Game Overs

I should be used to it now.

Every day of this impeachment inquiry, it seems like the witness utters something that to my eyes seems utterly damning to the President. I mean Well, that's the game. Time for Republicans to float Trump's resignation-level damning information comes out.

Vox agrees. "Gordon Sondland's Opening Testimony is the Ballgame," writes Zach Beauchamp. Was there quid pro quo? said Sondland, The answer is yes. I read that in Sondland's opening statement this morning and thought, surely, this is the tipping point. (I mean, even Ken Starr on Fox was wavering at one point.) Surely this is it.

But no.

Fox News quoted GOP Representative Mark Meadows that, in his view, today's testimony was "Game over" for the Democrats' impeachment hopes. Asked whether Trump ever explicitly told Sondland to withhold Ukraine funding in exchange for political favors (investigating Burisma), Sondland said no. That, Fox News suggests, was the real bombshell. No explicit request equals no wrongdoing. Game over, libs. (Not that these kind of quid pro quos ever operate explicitly, but whatevs.)

The real surprise is how surprised I am, even now. All political news is a shibboleth now. Your take on it, your conclusion about whose game is over, signals your membership in team red or team blue. Nuance isn't critical thinking or taking your time; it's disloyalty.

This shibboleth factor feels to me stronger within the right-wing media world. There's quite a bit of nuance and wiggle room, for instance, in NPR's overview today. Yeah, Sondland said there was quid pro quo, but yeah, Sondland also said he came to that conclusion gradually. It took him a while, he said, for him to get that "Burisma" was essentially code for "Biden." NPR also acknowledges some credibility problems with Sondland, problems for which he was dinged by both Republicans and Democrats. He's changed or updated his testimony three times now. He "doesn't keep notes," so his memory is iffy.

This performance contrasts with that of career diplomats, professionals at protocol and record-keeping. The diplomats were much more immediately keen to detect irregularities in Trump/Guliani's backdoor Ukraine politics. Sondland is out of his element, a hotelier and rich guy appointed to his position by Trump thanks to his million-dollar donation to Trump. In a way, Sondland's muddy testimony is proof of what you get when you kick out the experts and bring in laypeople.

I guess he's what Trump's supporters mean when they insist that he's "draining the swamp." To me, it seems more like a hospital firing all its experienced, credentialed doctors, PAs, and nurses in favor of country club socialites who've consulted Web MD--and then being shocked, shocked! when patients start dying in droves.

But I'm just screaming into the echo chamber. Politico reported this morning that, so far as its contacts among House Republicans can see, not a single GOP member will vote for impeachment, no matter what. There's just no incentive for them to do so when Trump has a stranglehold on their constituents' support.

That's sad, really. Rod Dreher said he voted for John Bel Edwards because, though Edwards is a Democrat, he's a pro-life one. It doesn't feel like betrayal to vote for him. There's no one like that among the Democratic presidential candidates. And Trump has effectively negated everyone to his own left within the Republican party.

For Republicans, Trump is the only game in town. No wonder, then, that they're loath to declare that game over.

Unswayable

Public impeachment hearings continue this week. I caught just a bit of them this morning while on some errands, specifically the end of Rep. Jim Jordan's diatribe about this being a coup to undermine the will of the people. Real Americans, Rep. Jordan assured everyone, know that this is a sham; they see President Trump did no wrong.

The polls I see indicate that 70% of USAmericans believe that what Trump did is improper. A smaller number, however, report supporting impeachment and removal from office.

I'm more interested/disturbed, however, by a poll out from NPR/Marist. Asked whether they could imagine anything from the impeachment inquiry that would change their view on whether or not Trump should be impeached, 65% said no. Nothing would sway them.

I just wrote last week that, although I'm not especially moveable on this issue (I think he's guilty as sin of an impeachable offense), I could imagine something that might sway me. But then, maybe I just have a good imagination.

There's also the fact that, for many people, poll questions like this aren't so much about reporting one's nuanced beliefs as they are about registering sides. People know, generally, how survey results can be mobilized in favor of one or another narrative. Were I dead-set against impeachment, I'd likely say that nothing could sway me. Whether something actually could is another issue.

Were evidence to emerge, for instance, that Trump had perjured himself regarding the Russia investigation, it may become more difficult to resist impeachment--though not removal.

