now let's say Tolkien was attempting this (despite the fact that I'd like to give him more credit than this). I, er, well, honestly I have no response to that. It just seems too desperate to me.

To the figure at hand over at DYL, let's pretend that Rowling really was attempting to craft Harry in the imago Christi. How well did she do? Well, as pointed out by Rich:

• Rowling, the author, references her Christian beliefs as somehow contributing to the series' climax.
• Harry had humble beginnings, like Christ.
• Harry was marked by Voldemort in a potentially bruise heel/crush head sort of way.
• Harry is part wizard/part muggle (75%/25% or something, it's hard to determine wizard to muggle blood ratios as they do not behave as simple ethnic genotype does) and Christ was part man/part God (100%/100%).
• Voldemort hunts Harry as the result of a prophecy as Satan hunts Christ due to prior knowledge.
• After his second encounter with Voldemort, Harry is comatised for three days, the same number of days for which Christ was dead and buried.

Also, it is presumed that Harry will die (to some degree) to save his friends in the last/next book.

So... what about the case against?

• Unlike Christ, Harry is a jerk. He is a petulant little temper-tantrum-throwing boy who is currently motivated by typically teenage selfishness. His actions frequently lead to rifts between himself and his friends and occasionally to horrible things like death. Despite having something of a messiah complex, Harry does not have the character to be any kind of Christ-resembling messiah.
• Unlike Christ's dual nature, both of Harry's nature's are marked by corruption.
• Unlike Christ, Harry's greatest powers comes, it seems from his mother and his enemy, rather than from his nature.
• Unlike Christ, when Harry dies to save the wizarding world, he does not really save anyone but merely vanquishes one foe. Voldermort is not the worst enemy of the wizarding world; the wizarding world is.*
• Unlike Christ, it is unlikely that Harry's death will be any sort of justice.
• Unlike Christ, Harry is a foreigner to love (as yet).

Personally, I think the evidence weighs against the Christ-figure theory, but if Rowling does intend us to read Harry in this way, she's not doing a very bang-up job. This is not to say that there aren't themes that reflect The Story in the Harry Potter story, but that if there are, they are more general, incidental things.

You've Got a Look that Makes Me Think You're Cool
And then again, really, what's the point? Why should we care about Christ figures in literature. It doesn't make the stories better or worse. It doesn't redeem an illicit read, somehow forging it into a now-licit read. It doesn't rectify inadequacies in stories. It doesn't sanctify, in any way, a story.

In the end, Christ-figures in stories are trivialities.

We shouldn't rejoice when we see them anymore than we do for any other type of character. We might even groan a little at the cliché - for, since the absolute Christ-figure (Christ) has come, all other such characters are cheap rip-offs. We shouldn't imagine that good is being accomplished any better through this character than through the existence of any other well-written character. Seeds for understanding the true Christ aren't being sown any better through Aslan than they are through Reepicheep or through Jadis.

So take joy in finding Christ-figures if you like, but only do so for the same reason that you take joy in discovering that e.e. cummings doesn't capitalize. When you find one of these messianic archetypes, just shrug and say, "Huh. Neat. Oh and look, this book also uses the scapegoat archetype."

*note: this reason will be eliminated if Harry's sacrifice really does destroy all magic in his death.