Howard Thurman meets Gandhi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGX4-Wv9UD0

I started this morning to watch and listen to Youtube videos of Howard Thurman.  I have often seen his books on my suggested Amazon reading list but with the structure of PhD studies I have tried to basically focus on what will actually go in my dissertation for the time being.  At this point, I just have to finish writing the dissertation so I have been free to read and write generally what I want.  

Listening to Thurman speak has been a real treat.  I have also started rereading James Cone so for the last week my love of theology has been renewed somewhat.  There are a number of Youtube videos featuring Thurman but an interview where he reflects on his life is amazing and grabbed my attention.

I was simply glued to my computer screen when Thurman talked about his meeting with Gandhi.  There is just so much important history here (of course it is the kind typically missing in History class).  The way Gandhi requested to hear the hymn below "Were You There" from Thurman's group illustrates the way Christianity as generally practiced among the British could never be an option for him.  

When I have students read Gandhi's biography and see his discussion on religion they have a hard time identifying with him.  How can he like Jesus but see Christians as hypocrites they often ask?  The dynamic of colonialism is something I and my students can never truly understand and no manner of apologetics can convince someone of Gandhi's experience that official Christianity has too many problems to be profitable for his cause.  However, like Bonhoeffer, Gandhi recognized the authenticity of Black theology.  

I thought it interesting that Gandhi would have thought that they would turn out to be attracted to Islam instead (good point for those out there that paint a negative picture of Muslims).  However, as the conversation developed the theme of human suffering and misery found in the crucified Christ is what linked Gandhi and Thurman (and Bonhoeffer, King).

On another level, this discussion also reminded me of my general dislike of Christian music.  I actually enjoy older hymns and spirituals because of the identification with the suffering Christ (granted, a lot of hymns are also NOT very good).  I have seen Black, Hispanic communities that can identify with the gospel in these songs (the same goes for people at the Mission I go to every now and then).  It is to take the narrative of the Bible and apply it to the experiences of the people.  There is no detached attainment of truth here.

Were You There
Were you there when they crucified my Lord
Oh were you there when they crucified my Lord
(Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble
Were you there when they crucified my Lord

Were you there when they nailed him to the cross
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross
(Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble
Were you there when they nailed him to the cross

(Were you there when they laid him in the tomb
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb
Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble
Were you there when they laid him in the tomb

Well were you there when the stone was rolled away
Were you there when the stone was rolled away
(Oooh sometimes it causes me to tremble) tremble
Were you there when the stone was rolled away

Barth in Context, the Other and looking at Weimar

I have been finishing up my paper that I will be reading at the Conference of Faith/History on Barth, Badiou and the event with a response to Mark Lilla's critique of both figures. I will be posting my paper shortly on the topic. To some extent, I argue, along with Jeffrey Stout, that Barth offers a "tentative" line between the secular and the sacred that is somewhat negotiated in the public space. I don't know whether to call it post-secular or not, but I do think it looks ahead to the mid-1980s when post-secularism begins.

With comps on the horizon I have started to look into the historical background of Barth's work. One of the first books I will be reading is Peter Gay's Weimar Culture: The Outsider as Insider (which studies the 1920s of German expressionism at its peak before the Nazis take power). Barth as a Swiss citizen teaching in Weimar Germany was definitely an outsider in the academic world. Romans II with its language of Krisis definitely embodies the tone of German expressionism.

Another book that has been sitting on my bookshelf for awhile but I will finally delve into is Samuel Moyn's Origins of the Other (where he makes the claim that Levinas' phenomenology of the Other has its roots in the theology of encounter from Kierkegaard and Barth). One of my goals is to articulate this theory a little further for a conference at Biola next year on Justice and Narrative by looking at Jewish/Muslim contemporaries and how they either agree or differ with Barth on this subject (may even bring Zizek/Badiou's critique of the language of the Other as a starting point).

In short, there is something about the social/cultural trends that either a thinker takes on or reacts to. It seems, whether consciously or not, Barth took on the language of German expressionism, German-Jewish phenomenology and French existentialism (a number of books make this point). However, he took these trends and read them through the theology of encounter with the Christian God of revelation. I know my reading of Barth has really grown now that I have taken historical context more seriously.

Context or Transcendence?

I just finished a wonderful paper by fellow Fuller classmate Seth Gaiters on Barth and Cone. He pulls out a couple of real interesting quotes from Barth.

"Christianity exists in Germany and Switzerland and Africa, but there is no such thing as a German or Swiss or African Christianity. There is a church in England, but in the strict sense there is no Church of England."

"How much longer will it be possible in the United States and South Africa to ratify the social distinctions between whites and blacks by a corresponding division in the Church, instead of calling it in question in the social sphere by the contrary practice of the Church."

In one sense, Barth is emphasizing the Pauline line of the universality of the Church irrespective of race, sex or status. However, in doing this he may err in blurring the real differences there are between various expressions of "Christianities." Simply stated, what exactly is this universal paradigm of the Church that Barth desires? Would his interlocutors say it might be too Eurocentric (which incidentally in the quote he is trying to deny)?

Again, this goes back to my last couple of post regarding theology and history. The theologian will oftentimes strive to connect the theological tradition into one complete package whereas the historian will emphasize the particularities in each historical circumstance and say that any time of "universal" is to do violence to the actual, social-empirical phenomenon that we can witness.