At least, I'd like to think so. The glass-half-empty takeaway from the NPR/Marist poll would be that people are intractably polarized on this essential issue. They live within entirely different epistemological and ideological universes where it's obvious--how can you not see this??--that they are right and the other side is wrong.

Such polarization has roots within the separate media ecosystems of the right and the left. Consider, for instance, the top headline right now on Fox News: "Morrison, Volker undercut claims of 'quid pro quo,' 'bribery,' and 'cover-up' on pivotal day of testimony." Contrast that with one of the top stories on CNN: "How Republicans' star impeachment witness turned on them."

I tend to think that the weight of evidence is stacking up against Trump here. But I can see how, if Fox and such were the only trusted sources I consulted, I'd probably double down on my resistance to impeachment. The Fox story is spiced with slights against Democrats (ex: Democrats are using "bribery" as a charge only because it's "poll-tested"), full of choice quotes from Republicans, and quite selective (judging from the fuller accounts from other news sources) in presenting what Morrison and Volker said. Integral to the Fox News journalistic ethos is not merely reportage (Here's what happened) but perspective (Here's how the other side is acting in bad faith). Well-poisoning is part of the narrative strategy.

Of course, they'd likely say the same about the main stream media (i.e., everyone beyond the Foxsphere).

Perhaps they're right, at least in part. It's not like I'm inclined to read Fox News generously. But I'd like to think that part of my reading involves looking for elements that trouble my own preconceptions. (How would I know? How would I judge this for myself?) I'm not sure that's part of the Fox's assumptions for their readers.

Inertia is a powerful drug, ideological inertia even more so.

Hard times ahead.

Unpleasant News about Former Students

Unpleasant discussions of sexual assault ahead.

News greeted me this morning that a former student of mine (FS for "former student"), now a tenured professor elsewhere, is facing allegations of sexual assault by a former student. I have been navigating a parade of reactions: shock, dismay, soul-searching, pessimism.

Shock: this isn't someone I'd have expected this kind of thing from. I mean, that's a sorry-sounding thing to say. Is there a "type" for men who sexually assault women? Whatever type I had in my brain, and however wrongheaded it was, FS was not that type. FS has a family, a wife and two kids. Had, maybe. He's gone dark on social media.

Dismay: the person making the allegation wrote a lengthy account of the relationship she and FS had. It's sad and sordid. Reading it, I started to see just how FS's charisma could translate into that kind of ego-boosting hero-mentor that some professors (especially but not exclusively male professors) become. I'm a fairly popular professor myself. It feels good to feel looked-up-to. I was also the kind of student who loved being noticed by professors I looked up to. Those good feelings can be a dangerous combination.

As the writer narrates it, a close mentor-mentee relationship developed into a social-media/texting affair, during which FS shared a number of explicit and TMI messages. This culminated in a visit, drinking, and an unwanted advance (forcing hands down pants and up shirt) by FS despite the student's protests. The relationship continued (this is not an unusual feature of abusive relationships). FS cooled and then decided to break things off. The student, an undergrad at the time their relationship started, was thoroughly confused, hurt, and from her account traumatized by the whole thing. She apparently reported the assault to FS's institution, but since she'd not filed a police report at the time, the institution said it could do nothing. A public post is understandable after traditional legal routes are exhausted.

Of course we're hearing only her side of this story, but the narrative she posted contained copious snapshots of social media interactions that--well, I don't see any way FS comes out of this innocent. Nor should he if her report is as credible as it seems. People who commit assault must face consequences. Ditto faculty who abuse student-teacher relationships.

Soul-searching: I've often had grave doubts about the ethics of teaching in a PhD program in my field. Statistics for graduates securing a tenure-track position aren't great. We tell prospective applicants that this isn't a path to set yourself on thinking a position just like your own professor-mentors is waiting for you. On another level, though, grad students manifest extremely high levels of stress. Washouts and attrition from mental-health-related issues (and this is separate from folk who simply decide this path isn't their thing) are common.

FS has long been one of the most successful alums we've had in my time here (I was not on his committee, so the credit I can take for that is limited). He was my go-to example of how things sometimes really can work out. And now?

