Two Memoirs

In the last several weeks I’ve had the chance to read two recently published memoirs. The first was Ted Kennedy’s True Compass. Though Robert Kennedy was a hero of mine in my high school years and though I’d grown up on stories that my mother told of her years employed by JFK and Joseph Kennedy Sr., my interest over the years in Ted Kennedy had remained fairly minimal. I’d campaigned for him when he was running for president, campaigning door to door in New Hampshire and then putting up fliers and stuffing brochures other places, but Ted’s speeches and political actions have never really grabbed me by the heart. When his memoir was due to come out, though, I wanted to read it, if only to see what new things it might say about RFK. I’m very glad that I did. True Compass presented me with a whole new side of Ted Kennedy. It’s honest, it’s insightful, and it’s moving. We meet the Teddy who grew up enjoying being in his brothers’ shadows, the Teddy who continually struggled with mistakes he was making, the Ted who loved the water and who found solace during times of grief in a combination of sailing and faith, the Ted Kennedy who had little respect for Jimmy Carter but was able to see some positive things about many of those who opposed his political bills and positions, and the father (and later grandfather) who sought to emulate the role his own father played in the family with his own children, as well as his many nieces and nephews. I was pleasantly surprised by how willing he was to share his humanity through all the ups and downs of his life in such a forthright manner.

The other memoir I read was Cornel West’s Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. Cornel is, I think, the brightest, best read person I’ve ever had a chance to meet. His range of knowledge and his ability to make connections across all kinds of traditional disciplines never ceases to amaze me. He can, for example, easily connect themes in Anton Chekhov, John Coltrane, and Plato in ways I could never begin to imagine but that make sense once I’ve heard them. In recent years, though, I’ve found myself frustrated while listening to West. Too often, rather than addressing whatever topic he’s supposed to be discussing, he’s gone off on rambles (or he’d prefer to say ‘riffs’) that have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand and seem to serve up the same set “Westian” phrases that I’ve heard earlier. It’s been disappointing. This memoir, however, seems to largely step beyond that. After an introductory chapter that explains how West answers the question “…what does it mean to be a bluesman in the life of the mind? Like my fellow musicians, I’ve got to forge a unique style and voice that expresses my own quest for truth and love. That means following the quest wherever it leads and bearing whatever cost is required. I must break through isolated academic frameworks while, at the same time, I must build on the best of academic knowledge. I must fuel the fire of my soul so my intellectual blues can set others on fire. And most importantly, I must be a free spirit. I must unapologetically reveal my broken life as a thing of beauty.” (page 5), the chapters move chronologically through West’s life with its ups and down—academic and otherwise. He discusses how those he encounters—in classrooms, dance halls, political gatherings of all kinds, and most especially in books—influence him and change the way he thinks. And he talks – though I don’t find such speeches or classes with West as powerful as those he planned out--about how he learned in the early 80s to “speak without notes in an academic context. I’ve been freestyling ever since.” ( page 103). He seems to take on his repeatedly failed love life with honesty (though I think he takes a bit too much enjoyment pointing out how his various divorces and child support payments have strapped him financially). He explains why he’s chosen to dress in the way that he has (something I’ve always respected about him). He talks about his time at Union Seminary and his strong relationship with Jim Washington, though he barely mentions Jim Cone. (The difference in West’s relationship with these two was very apparent to Union students but it’s interesting to hear him describe that time and why some of his relationships mattered so much.) At times, West trots out accomplishments—as when he’s answering then Harvard President Larry Summers—but overall the book moves beyond what some perceive (I think incorrectly) as Cornel’s large ego to an interesting personal assessment of how Cornel West became the intellectual giant that he is.

Theology Today?

I’ve just finished the last class in Union Theological Seminary’s Systematic Theology course Christianity and the U.S. Crisis and I’m still pondering what to make of it.  The course had listed its goals as describing the “various edges and contours of the deepening U.S. crisis and to chart various Christian responses to it.”  Among the topics it promised to discuss were what the progressive Christian tradition offered the current crisis; theological thinking about markets, globalization and social justice; core Christian beliefs available to address a crisis with overlapping economic, ecological, social, and moral layers; and the role that new media and new technologies play in our sense of a common good as well as how to understand these technologies theologically. 

I was drawn to the course by many things—a chance to reengage with faculty at Union, especially Cornel West—but the thing that most interested me was the last of these topics.  And, now that the course has ended, it seems to me that it’s the one topic that was barely addressed, except perhaps in the reading of his book Consumed that guest lecturer Benjamin Barber assigned.  Even there, Barber (who is a political theorist by background) doesn’t address the technologies theologically.  In that way, therefore, I was disappointed by the course.

