After an explosion of interest in the Catholic blogosphere surrounding the election controversy and subsequent protests in Iran, there has been no peep whatsoever regarding the obvious coup that has taken place in Honduras in which School of the Americas graduates removed president Manuel Zelaya from power.
This silence likely mirrors the relative silence in the u.s. corporate media in general. Latin America simply has not mattered very much to most North Americans, including North American Catholics.
What it certainly shows, though, is that the predominantly right wing Catholic blogosphere, ostensibly interested in independent reporting and commentary on matters from a faith perspective, is simply no different from the rest of america. Interest in “freedom” and “democracy” only goes so far. Cries for democracy are reported and affirmed only when the results would correspond to the Catholic right’s political positions. When the democratically elected leader is a somewhat left-leaning figure, democracy matters little.
For those who are interested in keeping up on the events in Honduras, I recommend the following sites:
Upside Down World
Democracy Now!
The Narcosphere
The New York Times ran a decent story about the current investigation(s) into sisters in the u.s.. Hooray for Sister Sandra Schneiders for encouraging non-cooperation.
[Originally posted at Rock and Theology]
I was happy to see Tom Beaudoin grab the bull by the horns with his post on “free” theology and music and the need for theologians to imagine new economies of knowledge production and dissemination. This is an area I’ve been thinking about, especially since I have been trying to bring together punk rock ethics and theology or, in another key, anarchist cultural production and theological production. It’s certainly one more area in which it is clear that rock music and theology can be brought together in creative ways, not only for theologizing on rock music but by letting the knowledge (and the dreaming) generated in our music activity inform our work as theologians—how we think, how we produce, and how we share.
It has been said that one of the great powers of music is its ability to prefigure the “not yet existent.” This can be true of the music itself, but it can also be true in the way music is made and shared. Movements within rock music—and specifically punk rock music and culture—can be a helpful source in reflecting on imagining other theo-economic possibilities because we can identify specific, successful examples of the creation of whole other economies within the notoriously capitalistic rock world. The examples are countless. Some have become more visible than others (I’m thinking here of the enduring witness of Fugazi and Dischord Records as well as the more high-profile [and thus, more ambivalent] example of Radiohead’s In Rainbows album). Other punk rock economies remain more solidly under the radar, intentionally isolated from any channels of capitalist exchange. What might it mean to apply punk rock’s anti-/non-capitalist (to the extent possible) mode of production to what we do as ((punk?) rock) theologians?
read more…
Here is a series of video interviews with theologians at the recent Transforming Theology conference discussing their favorite films, including Roger Haight, Tom Reynolds, and Douglas Meeks. The best part is hearing Dwight Hopkins talk about his love of Wayne’s World.
Here are a couple quotes that I’ll incorporate into a paper I wrote recently on DIY punk and ecclesiology from a really good article on anarchism and art:
This is perhaps art’s greatest power, even when distorted by the present-day social order: the ability to envision the “not yet existent.”
It’s not that everyone needs to make art, nor should artists offer an aesthetic of revolt or a revolting aesthetic—that is, mere negation or else nihilism. That’s not what makes art revolutionary. It’s that everyone needs to routinely experience critical-utopian art as commons, commons as a critical-utopian art.
I imagine that attention to anarchist aethetics such as this could push the ideas in that paper from the realm of more playful theological reflection to a more radical ecclesiological appropriation of the connection between “the commons” and “critical-utopian” culture-making.
So occasionally I will click on a Colbert Report video and if it’s from the Comedy Central site, I will get a message saying something like, “Sorry, you live in Canada and this video is only available in the United States.” If I really feel like watching the clip, I have to click over to another site.
Today that happened, but I just noticed that Comedy Central WAS willing to show me the ADVERTISEMENT that preceded the clip. Once the ad was over, the “Sorry, you live in Canada” message popped up. They’re willing to show Canadians the ad, but not the clip. Nice.
jesus won’t you find your savior?
jesus won’t you find the saw?
jesus won’t you find a pine box gunning
and realign relationships of power?
mary won’t you find a tailor?
mary won’t you find the salt?
mary won’t you find a tailor who’s cunning
to make yourself a fine buryin’ shawl?
disciples won’t you find a baker?
disciples won’t you find some bread?
disciples won’t you find a bar room running?
your feasting’s gon’ be raising up the dead!
disciples won’t you find your savior?
disciples won’t you find the saw?
disciples won’t you find a pine box gunning
and realign relationships of power?
Today I submitted my final coursework paper, “Destructive Obedience: U.S. Military Training and Culture as a Parody of Christian Discipleship,” and I meet with my committee tomorrow to close out the first stage of the doctorate. Then on to comps. Good stuff.
A CatholicAnarchy.org reader recently emailed and asked if I could make a CA “fan page” on Facebook. Hadn’t considered it before, as I do have the blog listed on some Facebook blog networking application. Thought about it and saw no reason not to make a fan page if there was some interest in such a thing, so I made one. If you’re on Facebook and are also interested in publicly acknowledging your CatholicAnarchy.org fandom, look us up. Or better yet, here is the link (I think).