So far as I am aware, no hint of inappropriate behavior between FS and a student ever appeared during his time with us. But was there something more we should have impressed on him, some well-duh-but-let's-stress-it lesson: Of course, you should never become intimate with someone whose grade or career you can control, someone who's placed their trust in you that you have their best interests rather than your libido at heart. Boundaries.

On another level, I think to my shame how lucky I and some of my colleagues (particularly those of earlier generations) are. Teach for any great length of time, and it's inevitable to have some students who are closer to you than most others. That closeness, most of the time, is innocent and mutually rewarding. But it's also risky. Appropriate kinds of closeness can all too easily slip into relationships that cross lines that ought not be crossed.

The realty of power differentials means that the more-powerful person can miss or misread (or ignore or rationalize away) cues from the less-powerful person that they aren't on the same page, consent-wise. I don't even refer primarily to sexual boundaries. There is a wide vista of inappropriate behavior potentials in teacher-student relationships quite apart from sexual violations, from favoritism to overwork to codependency. I can spot some times in my own history where, if things or the people involved (including me) had been even a little different, some problems might have developed.

That said, I have never gotten drunk and forced myself on someone.

I hope the survivor here gets the healing she needs.

Pessimism: I must also say that this experience adds to some others I've not written about, experiences where other male grad students have behaved in ways that make them dishonorary members of the sexist/misogynist/chauvinist club. The #ThemToo club.

"Remember," advised Twisty on the departed-but-not-forgotten I Blame the Patriarchy blog, "men hate you." Here I take her not as mind-reading every individual cis-male on the planet, divining somehow that they personally bear animosity toward non-cis-men. I take her as meaning that, in a culture like this defined by a long history of women being objectified, minimized, silenced, and marginalized in favor of men, it's hard for men not to have some degree of contempt for women written into their social software.

Like most systemic oppressions, male supremacy comes as the default firmware of modern-day USAmerica. Being socialized in this time and place means absorbing on mostly unconscious levels that men (white, well-off men in particular) occupy the top of whatever pyramid matters: wealth, power, attention, the benefit of the doubt. It takes constant patches and updates to compensate for that firmware, and in bad moments the mind can all too easily default back to the factory settings. I am not immune. No one raised and socialized as male in this culture is (needless to say, this firmware also has effects on women and non-binary/non-conforming folk).

There are times when I wonder whether having men in institutions like mine (as faculty, as students, as staff) is worth the disproportionate risk that they will mistreat women in some way. Of course women can and do abuse people, too. But men are statistically more likely to do so, and to do so to women. Wouldn't things be better without us? Thanos snap! But of course that's wrong-headed, self-pitying fantasy.

This isn't really about me except insofar as I'm saddened by it.

What a shame.

Wild Ideas and Staged Readings

So, a wild thought occurred to me as I was reading The National Review's take on Will Arbery's just-closed play, Heroes of the Fourth Turning, about which I've written before. I've been wanting someone to talk to about this play for a while, but almost no one in my immediate world is familiar enough with the script or with the issues involved. And everyone in my world is pretty busy with their own things that they'd love to talk to me about if only I were more familiar with them.

But, among the many ideas the play pitches into the air for characters to bat back and forth is conservative Rod Dreher's Benedict Option. Arbery apparently sent Dreher a draft of the script. Dreher notes, however, that Arbery has not responded to Dreher's emailed questions. Likely, Dreher surmises, Arbery is reticent (as he is in national news interviews) about sharing his own stance. As a playwright, he presents an honest selection of characters who represent a cross-section of conservative Catholic thought in 2017. For Arbery to register whether he supports one or more of the characters would be to upset the balanced, complicated picture his dramaturgy produces. (This seems similar to Lucas Hnath's keeping mum about his beliefs in reference to his excellent play The Christians.)

But Rod Dreher lives here. I live here. It is in my power to create a staged reading/discussion event and invite Dreher to participate.

This is a wild thought because, although I find Dreher's writing often compelling, the two of us stand on opposite sides of a worldview gap. We may concur about President Trump's many shortcomings, but on issues like abortion and sexuality, we would be opponents.

It's a strange kind of opposition in this strange time.

One of Dreher's posts today celebrates Democrat John Bel Edwards's gubernatorial win over Republican Eddie Rispone yesterday, a victory widely seen as a rebuke of Trump. I celebrate along with him.

