Grieving the Loss of a Literary Giant

It's been several weeks since the untimely passing of David Foster Wallace, an immensely talented American novelist, essayist, and philosophical everyman. I just finished reading an article recounting Wallace's memorial service, which brought together a pantheon of modern literary giants who recalled his edgy humor, his humanity, and his striking ability to inhabit the lives of those characters he created. Don Delillo speaks well of Wallace's sentences, which "shoot rays of energy in seven directions." The most recent issue of Rolling Stone includes a memorial article written by David Lipsky, excerpt available online.

Wallace suffered for many years with depression, an illness that led him to take his own life. He will be sorely missed, and readers who love brilliant pose, irony, and insightful social commentary can only wonder what essays will go unwritten, what stories untold. In the spirit of the current election season, I urge readers to check out Wallace's 2000 Rolling Stone essay, "The Weasel, Twelve Monkeys, and the Shrub: Seven Days in the Life of the Late, Great John McCain," an essay that despite the title is not an anti-McCain diatribe but a very fair treatment of McCain the Vietnam veteran's failed 2000 presidential campaign.

For those of you curious enough to want to check out Wallace's work, I strongly recommend A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, a collection of some of Wallace's short essay that is accessible and ably demonstrates his vast intellect and incredible prose style. Wallace is best known for his book Infinite Jest, a 1088-page novel (which includes nearly 150 pages of endnotes commenting on the main text, a common feature of Wallace's expansive style). I've gotten halfway through this tome about three times, and I've made it my goal to complete it once I've finished my current book. There are excerpts of Infinite Jest that are incredibly moving, including one character whose eloquent soliloquoy about how it feels to be in the grips of "depression" still haunts me.

Anyway, I hope that some of you might find time to check out Wallace's work.

Christian Charity, Righteous Indignation, and the Current Election Season

John Mark Hicks is a a good friend of mine, a Lipscomb University professor of theology who also happens to be a former teacher of mine. John Mark has a wonderful blog of which I have quickly become a fan. I've always been impressed with John Mark's moderation, compassion, and his passion for integrating theology and practical ministry. Last night one of John Mark's blog entries stirred my own response. The focus of the blog concerned the recent devolution of political discourse this election season. John Mark rightly calls Christians to find alternative ways of engaging in political conversation that don't rely on stereotyping or demonizing those with whom we disagree. The entry prompted numerous supportive responses from John Mark's readers, mine among them.

At the same time, these days I've become increasingly troubled by the ease with which Christians, in the face of disagreement about important matters, shy away from substantive exchange. It's as if we presume that charity toward one's opponent requires that we simply not bring up issues that we feel deeply about, especially if these issues are in any way political. The general tone of the blog conversation (which in some cases drifted toward calls for simply withdrawing from human politics--as if there is any other kind!) left me uneasy. In the face of intractable political disagreement, it's easy to simply treat politics as corrupt and corrupting and simply eschew political involvement altogether. This is a particular temptation in the Restoration tradition, which has its own unique history borne out Lipscomb's legacy.

I wrote a response, which I've decided to include in my own blog:

John Mark correctly calls us to exhibit Christian humility and charity in our public conversations about politics, a call that seems to me indisputable. I think more work needs to be done, however, to clarify the pragmatics of this call. What do you, John Mark, believe that humility and charity entail in public conversation about matters of dire importance about which we disagree? It seems to me that, aside from the manifest overstatements and sniping that have become par this election season, there is nothing wrong with earnest, zealous disagreement. People like me care passionately about the current election because we believe passionately that we face dire circumstances on many fronts; I suspect those who disagree with me politically feel the same way. The pragmatic question concerns how to discuss these concerns without killing one another or allowing our conversations to devolve into ad hominem attacks.

Further, I think we all should be at least a bit wary of the language of humility and charity in light of recent history. Reading through these posts, I am reminded of an article from the 1963 Christian Chronicle (available in Don Haymes online collection at http://www.mun.ca/rels/restmov/texts/race/haymes34.html). The article reprinted letters from readers speaking about recent calls for desegregation. A few sample quotes from the article strike me as a little too close to some of the disdain expressed in recent posts about “human” politics. The letters to the editor intend to explain why desegregation is something that the church should not get involved with. Maybe those of you who believe that Christians should stay out of human politics can explain how this call is different than the call that segregationists were making in our own tradition almost 50 years ago:

“I have been wondering how long before the Christian papers would quit carrying news of the Church and begin to dabble in World affairs. Some of the large denominations are trying to make headlines by taking sides in the force race issue and our Brethren can’t let them get ahead.

I am fully persuaded that if all publicity was cut off this issue, it would die overnight and we could go back to our task of teaching love rather than hatred. . . .

Would you say the leaders of forced integration are abiding by this law of grace? Are they teaching love or hatred? Phil. 2:3 “Let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other[sic] better than themselves.” Is this the motive behind the integration movement?”

The second letter is, in my view, even more striking in that the spirit in which it is written is mild and thoughtful. This is what makes the letter all the more troubling:

“I read the recent issue on the race problem. And, I must say some of those letters were ugly. They didn’t sound right.

Let us hope they were written with the right spirit. I wonder.

Since we are not under a pope or bishop, don’t you think this is something for each congregation to work out for themselves? I do.

