Reflections and connections I didn't intend to make
When I created this blog, it was my intent to leave such weighty things as solving the problems of the Anglican Communion to other, wiser, heads. I was not going to get 'theological.' Unfortunately, 'getting theological' is what I do, both by my nature and by my employment, and so my advance apologies to those friends (known and unknown, seen and unseen) who will find this tedious.
I've just finished reading Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran. A good friend recommended it shortly after its publication in 2004, and it took me almost a year to obtain it, and another to finish it. My slow reading is not because it is a dull or difficult book. On the contrary, it is a memoir of a courageous woman academic, her passion for literature and her dedication to her students, under conditions which most of us would find intolerable.
My slow reading, turning away from the book and turning back, was because I was mentally drawing too many parallels between the experience of the women who met secretly to read and discuss Western literature during the reign of Ayatollah Khomeini, and the difficulty of studying, teaching, and using Anglican theology in the midst of the ruptures the Communion is currently experiencing.
It certainly deserves more analysis than I can give at the moment, but it raises the question for me of whether what these women were finding in fiction is exactly what we should be finding in theology. As she teaches her students, both in the University of Tehran, and in the private class in her home, Nafisi teaches what a truly great novel does. It 'heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas of good and evil' (p.133). A novel is 'moral' when it 'shakes us out of our stupor and makes us confront the absolutes we believe in' (p. 129).
Should not theology do exactly these things? Has not the breadth of Anglican theology done exactly these things for more than four centuries?
But also, Nafisi notes that as the Islamic Republic ascends in power and control, it became a situation in which the governing powers no longer ruled with the spirit of the Prophet Mohammed--they believed that they were indeed the Prophet's direct voice on earth.
The parallels to the current state of Anglicanism may be tenuous, but there do seem to be those who believe their dictates cannot be debated, as they wish to return the 'true church' to the divine rule of God, which is not open to interpretation or discussion--let alone contextualisation.
Western literature--Nabokov, Fitzgerald, Austen, James--are obvious transplants to Iran. But Anglicanism--Jewel, Hooker, Butler, Maurice--are equally transplants to every corner of the world where Anglican Christianity is practiced.
Perhaps those of us who wish to be 'continuing Anglicans'--continuing Anglican Christianity's grand experiment and adventure of exploration, contextualisation, and provisionality--should think of ourselves as those who are 'Reading Temple in Pittsburgh', or 'Reading Maurice in Lagos'. Perhaps we need to read these things for ourselves, rather than allowing vocal 'leaders' who often seem not to know these authors well, tell us what the pillars of the tradition did and did not say (as they are so ready and happy to do). Perhaps we need to meet in small groups, treating these great works of our tradition as precious lenses for finding meaning in our individual and corporate spiritual lives.
It may not bring us back together as a Communion, but perhaps it could provide oases of personal and corporate of sanity in a church seemingly bent on madness.
I've just finished reading Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran. A good friend recommended it shortly after its publication in 2004, and it took me almost a year to obtain it, and another to finish it. My slow reading is not because it is a dull or difficult book. On the contrary, it is a memoir of a courageous woman academic, her passion for literature and her dedication to her students, under conditions which most of us would find intolerable.
My slow reading, turning away from the book and turning back, was because I was mentally drawing too many parallels between the experience of the women who met secretly to read and discuss Western literature during the reign of Ayatollah Khomeini, and the difficulty of studying, teaching, and using Anglican theology in the midst of the ruptures the Communion is currently experiencing.
It certainly deserves more analysis than I can give at the moment, but it raises the question for me of whether what these women were finding in fiction is exactly what we should be finding in theology. As she teaches her students, both in the University of Tehran, and in the private class in her home, Nafisi teaches what a truly great novel does. It 'heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas of good and evil' (p.133). A novel is 'moral' when it 'shakes us out of our stupor and makes us confront the absolutes we believe in' (p. 129).
Should not theology do exactly these things? Has not the breadth of Anglican theology done exactly these things for more than four centuries?
But also, Nafisi notes that as the Islamic Republic ascends in power and control, it became a situation in which the governing powers no longer ruled with the spirit of the Prophet Mohammed--they believed that they were indeed the Prophet's direct voice on earth.
The parallels to the current state of Anglicanism may be tenuous, but there do seem to be those who believe their dictates cannot be debated, as they wish to return the 'true church' to the divine rule of God, which is not open to interpretation or discussion--let alone contextualisation.
Western literature--Nabokov, Fitzgerald, Austen, James--are obvious transplants to Iran. But Anglicanism--Jewel, Hooker, Butler, Maurice--are equally transplants to every corner of the world where Anglican Christianity is practiced.
Perhaps those of us who wish to be 'continuing Anglicans'--continuing Anglican Christianity's grand experiment and adventure of exploration, contextualisation, and provisionality--should think of ourselves as those who are 'Reading Temple in Pittsburgh', or 'Reading Maurice in Lagos'. Perhaps we need to read these things for ourselves, rather than allowing vocal 'leaders' who often seem not to know these authors well, tell us what the pillars of the tradition did and did not say (as they are so ready and happy to do). Perhaps we need to meet in small groups, treating these great works of our tradition as precious lenses for finding meaning in our individual and corporate spiritual lives.
It may not bring us back together as a Communion, but perhaps it could provide oases of personal and corporate of sanity in a church seemingly bent on madness.
posted by Wendy Dackson at 2:18 PM
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