Trump had campaigned strongly in Louisiana and elsewhere for Rispone, even coming personally to Louisiana on three occasions for pro-Rispone rallies. Such rallies, predictably, turned in to pro-Trump rallies. Dreher points out that Rispone had no discernible platform beyond "Trump likes me; I like Trump." If anything, Edwards's victory signals that pro-Trump rhetoric alone isn't enough to swing a state like Louisiana.*

Edwards, by contrast, has held on to his position as one of the very few Deep South Democratic governors largely thanks to his stalwart pro-life credentials. He signed into law incredibly restrictive anti-abortion legislation during his last term.

I am, as I have mentioned, heartily against most abortion restrictions. I approach reproductive matters from an entirely different place, holding entirely different warrants, than Dreher does.

I support Edwards despite rather than because of his anti-choice stances. There are a number of reasons; his expansion of medicare, his stabilizing the state's finances, his openness with his electorate (he hosts a call-in radio show weekly), his support for teachers, his general alignment with Democratic rather than Trumpist values. In my ideal world, I'd have someone like Edwards but who also works to protect the right not to be forced into continued pregnancy or childbirth, who doesn't treat pregnancy as a functional punishment inflicted on people (disproportionately on women) who have sex. I'll take Edwards, though, because his anti-choice stance makes him a viable candidate. It's the kind of pragmatic calculation Deep South progressives regularly have to make when voting (and the kind of calculation conservatives in other parts of the country have to make about their candidates).

There are other big worldview differences between Dreher and me. Unlike Dreher, I simply fail to see any dire cultural threat from the spectacle of a few drag queens in 30 or so cities reading books to children in public libraries. I'm baffled at the shibboleth status that Drag Queen Story Hour has acquired among a particular bandwidth of cultural conservative. I don't know, but I imagine there's a number of ways that my faith expression (liberal gay United Methodist) would be obnoxious from his Orthodox perspective.

Nevertheless, I'm intrigued at the thought of having a good, long conversation with him about this play. He'd be an ideal conversation partner here. (In the unlikely event you're reading this Mr. Dreher, please do contact me!)

And beyond the wouldn't-this-be-cool factor, a productive conversation with Dreher might restore a bit of faith in the possibility of a pluralist civic ethos. Two people who disagree strongly and are unlikely to convert each other have a deep conversation about faith and politics. What a spectacle. Someone should write a play about it.

We'll see.

*Dreher cites another possible factor in Edwards's victory, one I find depressing yet difficult to discount: LSU won last weekend against its long-time arch-rival Alabama (a rare feat). Spirits in Louisiana--pride and contentment about Louisiana--were high this last week. Had LSU lost, a note of dissatisfaction may have tipped things more in Rispone's favor...

My Little Sermon at the Louisiana UMC Next Gathering

The centrist-progressive Methodist meeting today went fine. I think God used me despite myself; my message went well.

Here's a written-out version of it. My actual delivery (which is somewhere on video) diverged in several ways. Someday I'll perhaps turn what's below into more of a transcript. But for now, here's an idea of what I wrote:

###

"Latter-Day Joy"

I just can't start a church meeting without some kind of song. Can we sing something?

[We sang "We are one in the spirit." I reflected how that song combines elements of hope--"We are one in the Spirit"--with bits of uncertainty--"And we pray that our unity may one day be restored." Add to that the fact the song is in a minor key, and its stirring strength becomes more like somber yearning...]

I had another song in mind, but, since we lack hymnals, I'll just read the words:

Joyful, Joyful we adore thee

God of mercy Lord of love

Hearts unfold like flowers before the

Opening to the sun above

Melt the clouds of sin and sadness

Drive the dark of doubt away

Giver of immortal gladness

Fill us with the light of day.

Confession: I’m terrible at joy.

I’m in a place where the clouds of sin and sadness cover me with the dark of doubt.

When I read about our global church, I’m hard pressed to feel joy. I feel tired, scared, and depressed. I see deep polarization, sides mostly set and convinced and weary of sniping at each other. I’m afraid of what 2020 will bring.

It feels like the end. It feels like the apocalypse is nigh—at least for the Methodist Church as we’ve known it. It may be that we are the Latter-Day Methodists.

This feeling gets reinforced by, well, looking at the news. Massive problems, rising global temperatures and sea levels, rising inequality, rising levels of animosity between left and right. I’m afraid of what 2020 will bring. We may be latter-day Americans, latter-day humans. 