I worship with a strong congregation. There are no Negro members. They have a number of congregations of their own. Now if a Negro or more comes to this church, they will be seated wherever there is a vacant seat.

I don’t know what any other congregation will do; that is their problem. This race problem will be worked out if the young preachers don’t get too enthusiastic.

The Lord’s church is not a denomination; therefore, it doesn’t have to make public statements as to where it stands on anything; politics and what not. I don’t want to be pessimistic but the world won’t be converted over night.

The Lord must have had a reason for making some people black. I do not think I am better than a Negro who is Christian. I am not as good as Brother Keeble; he has done so much. It seems that the Negro resents being black. He shouldn’t; God wants him that way. I think he should be happy and be what he is.

This letter is written with sincerity and good will. Best wishes to all.”

Now my claim is not that John Mark or anyone else here is racist or that you would agree with the sentiments of these letters. I think all of us would rightly denounce the idea that desegregation and human equality are “worldly” interests that have no connection to the gospel. But here is the point: to the degree that this inequality was nested within a web of legislative, executive, and judicial institutions and practices it becomes very difficult to imagine a prophetic witness against racial injustice in America without prophetically engaging this web, as MLK did, in spite of white moderates' warnings that he was stirring up too much dissension. That is, nonviolent direct action–street demonstrations, sit-ins, public protests, and direct challenges to unjust laws rooted in racial prejudice–were the witness of the church at the same time that they were thoroughly political. They were also, I might add, perceived as uncivil by some Christian leaders who questioned the charity of such actions.

Why do I bring this up? I do so because it seems to me that all of our calls for humility, charity, and countercultural witness are comfortable words indeed for people like us who live relatively secure lives. I think John Mark is correct to name the political sniping for what it is. I am worried, however, that the general tone of this conversation feeds a disdain for human politics (is there any other kind?) that perpetuates an unfortunate blindness to the systemic realities that contribute to poverty, racial injustice, and environmental decline.

Television that matters

As an ethicist I always have my eyes out for movies, music, and television shows that offer nuanced perspectives on issues that I regularly explore in my academic work. No show has captured my attention in the last year more than Dexter, a Showtime original series that will soon be entering its third season. The premise: Dexter is a blood-spatter analyst for the Miami police department whose life revolves around investigating violent crime scenes.

The twist: Dexter himself is a serial killer whose inner life is determined by a compulsion to kill.

A further twist: Dexter's adopted father taught Dexter a strict moral code that leads Dexter to channel his compulsion to kill toward those who victimize the innocent.

Dexter is a mass murderer, but his victims are themselves killers, rapists, pedophiles, and those who have slipped through the cracks of the conventional justice system. Dexter is a vigilante, but unlike other vigilantes who populate the American pantheon--consider Batman and Spiderman--the justice he brings is ambiguous indeed. Is Dexter killing his victims out of a deep sense of the gravity of their injustice, or is Dexter rather motivated by his own need to answer his own demons, to "feed the beast," as it were?

The series raises in narrative form a range of questions basic to ethics. Does it matter if Dexter is motivated by his own desire to kill if he lives by a deontological code in which he only kills those who deserve it? What about character? Dexter is a very likable protagonist, but one that lacks real empathy for those around him. Is Dexter a good person who does bad things, or is he a bad person who does good things? What makes a person "bad" or "good?" Do Dexter's traumatic childhood experiences mitigate his culpability for the actions that he performs? Dexter is tailor-made for students of ethics wanting to explore the nature of moral character and agency.

Seasons 1 and 2 of Dexter are currently available on DVD. Be forewarned--the series is not for the faint of heart.

Palin-McCain 2008

In a remarkable piece of truth telling, Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin flipped the Republican presidential ticket on its head on Thursday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa when she spoke of the "Palin and McCain administration," a mistake compounded on Friday when speaking of McCain as "my running mate" in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Misstatements are bound to occur in any election cycle, though these gaffes come at a poor time for the McCain campaign, with the real candidate trying to escape the large shadow cast by the Alaska governor during the RNC. Truly over the last two weeks this has become the Palin-McCain ticket. This comes as no small delight to religious conservatives who have long been wary of McCain's maverick-pragmatism. James Dobson has already flip-flopped on his refusal to endorse McCain, claiming that he's not been so excited in a candidate since Ronald Reagan--a peculiar thing to say if the "candidate" Dobson is speaking of is McCain. In the eyes of some, it does appear that this is Palin-McCain 2008.

This week McCain has worked to reestablish a shadow of his own. Today, for example, McCain was working hard to defend outsourcing social security in the wake of the recent financial meltdown. While perhaps a reasonable political sell in a time when the fundamentals of the economy are strong (a claim that McCain made in recent weeks), the prospects of such a plan seem bleak in such a time as this.

These are exciting, exciting times.

Welcome Message

Well, you've happened upon the blog of Vic McCracken, Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, TX. I created this blog as a forum for my own reflections on things religious, ethical, and political. I've resisted for some time the temptation to blog, a practice that always seemed to me vain and pretentious. Nevertheless, over the last week my occasional status comments on facebook (updating of which may well be even more vain and pretentious than blogging) elicited numerous comments from friends, not all of them complementary. I don't plan to abandon the satirical one-liners that have evoked such flurried responses and defenses, but I finally decided that a blog might be a better place to extend my remarks should the need ever arise. I hope you enjoy reading!