 I was also disappointed by Cornel West.  West is one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever had a chance to study with.  I’ve loved him in the past for his creativity, his engagement with new ideas and new media, but he’s becoming more and more about catchy phrases and showing off his rhetoric than about presenting the cogent ideas I used to appreciate.  These days, when he decides to use a line that he’s used a lot in the past (which he does often), even he speeds up and says it more quickly, making it very obvious that he’s on a “prerecorded” part of his speech.  In the last several of his presentations, I kept thinking how West has moved in some way from the role of the Socratic prophet to the wordy Sophist.  Even his most recent book, Hope on a Tightrope, seems to have made that switch.  So while I’ll always be grateful for the careful thinking and deep insights that West has had in the past, I grieve the encounters with him in this course.

On the other hand, there were several positives in the course.  First was the chance to do the course in the technological way they’d put it together—to be present in the audience when possible and to participate by video when it wasn’t possible.  Because much of its “live” time offering overlapped with courses I was scheduled to teach, I wouldn’t have been able to do the course if “live” participation had been required.   I’m grateful to Union for making this available in this way and hope they’ll offer similar courses in future semesters. 

Then there was Gary Dorrien.   He arrived at Union after I’d left so I’d never had a chance to hear him before this course. I was interested in how he’d interact with West, though, because of a piece on West that he’d written for a recent issue of Cross Currents. Dorrien’s organized, great at synthesizing material and bringing new insight to it, and strong at going to the heart of issues raised by others.  His presentation style is a bit tame, though next to Cornel’s just about anyone’s would be.  I hadn’t read any of his writing before this course, but plan to make my way through most of it this summer. (His newest book, Social Ethics in the Making, with a list price of $120, isn’t available yet through interlibrary loan and is well above my budget so I’ll have to wait on that.) I’m not sure yet with how much of his thinking I agree, but working through his writing will clearly make me rethink and sharpen all my understanding of liberal theology, neoconservatism, and other modern theologies. 

It was Dorrien who, toward the end of the last class, during a question and answer period, raised a question that, in slightly different words, had been on my mind a lot during the course.  Dorrien pointed out that both his talks and West’s had relied heavily on material other than theology, that while the course had looked at theologians  (Calvin, Rauschenbusch, Niebuhr, and liberation theologians)  that had been created in response to earlier crises, there wasn’t much critique theologically of new ways to respond to today’s crisis.  Dorrien asked whether that was because of our living in a pluralistic world, because the crisis is different, or because we don’t believe the theologies around enough to focus out solutions on them. It was a great question, one I found myself wondering about throughout the course, one that I wished the three professors had spent more time engaging with and perhaps even answering.

 

 

 

The U.S. Crisis and Christianity

Since early mid-February I’ve been doing the systematic theology course “Christianity and the Current U.S. Crisis” through video podcasts provided by Union Theological Seminary.  The three professors in the course are Serene Jones (the president of Union who is by training a feminist theologian concentrating in gender studies and Reformed theology), Gary Dorrien (a social ethicist and theologian, who also has an incredible background in economics and politics), and Cornel West (who I’m not sure how to describe—philosopher? civil rights activist? black theologian? bit player in the Matrix movies?). Guest speakers such as political theorist Benjamin Barber would also be speaking. I’d taken Black Theology and Marxist Thought, a course that West co-taught with Jim Cone back in the 80s, and learned a lot from him.  Then two years ago I heard West speak again at a special lecture at Union and enjoyed it.  So when Union alerted alumni about the course it seemed like a natural thing to do.

The first several weeks were spent reading Walter Rauschenbusch and Reinhold Niebuhr and studying the social gospel and its role in Reformed theology. The class time was used so that one professor took the lead, the others followed up with comments or questions, and then other people asked follow-up questions. Jones seemed to spend most of her time playing hostess, while West acted like West—spending a lot of time greeting people in the audience he hadn’t seen in years who had come into town for one evening, showing the breadth of his knowledge (which I think is perhaps the most extensive of anyone I’ve ever known) while jumping all over the place on the broad topic at hand, and every once in a while throwing in a hugely insightful zinger about, for example, what Obama’s current economic advisors say about his politics and his theology.  Gary Dorrien doesn’t have any of West’s flamboyant style or language patterns but he gave very organized, cogent presentations each week.  They were interesting and informative but seemed very academic.  I began to feel like there was some missing bridge between the kind of material covered in my Union classes (which were very heady and academic) and the types of things covered in my Drew classes (which were very practical and grounded but sometimes left me feeling like the theoretical background for the material should have been examined in some detail.)  It was frustrating.

But then last week Dorrien started the class off on the day’s topic: progressive responses to the American economy.  He did a nice romp through the history of the economic responses of the two major US political parties, talked about the waves of globalization and how they differed, and then turned his attention to a progressive alternative economic model—economic democracy.  He was great, weaving together the theoretical and the practical.  Here’s a clip covering part of what he said in that class:

 

Go Cornel!

Last night's appearance of Cornel West on the Colbert Report had me roaring with laughter. Cornel looks much older then when I saw him a year or two ago, but he's still got his quick wit and verbal ability to run circles around someone while at the same time making an important point.