The apocalypse may be nigh.

I’m blessed that in this reality God made me not an end-times preacher but a professor of theatre history. You’re like, "John, what’s theatre history?" So glad you asked. The short answer might be, well, it’s theatre but viewed through a historical lens. A lot of the time, though, it’s history viewed through a theatrical lens. Where are we in the human historical drama? The rising action? The Climax? The eleven o’clock showstopping number?

The gift of history is the gift of perspective. When I teach theatre history, I remind students that the terms we use to day for the past—renaissance, medieval, ancient—weren’t used by people in the times. People in the middle ages didn’t think of themselves as living in the middle ages. They thought of themselves as living in the present. Or, more likely, they thought of themselves as living in the end times. The apocalypse was nigh.

That’s a lesson of theatre history: there’s not just one drama. There are many. 

There have always been apocalypses. Ask the indigenous people of the Americas or Australia. (I point out to my students that Western movies from the fifties and sixties with cowboys versus Indians—those are post-apocalyptic stories, except somehow the victims of apocalypse, the survivors, get framed as the villains)

There are personal apocalypses. Last month, a friend of mine from graduate school lost her son, a boy I’d known for almost twenty years since she came to school with me. He was her only child. She was a single mother. He was in many ways her whole world.

It is the reality of mortal existence: some world is always ending.

The Bible is full of apocalypses great and small. The world floods. Hagar gets cast out Abraham’s house into the wilderness. Job loses all his children. Israel splits and goes into exile. Jonah gets swallowed by a big fish. Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt with their toddler. The rebuilt temple is burned.

Our biblical drama, the story of people of faith, isn’t the tale of people spared the end times; it’s the story of God accompanying us through those end times. God meets Hagar in the desert. God walks with the believers in the firey furnace. God guides Israel in exile. God gives the fish Jonah indigestion.

My father loves the song "Once to Every Man and Nation," especially the last verse:

Though the cause of evil flourish

Yet the good alone is strong

Though her portion be the scaffold

And upon the throne be wrong

Yet that scaffold sways the future

And behind the dim unknown

Standeth God within the shadow

Keeping watch upon God’s own

God is in the shadow. This, too, is reflected in scripture. “If I go up to heaven, you are there,” the Psalmist sings, “If I go to sheol—to the grave—you are there. . . In God there is no darkness at all, the night and the day are both alike.”

We echo that divine persistence in that line we’re apt to leave out of the Apostles’ Creed about how Christ "descended into hell." Christ searches out and finds us and meets us in the darkest, deepest midnights of the soul, the worst parts of our dramas.

I love how Methodists talk about God as being on the move. Consider our signature grace: prevenient grace—the grace that goes before us. We usually talk about prevenient grace in the past tense, how God was active and working with us before we knew God. But what if that grace persists? What if God is still going before us? God is already there in the dark of doubt today, God is already there in the dim unknown of 2020.

I have come to think that God is less impressed by the end of all things than I am. 

I cry out to God from the dark abyss, "Lord, the nation may be collapsing." And the Comforter comes to me in that dark place and says, “Yeah, maybe. But I'll be here no matter what."

I cry out to God, "Lord, my church may be ending! My church is splitting!" And God the Holy Spirit comes in that darkness, enfolds me in love, and whispers gently, “Who’s church is that, again?”

Age to age, the Triune God was living and powerful before the United Methodist Church existed. Age to age, the Triune God will be living and powerful long after there is no longer a thing we recognize as the United Methodist Church.

There is comfort in this but also challenge. So many of the verses in scripture about God finding us in sheol, in the grave, in the darkest places of our lives, the bellies of the fish that swallowed us—so many of these aren’t comfort stories but exasperation stories. How shall I escape you? No matter where I go, there you already are. God is the Hound of Heaven, pursuing us, refusing us the pleasure of an apocalyptic pout.

Lord Jesus spoils the romance of ecclesiastical grief, calls us out of the grave, bids us pick up our mats and walk.

That’s God’s harshest lesson about apocalypse: Our job in the apocalypse is the same as our job anywhere. At the end of all things, the questions Lord Jesus asks of us are precisely the same as the questions he puts to us every day: are you feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, meeting those in prison, welcoming the stranger, loving your enemy? The Latter-Day Methodist ought to be identical to the Everyday Methodist.

Thus we experience the comfort and the challenge of Christ, the prevenient grace that refuses to leave us all alone and refuses to just leave us alone.

And, lest we forget, apocalypse means revelation—Behold, I am doing a new thing. Can you not perceive it? What is God revealing to us in this crisis? What ought we be revealing about God to the world? To our siblings in Christ? How ought we be the apocalyptic Methodists about whom the world says, "See how they love one another!"

God of the Omega as well as the Alpha, God beyond our dramas, God with us through the apocalypse, guide us. Make us reminders to each other, reminders to all in need, that your grace and love never leave us alone.

May Your joyful music lift us sunward in the triumph song of life.

Love and Splits and Methodists

Amidst all my current thinking about friends and enemies, agonism and antagonism, impeachment and fundamental splits, I'm trying to create an opening meditation for a meeting tomorrow. Some Louisiana Methodists who lean to the center and left are gathering tomorrow for a time of updates, learning, connection, and encouragement. We're between crises: the sorrow of the 2019 Conference, the uncertain future of the 2020 Conference.

I present this in a little over 12 hours. I have, right now, only a few inklings about what I'll do or talk about. I'm tired. It's been a long day of meetings, three classes in a row, more meetings. I need to work in a work out. Also I need to eat. It doesn't help that, when I think about the United Methodist Church, the energy and hope drains out of me.

Two plans for the denomination appear to be in competition for General Conference 2020, at least from USAmerican Methodist perspectives: the "Next Generation UMC" plan and the Indianapolis Plan.

The Indianapolis Plan is, essentially, a plan for separation, creating two (possibly more) different Methodist denominations: Traditionalist and Centrist. The Wesley Covenant Association stands poised to institute its vision of the Traditionalist Methodist Church. It has already drafted a "Doctrines and Disciplines" document, outlining a new "leaner" and more "nimble" expression of Methodism, essentially weakening connectional structures in favor of congregational ones. LGBTQ people are not mentioned at all; the document simply affirms that monogamous marriage between men and women is the only proper expression of human sexuality.

The Next Generation UMC Plan smooths pathways out of the denomination but defaults to staying a united church. It repeals the Traditional Plan passed at the 2019 Conference and removes all restrictive language regarding homosexuality from the Discipline.

I'm generally for staying together. But I suspect that, of the two plans, something like the Indianapolis Plan is more likely to get the votes necessary. I do wonder how delegates from the Central Conferences will perceive the two plans; their support is essential for anything to happen. The Next Generation Plan seems to contain more provisions for continued support of Central Conferences. The Indianapolis Plan, as I skim it, provides for General Conference funding of Central Conferences only through 2024.

I suspect, however, that the Traditionalist/Wesley Covenant Association's hard-line heterosexuality-only stance will move most Central Conferences to vote for Indianapolis, since that offers the more robust expression of straight/cis-only positions. Righteousness defined by sharp boundaries between Us and Them has historically proven more appealing to humans than messy coexistence amidst disagreement.

Then again, the Central Conferences may simply balk at any change, insisting on keeping the Traditional Plan version of the UMC. We'll get more messy (and legislatively murky) coexistence for a while--but not forever.

Nothing will prevent the exodus of churches wishing to join the new Wesley Covenant Association denomination, however that appears. They have made the decision to separate, arguing--not without basis--that the "quarrel" in the UMC year after year over homosexuality has made for a "caustic" atmosphere. They've been wanting to go. They just need the path to let them keep their properties and monies. "We will release one another to joyful obedience to Christ's call on our lives," reads the Indianapolis Plan.

In my tiredness, I must admit that there's part of me that wonders if separation isn't just better after all. Psychologist Harriet Learner quotes a sign a counselor friend of hers had prominently posted: "You've got to learn to leave the table when love is no longer being served." Or, more colloquially: if you love something, let it go.

I can't make you love me if you don't. 
I can't make your heart feel something it won't.  

I wish I could make hearts and minds more open, break what I see as bounds of fear that manifest as exclusion and discrimination.
I wish that openness for my own heart as well, for those times when it becomes hard for me to empathize with my sisters and brothers in Christ when I see their stances as harming the least, the lost, the left-behind.
I wish I could be patient enough for the turn of generations to do its slow work of adjusting us to new worlds.
I wish I could look at 2020 and see hope and noonday sun rather than trepidation and twilight.


Here in the dark,
In these final hours, 
I will lay down my heart, 
'Cause I feel the power. 

There is Power even in the dark, we're told. "If I ascend to Heaven, you are there," writes the Psalmist (Psalm 139), "if I go to sheol, you are there. . . . Even the darkness is not dark to You." 

The essence of the Wesleyan tradition is grace, especially Wesley's own innovation of prevenient grace, the "grace that goes before." Before we knew God, God knew us.

I find it helpful to imagine prevenient grace as something that persists beyond our conscious commitment. Even as we struggle with God's grace on the path to perfection, God's grace continues ahead of us, preceding us into the future, into the darkness.

May God precede me tomorrow morning, helping me to get out of the way of God's Spirit before a group of loving Methodists in crisis.

Agonistic dreams, Political nightmares

We seem to be in a Schmittian political nightmare at the moment. Republicans and Democrats disagree strongly about the impeachment inquiry of President Trump. Disagree strongly underplays things. We see the world entirely differently. We read the same summary of a transcript and come away either unimpressed (There's no "there" there) or unnerved ("I would like you to do us a favor, though..."). And both sides seem exasperated that the other side doesn't just see it, plain as day: just look at the transcript!

It's a twist on the Emperor's New Clothes, only with half the crowd insisting, What do you mean, he's naked? He's bundled up! Can't you see that? Deciding who in this analogy is who--well, that's another debate. (It seems obvious to me the GOP is insisting on seeing clothes that aren't there. Or half of them are insisting on that while the other half makes a straight-faced argument that Emperors are never naked, that they by definition don't require clothes to be clothed, or at least that Imperial nudity is never call-out-able. But the other side would likely allege that progressives will cry nudity no matter how elaborate the outfit.)

For Carl Schmitt, such disputes are irresolvable. None of the usual means humans rely on work. We can't just go to the tape and check the evidence. The debate concerns fundamentally opposed views of what the evidence says. We can't default to a shared sense of ethics. Both sides deeply doubt ability of the other side to engage in ethical deliberation. We're not even 100% in agreement that this process is legal or constitutional. (See David French on that here.)

We're divided, as Schmitt would say, into friend and enemy camps. There's no way out but direct conflict. For Schmitt's more recent, non-Nazi interlocutors like Chantal Mouffe, such conflict need not devolve into civil war. Mouffe distinguishes antagonism, naked animosity and no-holds-barred aggression between foes, from agonism, intense struggle within a shared understanding of the political parameters. In Mouffe's agonism, there's still friend/enemy struggles. You cannot, should not, attempt to avoid or mitigate conflicts. But agonistic participants recognize and honor the right of their enemies to disagree and struggle against them.

In agonism, I may (hopefully) win a political struggle, but I don't hold it existentially against you that you fought on the other side of the conflict. I do not, after winning, seek to disenfranchise, imprison, expel, or murder you. Neither do I, after losing, declare the entire system corrupt and go to war. I put work and trust into the powers of granted to the political minority, biding my time and adjusting my strategies so that one day I might regain the majority.

The weakness of Mouffe's argument (an argument I largely endorse), however, is the idealized ethos of struggle. She wants the uncompromising bite of Schmittian conflict without the lethal potentials.

So many political struggles today, however, feel existential in their stakes. We can't afford to lose. Or, instead: We can't afford to let them win. If you see the enemy's victory as the destruction of you and your way of life, then the agonistic approach is a sham. You can't just go along with the system if they win. Nor can you simply forgive and forget the enemy's stances even if you win. If the other side holds some version of "you aren't due full civic personhood," then there will be some lingering bad faith for a while that no single political victory will quite dispel.

The problem, though, is that existential stakes can too easily become a trick to make politics impossible. How dare you debate this or question me when doing so undermines my very being? There's also the fact that humans aren't always great assessors of existential threats, nor do we think clearly or behave at our best when we feel threatened.

The real sine qua non for agonism, it seems, is a mutual trust in your enemy (and in your allies) that they will take reasonable steps not to turn agonism into antagonism. That's a depressing thought, though, given the lack of trust in today's politics.